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Off Topic => General Discussion => Topic started by: LunarOrbit on January 03, 2017, 02:03:43 AM

Title: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 03, 2017, 02:03:43 AM
I'm starting a new thread to chronicle the corruption and bad decisions made by Trump and the Republican controlled Congress.

For starters: remember when Trump (and the Republican party) ran on the promise to "drain the swamp"? Remember when I expressed concern about Trump's behaviour and was told that "he didn't really mean the things he was saying", and even if he did there are "checks and balances" in place to prevent it? Well, ha ha, funny story...

With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office - NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/with-no-warning-house-republicans-vote-to-hobble-independent-ethics-office.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0)

Quote
"Republicans claim they want to 'drain the swamp,' but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House G.O.P. has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions. Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress."

- Nancy Pelosi

Trump's behaviour is not an act, and he has shown that those "checks and balances" are working for him, not for the American public.

An independent ethics body has been gutted by Republicans, without debate or warning. This is not something you would do if your goal was to "drain the swamp", it's something you would do if you wanted to do unethical things without consequences.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 03, 2017, 07:57:29 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/impeaching-trump_us_5869b806e4b0eb586489f3a4

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 03, 2017, 11:08:33 AM
How much support from Republicans would impeachment need?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 03, 2017, 12:00:24 PM
Enough for a majority in the House for impeachment and a supermajority in the Senate for conviction and removal from office.  So yeah, it's not going to happen, because the Republicans turn out to be perfectly content to roll over, regardless of the obvious corruption, treason, and general unfitness for office.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 03, 2017, 12:05:02 PM
That's what I was afraid of.

Maybe they will support impeachment if it means it will improve their own chances of re-election. Otherwise they might just get tossed out in two years.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 04, 2017, 12:21:54 PM
And there's considerable debate in certain circles about whether Pence would be better or worse.  I lean toward "marginally better," in that he doesn't seem as corrupt, he isn't in bed with the Russians and (to my knowledge) neo-Nazis, and he seems far less likely to start a nuclear war.  On the other hand, he is also competent, which means he has a better chance of getting dangerous legislation passed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 04, 2017, 03:15:46 PM
The oddest thing I see about how Trump will conduct his presidency is that he appears to want to communicate directly by Tweet. Not just to the American people, but to foreign leaders. Not just by Tweets sat on and well-considered by his staff, but by Tweets fired off at random any time day or night. This is going to be a most, ahem, unusual style of presidential communication.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on January 04, 2017, 08:01:09 PM
I'm starting a new thread to chronicle the corruption and bad decisions made by Trump and the Republican controlled Congress.
I don't suppose if Trump makes a good decision it will be included in one of your posts?  :)  I didn't vote for this clown, but it is possible something good might slip by.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 04, 2017, 08:19:32 PM
If he does his job with the best interests of ALL Americans in mind then this thread will be empty. I'm not going to praise him for doing what he's supposed to do.

But sure, if he does actually do something that I feel is exceptionally good I will say so.

If he actually does a good job I will tweet an apology to him for doubting him. I'm sure he needs the ego boost.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 09, 2017, 09:46:48 AM
I'll give him credit for at least giving lip service to the idea that maybe the GOP should hold off on eviscerating the ethics committee. But I'll have to take away most of them because he seemed to indicate he wasn't against the idea itself, just the timing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 09, 2017, 10:08:27 AM
Yeah, I think he just came out against it because people noticed the vote and were criticizing it. Trump basically threw the Republican party under the bus so that he wouldn't be blamed for their bone headed move.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 09, 2017, 01:25:21 PM
I don't even give him credit for knowing the ethics committee existed before people started getting mad at the GOP for trying to sneak it away.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 09, 2017, 05:42:32 PM
This is well worth a read:
https://thinkprogress.org/when-everything-is-a-lie-power-is-the-only-truth-1e641751d150#.3y6weaajv

Its interesting to see that Trump has also used Cambridge Analytica, the same company employed by the leave campaign in the recent Brexit vote. There are remarkable similarities in the way both campaigns were conducted and, unfortunately, in the devastating impacts that i expect to see from the outcome of both.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-crunchers-who-say-they-helped-donald-trump-to-win/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 10, 2017, 09:51:06 AM
Trump, while rattling the nuclear sabres, has fired the heads of the National Nuclear Security Administration http://gizmodo.com/trump-just-dismissed-the-people-in-charge-of-maintainin-1790908093 . Not unexpected since they're political appointees. What is strange is that he did it with no proposed replacements. I don't know if that's a plan, or if he's still overwhelmed with the realization that he has to actually hire people to run programs, and get Congress to approve them.

When you're busy getting a Secretary of Education who never sent her children to public school, I suppose a little thing like managing the nuke program can slip your mind.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 10, 2017, 11:31:35 AM
Never sent her kids to public school hell, is opposed to the idea of public school.  She's part of the shell game that is charter schooling and was associated with a think tank that supported bringing back child labour.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 10, 2017, 11:59:52 AM
I should have titled this thread "Republican hypocrisy"

Quote
"It's curious and a little bit humorous that Democrats would talk about anything bipartisan ... given how they have vowed to obstruct everything we do." - Kellyanne Conway

Source: Conway dismisses need for independent hack probe, says Trump may reconsider sanctions on Russia (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/09/conway-trump-russia-probe-congress-hacking-obama/96338952/)

That's after 8 years of Republicans obstructing everything President Obama did, even going so far as to force a government shutdown. They didn't mind using obstructionism as a tactic when there was a democrat in the White House, but now it's wrong?

I also love how for decades Republicans were the ones stockpiling guns just in case the Russians invaded, or going on commie witch hunts, but now all of a sudden they act like Russia is their best friend and there's no need to investigate the hackings.

And the biggest hypocrite of them all? Mitch McConnell. He sent a letter to Dem. Senator Chuck Schumer in 2009 setting the standards for President Obama's cabinet nominees. It included FBI background checks, letters from the Office of Government Ethics, and financial disclosure statements. Now, the Republican nominees are failing to meet those same standards and McConnell wants to ignore them. Sen. Schumer sent the letter back to him as a reminder.

https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/818544880658108416
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 10, 2017, 03:55:17 PM
Yes, I never thought I'd live to see the day when the GOP was the party who thought the Russians were our official cuddle-buddies, and only nasty hawk-types could distrust their intentions.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 10, 2017, 08:47:29 PM
There's a report going around tonight that the Russians have been dealing with Trump for about five years, grooming him for a Presidential run, while also gathering information that they can use to blackmail him. I'm not going to share it because it hasn't been confirmed (and other reasons), but if it's true then Trump is headed for impeachment and a treason trial.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 11, 2017, 05:46:17 PM
This just gets more and more ridiculous. Trump will appoint Robert Kennedy Jr., noted antivaxxer kook to head a committee on "vaccine safety."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luke Pemberton on January 11, 2017, 06:52:33 PM
This just gets more and more ridiculous. Trump will appoint Robert Kennedy Jr., noted antivaxxer kook to head a committee on "vaccine safety."

The anti-expert establishment is pervading Western politics. In the UK Michael Gove headed his tenure as SoS for Education by denouncing experts out of hand. He is even on record as saying 'he was tired of listening to experts.'

What is the possibility of Trump being impeached?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 11, 2017, 09:59:14 PM
Depends on how reliable the Russian blackmail situation turns out to actually be.  (Apparently, people on 4chan are claiming responsibility, but yeah.)  The fact is, he needs a majority in the House to be impeached and a supermajority in the Senate to be removed from office, and I don't think the odds of that are great right now.  No matter how blatant the evidence of treason is.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 12, 2017, 04:10:16 PM
Yes, I never thought I'd live to see the day when the GOP was the party who thought the Russians were our official cuddle-buddies, and only nasty hawk-types could distrust their intentions.

I have to say that, as unpleasant a man as Putin is, the US needs either Russia or China as a strategic ally, and given China's growing strength, Russia seems the more sensible choice.

Presumably the new Secretary of State will see the benefit in continuing to build a strategic network in Asia to stop China from getting too aggressive.

I don't remember where I read it, but I've heard the expression that nations have interests not alliances. Which is to say that sometimes it's in your strategic interest to have an ally whose internal politics aren't pleasant. A little over a century ago the two great beacons of republican and monarchical democracy, France and Britain, formed an alliance with the most repressive major state in Europe - Czarist Russia - because it was in the strategic interest of all three to contain Germany. Same again in World War Two with the USSR.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luke Pemberton on January 14, 2017, 08:59:58 AM
While I cannot find the sources right now, there have been some interesting analyses that pertain to war between Russia and China, which then draws in NATO on Russia's side. The analyses is largely based on the need for a strong Russian-US alliance to counter Chinese aggression in the South China Sea.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 16, 2017, 09:47:47 AM
While I understand that a country that wishes to be part of the world, let alone have a leading role, must deal with the fact that few other countries are led by angels, the problem that I have with Trump versus Putin is this: Trump is an easily-manipulated narcissist, and Putin so far seems to be able to pull his strings without Trump knowing. It's one thing to have a leader who views the relationship with Putin as a useful geopolitical tool. It's another thing when the leader of the Western alliance seems to think that Putin is actually a friend of his, with the rights and claims on him a friend has, while he views the NATO alliance as basically a business arrangement that could be broken as easily as he stiffs contractors.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: alvarez on January 19, 2017, 07:58:22 PM
It's been a while since I've stopped by the Order of the Swastika, so I thought I'd see how everyone is doing.  Looks like not much has changed.

Must be a sad day for the people here.  For the Americans who for years had no problem with, or actively supported, assassination, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and the war on journalism, as long as you got health care - looks like you won't be getting health care anymore.  The families of your victims must be crying their eyes out at the thought that the people who have no problem killing then won't get their subsidised health care.  Is there no justice in the world?

For the obedient colonists in Canada and Europe, who look the other way at the terroristic activities of certain other presidential candidates, because she wasn't bombing you - we'll discover if Canada and Europe stay off limits to Americans "fighting for their freedom".  If so, we'll also discover if your attitudes towards assassination change when the victims are white instead of brown.

And don't forget, the person bringing you this message must be a Trump supporter, because according to Retard Logic, Trump supporters are the only people who wouldn't want to queue up to suck your glorious neo-Nazi ****s.

Congratulations, justice will soon be served to a group of truly evil people.  The problem is, your punishment will be inflicted on everyone else, too.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on January 19, 2017, 11:41:17 PM
It's been a while since I've stopped by the Order of the Swastika, so I thought I'd see how everyone is doing.  Looks like not much has changed.

Must be a sad day for the people here.  For the Americans who for years had no problem with, or actively supported, assassination, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and the war on journalism, as long as you got health care - looks like you won't be getting health care anymore.  The families of your victims must be crying their eyes out at the thought that the people who have no problem killing then won't get their subsidised health care.  Is there no justice in the world?

For the obedient colonists in Canada and Europe, who look the other way at the terroristic activities of certain other presidential candidates, because she wasn't bombing you - we'll discover if Canada and Europe stay off limits to Americans "fighting for their freedom".  If so, we'll also discover if your attitudes towards assassination change when the victims are white instead of brown.

And don't forget, the person bringing you this message must be a Trump supporter, because according to Retard Logic, Trump supporters are the only people who wouldn't want to queue up to suck your glorious neo-Nazi ****s.

Congratulations, justice will soon be served to a group of truly evil people.  The problem is, your punishment will be inflicted on everyone else, too.

If I am parsing your post correctly, you think this forum's membership is entirely made up of Trump supporters, and that makes us all neo-Nazis?

OK, I'll bite. I am a supporter of environmental organisations (financial contributor to both Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd - some would argue that the latter makes ME a supporter of terrorism). I am a 20 year veteran of our armed forces and have served in combat zones in the Middle East. I am also a long time "Labour" (centre-left) candidate voter although my party vote has been going to the Green Party since the early 1990s.

I think the election of Trump to POTUS is greatest setback to the environmental movement this planet has ever seen. He will undo years of hard work and hard-won progress done by the environmental lobby world wide. Trump is a rampant misogynist, a racist, a pathological liar and an adherent to some of the world's most barmy conspiracy theories. He is a potential disaster for the Pale Blue dot... his election to office could well be the entry Earth's entry point to "The Great Filter".

All this makes me a neo-Nazi? OK, got it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on January 19, 2017, 11:50:57 PM
It's been a while since I've stopped by the Order of the Swastika, so I thought I'd see how everyone is doing.  Looks like not much has changed.

Must be a sad day for the people here.  For the Americans who for years had no problem with, or actively supported, assassination, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and the war on journalism, as long as you got health care - looks like you won't be getting health care anymore.  The families of your victims must be crying their eyes out at the thought that the people who have no problem killing then won't get their subsidised health care.  Is there no justice in the world?

For the obedient colonists in Canada and Europe, who look the other way at the terroristic activities of certain other presidential candidates, because she wasn't bombing you - we'll discover if Canada and Europe stay off limits to Americans "fighting for their freedom".  If so, we'll also discover if your attitudes towards assassination change when the victims are white instead of brown.

And don't forget, the person bringing you this message must be a Trump supporter, because according to Retard Logic, Trump supporters are the only people who wouldn't want to queue up to suck your glorious neo-Nazi ****s.

Congratulations, justice will soon be served to a group of truly evil people.  The problem is, your punishment will be inflicted on everyone else, too.
What on Terra are you fuxxing talking about? Ranting is all well and good, but sometimes rants make people look less than rational (to be civil).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on January 20, 2017, 12:05:13 AM
It's been a while since I've stopped by the Order of the Swastika, so I thought I'd see how everyone is doing.  Looks like not much has changed.
Do you have any evidence of fascistic posting by the regulars here?

Quote
Must be a sad day for the people here.  For the Americans who for years had no problem with, or actively supported, assassination, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and the war on journalism, as long as you got health care - looks like you won't be getting health care anymore.  The families of your victims must be crying their eyes out at the thought that the people who have no problem killing then won't get their subsidised health care.  Is there no justice in the world?
WTF does this mean? Pure ranting as far as I can tell.

Quote
For the obedient colonists in Canada and Europe, who look the other way at the terroristic activities of certain other presidential candidates, because she wasn't bombing you - we'll discover if Canada and Europe stay off limits to Americans "fighting for their freedom".  If so, we'll also discover if your attitudes towards assassination change when the victims are white instead of brown.
Once again, WTF does this mean? Pure ranting as far as I can tell... again.

Quote
And don't forget, the person bringing you this message must be a Trump supporter, because according to Retard Logic, Trump supporters are the only people who wouldn't want to queue up to suck your glorious neo-Nazi ****s.
Read my last two replies.

Quote
Congratulations, justice will soon be served to a group of truly evil people.  The problem is, your punishment will be inflicted on everyone else, too.
1) I didn't vote for the Trumpster, 2) I suspect - but don't know - that most of the regulars here didn't either, and 3) stick your neo-Nazi accusations where the sun don't shine.

WTF are you on?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 20, 2017, 03:35:31 AM
It's been a while since I've stopped by the Order of the Swastika, so I thought I'd see how everyone is doing.  Looks like not much has changed.

Must be a sad day for the people here.  For the Americans who for years had no problem with, or actively supported, assassination, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and the war on journalism, as long as you got health care - looks like you won't be getting health care anymore.  The families of your victims must be crying their eyes out at the thought that the people who have no problem killing then won't get their subsidised health care.  Is there no justice in the world?

For the obedient colonists in Canada and Europe, who look the other way at the terroristic activities of certain other presidential candidates, because she wasn't bombing you - we'll discover if Canada and Europe stay off limits to Americans "fighting for their freedom".
  If so, we'll also discover if your attitudes towards assassination change when the victims are white instead of brown.

And don't forget, the person bringing you this message must be a Trump supporter, because according to Retard Logic, Trump supporters are the only people who wouldn't want to queue up to suck your glorious neo-Nazi ****s.

Congratulations, justice will soon be served to a group of truly evil people.  The problem is, your punishment will be inflicted on everyone else, too.

If I am parsing your post correctly, you think this forum's membership is entirely made up of Trump supporters, and that makes us all neo-Nazis?

[snip]

*sigh*

No, our friend Alvarez is an anti-Obama/Clinton person (see the bolded bit above).

I'm curious, Alvarez, where do you live?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 20, 2017, 03:52:57 AM
Blimey....it's been a while since this place had a proper, spittle-flecked, swivel-eyed ranger on here.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on January 20, 2017, 04:15:00 AM
I is confused. Who is the order of the swastika? Do we have many Buddhists or Hindus or Shinto here?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 20, 2017, 11:54:53 AM
Has anyone else been following the confirmation hearings?  Looks like my kids' education is about to be in the hands of a woman whose only qualification is that her family has donated some $200 million to the Republican Party over the years.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on January 20, 2017, 11:57:33 AM
Good wind in DC today. Makes the flag flutter just right.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 20, 2017, 12:28:56 PM
I would have thought Trump would have arranged for bright sun and 70 F temperatures. Staff has let him down. Sad.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luke Pemberton on January 21, 2017, 01:24:05 PM
Has anyone else been following the confirmation hearings?  Looks like my kids' education is about to be in the hands of a woman whose only qualification is that her family has donated some $200 million to the Republican Party over the years.

Pretty much like education in the UK was handed over to an Oxford Historian, whose entire education policy was based on his own grammar school experience while simultaneously tarring the entire teaching profession as the 'left wing' blob. Every kid in the country must follow a rigorous set of exams as standards must be raised (that was the mantra).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on January 21, 2017, 01:30:11 PM
24 hours have past. Not dead yet. Or groped.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Apollo 957 on January 26, 2017, 04:55:10 AM
Lifted from another forum today;

"The current situation where we have a country with the most advanced science and technology institutions and companies in the world dictated to by a mentally-impaired clown in the throes of a temper tantrum backed up by a load of religious idiots is just not a viable situation for anyone.

People who can land a vehicle on Mars and keep it running for 13 years do not deserve to be dictated to by a total f***ing idiot."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 26, 2017, 12:52:39 PM
Apparently, some dozen federal agencies have started unofficial Twitter accounts to get around the gag order.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on January 26, 2017, 01:46:37 PM
So he's advocating torture, suggested we should have plundered Iraq. It's like he's trying to be a cartoon villain.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 26, 2017, 01:53:01 PM
Apparently an unexpected number of top bureaucrats at the State Department have announced their resignation in advent of Tillerson's taking control.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 26, 2017, 02:20:05 PM
Sean Spicer, Press Secretary, has apparently sent out two tweets today:

"n8y25ah7"

and

"Aqenbpuu"

Some people think it's his Twitter password, and the one he reset it to after realizing he'd sent out the first one. Some think they're the nuclear codes. I think they're the most intelligible things to come out of his office for the week.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on January 26, 2017, 06:58:40 PM
I do wonder if Trump has a real chance of becoming the fifth.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luke Pemberton on January 26, 2017, 11:11:34 PM
People who can land a vehicle on Mars and keep it running for 13 years do not deserve to be dictated to by a total f***ing idiot."

... but sadly Trump does not have the mental capacity to understand that he's wearing the Emperor's new clothes.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 29, 2017, 09:48:14 AM
in the next segment, the Glorious Leader has reorganized the National Security Council. Steve Bannon, declared white nationalist, is in. Of course that means someone must be out, because you can't just stick another chair at the table.

Who's out? No one important. Just the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence.  Because why on earth would you need to have them involved?

I know there are at least a couple of people on this board, people I consider sane and of good character, who supported Trump. Can you say today, this is what I wanted when I voted for Trump? Because to my eyes, this has moved beyond madness.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on January 29, 2017, 10:44:17 AM
I wouldn't have voted for this clown for dog catcher, but I thought his campaign rhetoric was probably a bunch of radical crazy populist B.S.; but once elected and in office, I thought cooler, saner heads would prevail. It looks like I was very, very, very self deluded.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luke Pemberton on January 29, 2017, 12:12:06 PM
Not that it will make a difference, but it is rather entertaining watching the numbers tick over on this petition to Parliament.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/171928
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 29, 2017, 12:53:39 PM
I wouldn't have voted for this clown for dog catcher, but I thought his campaign rhetoric was probably a bunch of radical crazy populist B.S.; but once elected and in office, I thought cooler, saner heads would prevail. It looks like I was very, very, very self deluded.

Whose saner heads, though?  Since basically no one was willing to stand up to him during the campaign, who was left to do it once he was in power?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luke Pemberton on January 29, 2017, 01:12:59 PM
I wouldn't have voted for this clown for dog catcher, but I thought his campaign rhetoric was probably a bunch of radical crazy populist B.S.; but once elected and in office, I thought cooler, saner heads would prevail. It looks like I was very, very, very self deluded.

Whose saner heads, though?  Since basically no one was willing to stand up to him during the campaign, who was left to do it once he was in power?

Exactly, with the lurch to fundamentalist right-wing views in the higher echelons of the Republican camp, it was clear that many forces were at play, and this administration is the collective policy of disgruntled alt-right extremists that are grinding every axe they can find. They've had 8 years to concoct this agenda. There are no saner voices. This is the voice of collective policy, not the demagogue that sits in the Oval Office. The manner with which Trump assembled his cabinet shows a collection of secularist politicians and the self-interest of the rich, and this will shape US economic, foreign and domestic policy. LGBT rights will be next.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 29, 2017, 01:46:16 PM
I don't understand - courts issue a stay of the immigration ban, and DHS says, "Bleep you, we're keeping it in place anyway." What happened to rule of law?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on January 29, 2017, 02:34:07 PM
I was reading through your Imperious Leader's most recent Executive Order regarding travel restrictions on people from certain countries, and I thought some of it had a familiar feel to it. It took me a while to realise that the rhetoric and sentiment is very similar to that given by another right-wing Head of State on January 30, 1939. (http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/jewishquestion.html)
 
Currently, the world is in almost as deep a state of crisis as it was in the 1930s and 1940s when the political climate in the Weimar Republic gave us Hitler. The very existence of human civilization on this planet is under threat and, year upon year, things are getting worse. Globally, democratic political systems have become paralyzed in dealing with this threat almost as much they were in dealing with the Great Depression. Real wage levels are back to where they were 85 years ago while social peace is maintained by record setting levels of debt. Since 9/11, we have seen a continually growing campaign among democratic societies to reduce civil liberties, claiming that this is a necessary step in fighting terrorism. It is worth noting that as Trump attempts to shut the door on Muslims because they might be terrorists, his actions bear a disturbing similarity to what US Attorney General Francis Biddle said in 1942....“every precaution must be taken to prevent enemy agents slipping across our borders. We already have had experience with them and we know them to be well trained and clever.”. He was effectively closing the door on Jews because they might be Nazi spies.

The threat of a new totalitarianism remains and continues to grow.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: apollo16uvc on January 29, 2017, 05:58:08 PM
My google news feet requested the following news article some days ago:

"Trump's new head of science ministry believes Apollo was faked"

Or a title along those lines. I didn't even bother to click it. Surely its a stupid click bait title.
However, if the USA really has a science ministry which believes that... than the country truly has elected someone who can not separate facts from bullcrap.

Toodle-pip
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 29, 2017, 07:11:02 PM
Not sure if this is what you're referring to or not, but apparently one of Trump's advisors (Roger Stone) believes "the moon landing" (as in "the one moon landing") was filmed in New Jersey.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/19/top-trump-adviser-roger-stone-moon-landing-video-was-hoax-filmed-new-jersey/213921 (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/10/19/top-trump-adviser-roger-stone-moon-landing-video-was-hoax-filmed-new-jersey/213921)

Trump is an idiot who surrounds himself with idiots.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: apollo16uvc on January 29, 2017, 07:34:45 PM
I wonder why he is so oddly specific about the location it was shot.

Also 'the moon landing video'? like only one video from a single camera was made... which is wrong. The Apollo 11 LEM and EVA had two video camera's, SSTV live feed camera and 16mm film camera.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on January 29, 2017, 09:58:33 PM
Well, this is what you get when you vote an imbecile into office. He will surround himself with an echo chamber full of imbeciles.

Sorry America, you can't say you weren't warned.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on January 29, 2017, 10:58:24 PM
I wonder why he is so oddly specific about the location it was shot.

Also 'the moon landing video'? like only one video from a single camera was made... which is wrong. The Apollo 11 LEM and EVA had two video camera's, SSTV live feed camera and 16mm film camera.

Probably because he sounds more convincing, when he provides some kind of detail, instead of waving his hands in an westernly direction.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 30, 2017, 07:00:11 AM
Not that it will make a difference, but it is rather entertaining watching the numbers tick over on this petition to Parliament.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/171928

Is that a genuine petition? That is, are they genuine people signing that petition, or just a bunch of bots?

I mean, each time I hit the Refresh button, another 50-100 people have signed it...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gwiz on January 30, 2017, 07:08:47 AM
Well, I've signed it and I know several other people who have too.  They send you an e-mail link to click to prove that your address is genuine.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 30, 2017, 10:41:31 AM
Well, I've signed it and I know several other people who have too.  They send you an e-mail link to click to prove that your address is genuine.

It's apparently genuine. Theresa May so far says she'll ignore it because it's just "populist". I dunno, when 1 out of every 50 or so people in your country sign it, it seems like you might have an issue here.

Apparently Trump is a little edgy about having to meet the Royal Family anyway, since Charles is a known supporter of action on climate change, and Trump fears he will "lecture" him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 30, 2017, 11:10:56 AM

It's apparently genuine. Theresa May so far says she'll ignore it because it's just "populist".

Damn shame that she's not doing the same with the Brexit referendum. After all, that was advisory and most definitely based on populism!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 30, 2017, 11:52:57 AM
I don't understand - courts issue a stay of the immigration ban, and DHS says, "Bleep you, we're keeping it in place anyway." What happened to rule of law?

I've been trying to explain to the friend of a friend why I think the ban is unconstitutional.  She insists it isn't because the Constitution doesn't apply to non-citizens.  I informed her that it literally doesn't matter, as this is a situation where the government is explicitly favouring adherents of one religion over adherents of another with Trump's statement that Christian refugees will be prioritized.  Of course, she also thinks we should agree to disagree that every intelligence expert who's spoken out about this has done so to point out that this is a policy that will make Americans less safe, so I'm not convinced this woman is really thinking.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on January 30, 2017, 01:33:44 PM
I've been trying to explain to the friend of a friend why I think the ban is unconstitutional.  She insists it isn't because the Constitution doesn't apply to non-citizens.

Point out to her that, if this were true, then resident non-citizens would be free to violate the Constitution with impunity because it doesn't apply to them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 31, 2017, 12:17:00 AM
Acting AG Yates was just fired for refusing to defend the immigration ban. Bannon is talking about a "new political order" coming to power. Can we panic now?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 31, 2017, 03:16:50 AM
I've been trying to explain to the friend of a friend why I think the ban is unconstitutional.  She insists it isn't because the Constitution doesn't apply to non-citizens.

Point out to her that, if this were true, then resident non-citizens would be free to violate the Constitution with impunity because it doesn't apply to them.

I decided to just go ahead and block her.  I argued that having the government favour any religion in any context was a blatant violation of the First Amendment, and she countered with, "But it doesn't apply to non-citizens!"  When my whole point was that it violates my rights for the government to do that, which I made clear.  It is my right as a US citizen to expect that my government won't favour people of one religion over another.  Apparently, she didn't know what to say to that, so she just ignored it.  I figured it was better for my mental health not to put up with her anymore.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on January 31, 2017, 09:30:29 AM
A New Order?

They really do lack any sense of irony, don't they.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 31, 2017, 03:54:39 PM
Along with a sense of proportion, of honour, of decency.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on February 01, 2017, 08:02:43 AM
A New Order?

They really do lack any sense of irony, don't they.

Well, the term was first used by a Republican President, wasn't it? (Bush I) It was only later hijacked by the conspiracists.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 01, 2017, 09:30:29 AM
I say we make it quartic. I'm sure no world order has gotten past cubic before.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 01, 2017, 04:04:46 PM
Apparently in his "friendly" call with the President of Mexico, Trump threatened to invade Mexico to fight the drug cartels. See http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-enrique-pena-nieto-mexico-phone-call-humiliating-threatening-2017-2 (http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-enrique-pena-nieto-mexico-phone-call-humiliating-threatening-2017-2).

But nah, Hilary was the hawk.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on February 02, 2017, 12:09:56 AM
What has distracted me most of late is the posters creeping out of the woodwork at various science blogs I follow. They are reaching for every available argument and form, from walls of text to "your side did it too" to questioning the meaning of Every Single Word like some sort of extreme gas-lighting sport, all to avoid even the slightest momentary admission that what is going on now is extraordinary. To deny, with plodding academicism spiced with point-blank rejection, that there is such a thing as a refulgent white supremacist movement or that it has any traction with the current administration.

And to not just deny -- this on science-based blogs -- that we are facing an onslaught of unreason that would send Carl Sagan screaming for the hills, a denial of reality I didn't expect to see represented outside of certain historic posters here; to in some sort of implausible ju-jitsu of the dialectic insist that the blog in question get back to doing serious science and leave phantom enemies given life only by partisan politics alone.

A denial of denialism, if that isn't too circular. All the more frightening as it is spoken by what appear to be educated people otherwise capable of putting a logical argument together.

(I am much heartened I haven't seen that kind of poster here.)



(On reflection, there is a kind of sense here. And it is exactly the thing Sagan warned about -- and Randi, and Feynman, and others. Which is that it is easy to use science as a source of blunt facts with which to bludgeon one's opponents. What is harder is to actually do science. To ever question, oneself more than anything.)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 02, 2017, 04:11:23 AM
Suddenly Britain not looking so bad, maybe?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 02, 2017, 09:19:00 AM

A denial of denialism, if that isn't too circular. All the more frightening as it is spoken by what appear to be educated people otherwise capable of putting a logical argument together.

(I am much heartened I haven't seen that kind of poster here.)


Apparently you missed the missive in another thread about how those awful immigrants are taking our jobs, and taxes are the work of the devil (even if certain agencies we support, like NASA, depend on them), and how Trump will prevent all that. Oh, and he won't actually do anything to hurt women's or LBGT civil rights, because he's not that kind of guy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 02, 2017, 02:35:05 PM
Have a high-tech company? Hope you can find all your specialists in the U.S., because Trump's going to get rid of all those pesky immigrants. http://www.salon.com/2017/02/02/first-they-came-for-the-muslims-trumps-next-targets-may-include-poor-immigrants-and-highly-paid-ones/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on February 02, 2017, 07:28:47 PM
Have a high-tech company? Hope you can find all your specialists in the U.S., because Trump's going to get rid of all those pesky immigrants. http://www.salon.com/2017/02/02/first-they-came-for-the-muslims-trumps-next-targets-may-include-poor-immigrants-and-highly-paid-ones/

Heh. That's among the reasons symphony orchestras have apparently, err, joined the chorus. Puts a real crimp on touring overseas as well (but mostly they object because they really like performing and sharing with people from other nations, other musical backgrounds).

Found that out totally by accident while I was looking for a resource on violin technique.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on February 03, 2017, 12:10:12 AM
I wouldn't have voted for this clown for dog catcher, but I thought his campaign rhetoric was probably a bunch of radical crazy populist B.S.; but once elected and in office, I thought cooler, saner heads would prevail. It looks like I was very, very, very self deluded.

Whose saner heads, though?  Since basically no one was willing to stand up to him during the campaign, who was left to do it once he was in power?
As I said "It looks like I was very, very, very self deluded.".
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on February 03, 2017, 01:05:17 AM
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-03/donald-trump-blasts-arnold-schwarzenegger-for-apprentice-ratings/8237794

Quote
Mr Trump used an address to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington — normally a solemn occasion — to ask the audience to "pray for" new Apprentice host Schwarzenegger to improve the show's ratings.

Classy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on February 03, 2017, 01:56:11 AM
Check out Schwarzenegger's response.

I didn't vote for him for governor here in California, but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by how moderate he was despite being a Republican. Maybe that's because he knew he can't actually have any higher aspirations (i.e., for Donald Trump's job).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 03, 2017, 02:56:20 AM
Yep. Looking much better.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 03, 2017, 09:26:24 AM
Check out Schwarzenegger's response.

I didn't vote for him for governor here in California, but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by how moderate he was despite being a Republican. Maybe that's because he knew he can't actually have any higher aspirations (i.e., for Donald Trump's job).

That response made me laugh, then I thought "Oh crap, Trump's gonna get him deported."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 03, 2017, 11:21:49 AM
I mean, Austria's a terrorist country, right?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on February 03, 2017, 06:38:35 PM
Arnold was so President. Just ask anyone who knows how to use the three seashells.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on February 04, 2017, 02:03:29 PM
I've stayed out of this discussion, mainly because I'm a brit and not directly involved, but one thing which bothers me intensely is the position of Steve Bannon as Trump's closest advisor, and now part of the National Security Council.  He's made no secret of his extreme right wing and white supremacist views, nor of his desire to "dismantle the state", and yet he's now an unelected individual in a position of considerable power, and he seems to have the President's ear.

Trump himself is, I think, is well out of his depth.  He may have been a (moderately) successful businessman, but he has no idea about running a government, or of the need for careful negotiation and diplomacy in international dealings.  He also, to my mind again, comes across in his vocabulary, phrasing and expressions, as fairly low in intelligence.  Bannon, and others like him, appear to have a considerable hold over Trump, and are using it to push through some very badly thought out policies, and I don't see it ending well.

Trump's rampant narcissism isn't helping either.  It appears he can't bear to be criticised or contradicted, and will use every opportunity, no matter how inappropriate, to promote himself.  He's not painting himself in a good light.

I had hoped that, once elected, he would be more moderate, or that the rest of the Republicans would rein him in, but that unfortunately hasn't happened.

(I'm planning on visiting in August for the eclipse, so hopefully things will have calmed down a bit by then...)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on February 04, 2017, 05:33:19 PM
I said initially that I'll pass judgement after 6 or 12 months, and I'll stick by that... however President Trump, in the first two weeks of the administration, has not been doing anything to make my initial fears abate. In fact, the opposite.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 04, 2017, 06:06:30 PM
He's scary.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on February 05, 2017, 01:14:14 AM
I've stayed out of this discussion, mainly because I'm a brit and not directly involved
There isn't a single human being anywhere on or near this planet that isn't directly affected by this.

That's simply a fact of the modern world, and I say that as a US citizen who did vote in the election.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 05, 2017, 04:04:48 AM
I'm visiting the US in March and am very nervous. I have Iraqi stamps in my passport because of work from a few years ago. I had to get a visa because of this. But now I'm worried about being detained for hours in the airport on the arrival. US immigration was bad enough at the best of times and these aren't the best of times.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on February 05, 2017, 05:44:58 AM

(I'm planning on visiting in August for the eclipse, so hopefully things will have calmed down a bit by then...)

I have my flights booked and hotels, I´m staying in Florida and doing a three day trip to South Carolina for the Eclipse.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on February 06, 2017, 04:44:25 PM
I'm visiting the US in March and am very nervous. I have Iraqi stamps in my passport because of work from a few years ago. I had to get a visa because of this. But now I'm worried about being detained for hours in the airport on the arrival. US immigration was bad enough at the best of times and these aren't the best of times.
How hard would it be to get a new/second passport?

I know that Americans can do this if they have Israeli visa stamps when they need to visit an Arab country. It only makes sense that other countries could do the same to get around US foolishness.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on February 06, 2017, 05:46:32 PM

(I'm planning on visiting in August for the eclipse, so hopefully things will have calmed down a bit by then...)

I have my flights booked and hotels, I´m staying in Florida and doing a three day trip to South Carolina for the Eclipse.
We're heading to Wyoming - big clear (hopefully) skies, and a chance to visit Yellowstone and Grand Teton.  It should be a good eclipse.

Anybody else watching and taking pictures or video might want to contribute to Hugh Hudson's "Mega Movie" - http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/photo/mega_movie.htm (http://www.eclipse2017.org/2017/photo/mega_movie.htm). I'm also trying to figure out exposures for an "Eddington" type experiment, to image stars close to the sun during totality.  (Of course all off-topic, and probably worth starting a separate thread nearer the time.)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 07, 2017, 03:08:28 AM
I'm visiting the US in March and am very nervous. I have Iraqi stamps in my passport because of work from a few years ago. I had to get a visa because of this. But now I'm worried about being detained for hours in the airport on the arrival. US immigration was bad enough at the best of times and these aren't the best of times.
How hard would it be to get a new/second passport?

I know that Americans can do this if they have Israeli visa stamps when they need to visit an Arab country. It only makes sense that other countries could do the same to get around US foolishness.
Problem is my visa is in my current one. In retrospect, I probably should have done that once I'd finished with my work there.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 08, 2017, 10:06:16 AM
So here's Trump's first real impact on the war against terror - after the disastrous raid in Yemen, the Yemeni government has banned any further ground action from U.S. forces https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/world/middleeast/yemen-special-operations-missions.html?_r=0 .

In other words, the U.S. has lost an ally in the war against terror. Well done, old boy!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on February 09, 2017, 04:43:42 AM
...In other words, the U.S. has lost an ally in the war against terror. Well done, old boy!

Coming a few days after giving an earful to our Prime Minister, Mister Trumble...er...Turnbull.

I mean, the USA needs strategic allies. What do you gain by annoying your current allies?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 09, 2017, 04:52:06 AM
Does it though? With such size and resources, it is more feasible for the US to become a hermit republic than probably any other country.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 09, 2017, 04:39:44 PM
So, today Trump told Putin that the START treaty was "bad for America." At least, after his aides clarified what START was.

Scariest part of the report from Reuters was:

Quote
Typically, before a telephone call with a foreign leader, a president receives a written in-depth briefing paper drafted by National Security Council staff after consultations with the relevant agencies, including the State Department, Pentagon and intelligence agencies, two former senior officials said.

Just before the call, the president also usually receives an oral "pre-briefing" from his national security adviser and top subject-matter aide, they said.

Trump did not receive a briefing from Russia experts with the NSC and intelligence agencies before the Putin call, two of the sources said. Reuters was unable to determine if Trump received a briefing from his national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Because the whole world enjoys seeing the President of the U.S. winging it when it comes to nuclear destruction.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on February 10, 2017, 07:26:37 AM
So Trump's team lost their appeal to have the travel ban reinstated. Apparently the two sides had very different ideas as to what constituted a valid argument for their side.

Defending the block: There's no evidence that any terrorist attack has been perpetrated by anyone from those seven countries; it's removing people's right to travel without due process; it seems to favour one religion over others, and is therefore against the constitution.

Defending the ban: He's the President so he can do what he likes, so nerrr.

So one side argued the pros and cons of the ban itself, while the other argued about power and process. It's like conversations with HBs on this board where we will argue the actual details and they will crow on about being badly treated. It's terrifying to see this kind of thing from actual world leaders!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 10, 2017, 09:07:06 AM
Maybe they could classify foreigners as three fifths or a person. That's in the Constitution.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on February 10, 2017, 09:12:28 AM
Hillary Clinton made a very short and pointed tweet on this topic. She said simply

"3-0"

I am not a lawyer, but back in the 1990s I was the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the US State Department challenging their arbitrary export controls on public domain encryption software. So I became very familiar with claims by the executive branch that they can do whatever they want in this area. Around that time I began saying that "National security" seems to be the root password to the Constitution.

So it was especially satisfying yesterday to read the opinion in which the judges state emphatically that even if they usually give deference on national security issues to the "political branches" (Congress and the President) they still insist on having the final say on whether something violates the Constitution. Even in wartime.

Yesterday was definitely one of my better days since November 8. Maybe our system of checks and balances really is more robust than I feared. It's certainly getting tested like never before in modern times.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on February 10, 2017, 05:22:07 PM
It's like conversations with HBs on this board where we will argue the actual details and they will crow on about being badly treated. It's terrifying to see this kind of thing from actual world leaders!

Well, my understanding is that President Trump is a believer of several conspiracies claims; the shocking thing is that, like you say, he acts on the world stage pretty much like we would expect a rabid CT / HB to act if they were on a internet forum.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on February 11, 2017, 01:20:27 AM
It's like conversations with HBs on this board where we will argue the actual details and they will crow on about being badly treated. It's terrifying to see this kind of thing from actual world leaders!

Well, my understanding is that President Trump is a believer of several conspiracies claims; the shocking thing is that, like you say, he acts on the world stage pretty much like we would expect a rabid CT / HB to act if they were on a internet forum.

He's a pretty good rebuttal to all those people who look at conspiracy theory debunkers and ask why we bother.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on February 11, 2017, 01:27:02 AM
It's like conversations with HBs on this board where we will argue the actual details and they will crow on about being badly treated. It's terrifying to see this kind of thing from actual world leaders!

Well, my understanding is that President Trump is a believer of several conspiracies claims; the shocking thing is that, like you say, he acts on the world stage pretty much like we would expect a rabid CT / HB to act if they were on a internet forum.

He's a pretty good rebuttal to all those people who look at conspiracy theory debunkers and ask why we bother.

8-)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 11, 2017, 08:38:53 AM
It's like conversations with HBs on this board where we will argue the actual details and they will crow on about being badly treated. It's terrifying to see this kind of thing from actual world leaders!

Well, my understanding is that President Trump is a believer of several conspiracies claims; the shocking thing is that, like you say, he acts on the world stage pretty much like we would expect a rabid CT / HB to act if they were on a internet forum.

He's a pretty good rebuttal to all those people who look at conspiracy theory debunkers and ask why we bother.

Absolutely right.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 13, 2017, 11:50:04 PM
That's one down... who will be next?

Flynn resigns amid controversy over Russia contacts (http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-white-house-national-security-adviser/index.html?sr=fbCNN021417michael-flynn-white-house-national-security-adviser/index.html0423AMStoryLink&linkId=34467748)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 15, 2017, 10:30:06 AM
Is it worth taking with me on my journey a snap of me in my coveralls and hard hat smiling in front of a choke manifold with some black flares in the background as a demonstration of the business nature of travels to Iraq? I took that picture along to my visa interview at the US embassy. Can't remember if I showed it. It happened so quickly. But immigration staff are notoriously prickly and when the guy pulls a face after looking at my passport, me attempting to pull of that picture may just make things worse.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 15, 2017, 07:14:25 PM
That's one down... who will be next?

Flynn resigns amid controversy over Russia contacts (http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-white-house-national-security-adviser/index.html?sr=fbCNN021417michael-flynn-white-house-national-security-adviser/index.html0423AMStoryLink&linkId=34467748)
There goes another...

Andrew Puzder withdraws as a labor secretary nominee (http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/top-senate-republicans-urge-white-house-to-withdraw-puzder-nomination/index.html?sr=fbCNN021517top-senate-republicans-urge-white-house-to-withdraw-puzder-nomination0901PMStoryLink&linkId=34547684)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 16, 2017, 10:10:16 PM
Did anyone watch Stephen Miller's rants a couple of days ago and have the thought occur to them that not only does he look like Joseph Goebbels, he sounds like him as well.

The attitude of this man is truly appalling and very scary.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on February 17, 2017, 03:35:47 AM
And another:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39000389

But, hey, the administration is running like a fine tuned machine*

I listened to his press conference (https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/us/politics/donald-trump-press-conference-transcript.html?_r=0&referer=) last night. He's got a massive persecution complex. Today he has been in the job 4 weeks...I can't see him lasting 4 years.

All the hoo-ha about Clinton's email server...the Trump administration are running their emails through the Republican party's servers, not the White House.

The nutter is going to start a war....listen to his threat against North Korea. His comments yesterday about a single state solution for Israel will have the Arabs up in arms. All it will take is ISIS to launch an attack on US soil and he'll impose martial law.

Meanwhile, the Russian have the intelligence gathering ship Viktor Leonov cruising 40 miles off the New London submarine Base. Last Friday the USS Porter was buzzed by three Russian warplanes and a surveillance plane whilst on international waters.  The warplanes passed less than 200 yards from the boat. The Russians are basically goading the Yanks and Trump to see how he reacts.




*Finely tuned machine in this case is a v-twin with one piston missing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on February 17, 2017, 05:36:48 PM
When I was a kid, the Russians always seemed to have "fishing trawlers" in international waters off the US coast, especially near areas like central Florida. I hadn't heard about this for some time, but neither had I heard that they stopped.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on February 18, 2017, 05:00:37 AM
Hmmm AGIs.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on February 18, 2017, 06:46:37 AM
This week he signed Resolution 38 (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-16/trump-signs-measure-blocking-obama-era-rule-to-protect-streams) which overturns a law passed in December last year that stopped coal mining firms from dumping spill and pollution into streams. Whilst surrounded by a bunch of coal mining firm's lawyers and Republicans. And Pruitt was confirmed yesterday as head of the EPA in a rush to get him appointed before thousands of emails between him [Pruitt] and fossil fuel companies are published on Tuesday following a court order (http://www.salon.com/2017/02/17/republicans-rush-to-confirm-trumps-epa-nominee-scott-pruitt-after-federal-judge-orders-release-of-fossil-fuel-emails/). Pruitt has been fighting the release of these emails for two years. Pruitt, the same guy that has tried to sue the EPA 14 times to stop them imposing rules on fossil fuel companies (https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15012017/scott-pruitt-epa-chief-oklahoma-attorney-general-climate-denial).

The Republican party will not stop supporting Trump as long as he continues to dismantle the regulations on big business, especially the fossil fuel industry. And Trump's ranting at the press, the media, clouds etc. means that the headlines are filled with column inches that hide the real damage that's being done in plain sight.

This is the guy that was going to "drain the swamp" and cut corruption. America, you deserve a slap for electing this puppet. I'm gone beyond caring that he messes up your country, but this muppet, and his Republican controllers, will damage the rest of the world.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 18, 2017, 01:37:16 PM
And some friend of ToSeek's on Facebook is suggesting that we "give him a chance" until September before passing judgement.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 18, 2017, 07:03:39 PM
Maybe in September democracy will not have collapsed. He certainly sounds scary. Always atttacking courts and media.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 22, 2017, 04:47:34 AM
Not looking good. A UK citizen was refusrd entry despite having a valid visa. We don't know why but some suspect he may have had a stamp from one of the countries on the list.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 22, 2017, 10:17:25 AM
I wonder if Trump's supporters are happy with how U.S. Customs agents forced a NASA scientist to unlock his secured phone http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nasa-scientists-detained-border-phone-unlock-trump-immigration-a7577906.html? Despite being, you know, the scientist in question being a citizen born in the U.S.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 22, 2017, 11:22:22 AM
The only weird thing is that the article says he was travelling on a valid US visa. They must have meant passport.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 22, 2017, 11:26:19 AM
When I was a kid, the Russians always seemed to have "fishing trawlers" in international waters off the US coast, especially near areas like central Florida. I hadn't heard about this for some time, but neither had I heard that they stopped.

Russian "trawlers" and "cargo ships" routinely shadowed U.S. Navy operations.  I lived overseas for a while during the Cold War in a NATO port city and saw a lot of Navy traffic there, always accompanied by the same few Russian "cargo ships."  We got to recognize them.  They would arrive in port the day after some warship and depart the day after.  There was always a lot of activity on the ship while in port, almost none of it seeming to have anything to do with loading or unloading cargo.  Also, do cargo ships need antennas that big?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 22, 2017, 11:40:13 AM
This week he signed Resolution 38 (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-16/trump-signs-measure-blocking-obama-era-rule-to-protect-streams) which overturns a law passed in December last year that stopped coal mining firms from dumping spill and pollution into streams.

Sort of.  Congress passes laws, which are general, and the executive -- usually a specific agency directed by statute -- implements them as rules, which are extremely specific.  A law that takes only a few paragraphs to spell out in the United States Code may expand to thousands of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations, which the executive agencies use to actually create an enforceable policy.  It is these detailed policies embodied in the CFR that are what need to be followed.  The so-called Streams rule you refer to was a monumental piece of environmental regulation, painstakingly worked out by more than just the Obama administration.  Because the process of executive rulemaking is surprisingly more time-consuming than the legislative process, the steps required to remove a regulation, once adopted, are similarly monumental.  However, there is a provision that allows Congress, within 90 days of a rule's adoption, to simply legislate it away.  And the President signs it as with any other piece of legislation, and an entire thousand-page book of regulation can be wiped away with the stroke of a pen -- a measure that would normally take careful deliberation.  That's what happened here.

Oh, but it gets better.  This particular provision is considered a nuclear option.  It's a vast intrusion by Congress on the power of the executive, so prior to Trump taking office it was used only once previously in its entire history to overturn a set of regulations regarding OSHA and ergonomics.  The reason it's a nuclear option is that if a regulation is done away with by this means, no similar rule can ever be written, ever again.  Not only does this do away with clean water restrictions on the mineral industry for the term of this administration, it does away with it for all time.

The escalation of partisan politics to include such nuclear options should frighten people.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 22, 2017, 12:12:04 PM
Maybe they will support impeachment if it means it will improve their own chances of re-election. Otherwise they might just get tossed out in two years.

We're doing our best here to toss out Jason Chaffetz.  There are credible GOP contenders, and he's losing support here even among Republicans.  (Why not elect a Democrat or an independent?  Because Utah.)  I tried to get into his now-infamous town hall meeting a while back, but like most people who wanted to attend I had to be satisfied with hovering outside.  Chaffetz' committee has oversight responsibility for the executive, but simply refuses to exercise it over Trump with respect to his conflicts of interest.  In response to the chants of "Do your job!" Chaffetz' answer was predictably evasive.  He simply said the President was "exempt" and that was supposed to be the end of it.  Well, yes, except from one conflict-of-interest law, but not from the general need to avoid emolument.

Further, Chaffetz' committee isn't ja law-enforcement agency.  The executive is limited to investigating violations of laws that already exist.  The legislature is not, and it can make laws as needed.  One of the reasons we allow Congress the power to investigate is to determine whether new laws are warranted.  In other words, maybe the President shouldn't be exempt from conflict-of-interest laws, and maybe it's Chaffetz' duty to collect facts that either support or refute that proposition.  Past presidents have voluntarily divested their conflicting interests, so there's an evident moral mandate for such a law.  Maybe the reason no one thought before to hold the President accountable for conflicts of interest was because other Presidents held themselves accountable without being asked, and demonstrated that accountability convincingly.  Gee, if everyone drove 100 km/h or slower on the freeway without being told to, it wouldn't matter if there were a speed limit law and if some drivers were exempt from it.  It's only when that one jerk drives recklessly fast and causes a wreck that we begin to consider the need for regulation and enforcement.

To paraphrase Rand Paul, "Republicans don't investigate other Republicans."  That seems to be the conventional partisan wisdom so far.  We'll get no meaningful oversight so long as partisan politics overshadow constitutional checks and balances.  As for re-election, the tap dancing required to separate races for different branches of government within a single party are well established.  Should the need arise -- and it probably will -- GOP candidates for Congress in 2018 and later will already have the rhetoric in place to separate themselves just enough from Trump to make a credible showing.  The only way a GOP Congress would impeach President Trump is if he were to do something so treasonous as to make it inevitable political suicide to continue to support him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 22, 2017, 09:03:15 PM
Maybe they will support impeachment if it means it will improve their own chances of re-election. Otherwise they might just get tossed out in two years.

We're doing our best here to toss out Jason Chaffetz.

Keep it up! :)

I've been watching the news reports of the anger being expressed at GOP town halls, and it is reassuring to me that people are speaking up and resisting. But I do worry that it will lose steam before the next election.

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Chaffetz' committee has oversight responsibility for the executive, but simply refuses to exercise it over Trump with respect to his conflicts of interest.

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To paraphrase Rand Paul, "Republicans don't investigate other Republicans."  That seems to be the conventional partisan wisdom so far.  We'll get no meaningful oversight so long as partisan politics overshadow constitutional checks and balances.

The "party first, country second" attitude is so frustrating to me. It's not just limited to the Republicans, or even the United States, but Republicans do seem to take it to extremes. And when we're talking about issues that affect the entire planet (such as the destruction of the environment, or even situations that could lead to war) we have to put our political loyalties aside. Republicans have to take the concerns about Trump more seriously.

I was skeptical that the "checks and balances" were going to be effective when Republicans  basically control everything, so it was reassuring that the courts blocked the travel ban.

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The only way a GOP Congress would impeach President Trump is if he were to do something so treasonous as to make it inevitable political suicide to continue to support him.

It sure sounds like if the intelligence agencies keep digging they will find something treasonous. But it no longer surprises me when Republicans do mental gymnastics to justify their continued support of Trump despite his behaviour.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 23, 2017, 03:05:34 AM
So no law that prevents industry from polluting rivers can ever be implemented in the future? That's ridiculous.

We have the principle that no Parliament can bind future Parliaments.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 23, 2017, 11:35:32 AM
Side note, happy belated, Jay.  Are you not on Facebook anymore?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 23, 2017, 11:43:10 AM
Even the Constitution can be amended. This doesn't sound right. Do you mean those rules can't be introduced under the current law but Congress could pass a new law?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 23, 2017, 12:18:24 PM
So no law that prevents industry from polluting rivers can ever be implemented in the future? That's ridiculous.

We have the principle that no Parliament can bind future Parliaments.

And in like manner no Congress can bind a future Congress.  However the measure that was overruled this week was not a law, but an executive rule.  The law still stands, but at present relies on the enforceable detail that is provided in rules prior to Obama's term.  This is common in American lawmaking.  Laws are written in general language.  The Congress relies upon the agencies and offices of the executive to implement the law in terms of rules that can be practically enforced and argued before a court in terms of evidence.  These rules are themselves the product of extensive scientific study, deliberation, hearing, and debate.  To explain this in terms familiar to English style parliamentary practice, it is roughly analogous to delegated legislation as opposed to primary legislation.  Nearly every bill in Congress delegates power to an office of the executive, which has previously been given authority by statute, to make and enforce rules consistent with the language of the bill.  Thus every bill in Congress is, to a certain extent, a case of delegated legislation.  The body of rules made by means of this delegated power is the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and it is de facto law in the United States.

The normal oversight that Congress retains in this situation is generally deemed sufficient.  Each office of the Executive (cf. the Crown) that has been granted statutory authority to make and enforce rules is answerable to a committee of the Congress, and ultimately to Congress itself.  The relevant committee can, and frequently does, call before it the officers of the executive to hold them accountable for their rulemaking and enforcement (or lack thereof) and has the power, through legislation, to compel obedience on specific points.  But the entire system of delegated authority is, in the American system as in the English system, meant to relieve Congress or Parliament from legislating in fine, from wading through myriad technical details, and from consideration of informal or minor changes.  Hence it works best when the executive is staffed with competent conscientious people and left to its own devices.

The law 30 USC 1211 authorizes the creation of an office of the executive whose job is to make and enforce rules pursuant to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977.  The Act itself contains such vague language as, "(c) assure that surface mining operations are not conducted where reclamation as required by this chapter is not feasible;  (d) assure that surface coal mining operations are so conducted as to protect the environment;  (e) assure that adequate procedures are undertaken to reclaim surface areas as contemporaneously as possible with the surface coal mining operations[.]"  Questions such as feasibility under (c), the specific details alluded to in (d), and what precisely constitutes "adequate procedures" and "contemporaneous[]" under (e) are what is delegated to the executive to determine, what forms the basis of the pertinent rules in CFR (in this case large portions of CFR Parts 700, 701, 773, 774, 777, and 827), and what delegated answers were wiped away this week.  Specifically, those parts of the CFR existed before Obama took office, but were substantially revised during his term to interpret 30 USC Subchapter 25 (the relevant law) for enforcement purposes.  Those revisions were eliminated by Congress, thus the relevant parts of CFR revert back to their unrevised form.

This Congress may not bind a future Congress.  But it may bind this and future Presidents, and because the Congressional Review Act specifically (CRA) affects powers ordinarily belonging to the Congress but delegated to the Executive for practical purposes, it may indeed place longstanding restrictions on how that delegated power may be wielded by any officer of the executive as long as the law remains in force.  In this case the Act prevents the executive from attempting to establish the rule overturned under the provisions of the CRA in "substantially the same form."  It also enjoins any court from reviewing the Act of Congress that overturned the rule.  (The judiciary in the United States receives its subject-matter jurisdiction from Congress.)  But because no Congress can bind a present or future Congress, a "substantially" similar rule could be allowed by act of Congress, as you suggest.  That is, in 2018 when a new Congress is seated, they can adopt a measure specifically to allow the clean-water rule enacted under President Obama and overturned by Congress and President Trump to be reinstated in the CFR in its pristine form.  But it must be a specific law, specifically aimed at the individual rules that were overturned.  And Trump will simply veto that act of Congress.  Or conversely, Congress could substantially revise the law itself -- 30 USC 1201 et seq.  This would compel the executive to revise its rules to be consistent with the changes in the law, and that would negate the specific restrictions prohibited by the Congressional Review Act.  But this is simply not likely to happen in any conceivable future.  Hence my hyperbolic "for all time."  As long as 30 USC subchapter 25 exists substantially in its present form and as long as the CRA was used to overturn Obama's rules, it may not be enforced in the form provided by the Obama administration.

And you're right; the CRA is ridiculous.  Which is to say, a routine application of it in this way is ridiculous precisely because it is so uncommonly draconian.  It was meant to corral, in the most invasive and strong terms, an egregiously misbehaving executive.  It is meant as a measure of last resort, when all other methods that control the rulemaking power delegated to the executive have failed.  This is why it has only succeeded once before in its entire history, and only been attempted a handful of times.  And yes, there are other measure to revise and eliminate federal rules.  It happens all the time, but it is a rather tedious and onerous process because the public accountability fo repealing or revising a rule is and ought to be as careful as the process that established the rule in the first place.  The Republican party was unlikely to succeed in any short order at overturning the relevant rules by the accepted procedure.  Hence it employed its nuclear option.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 23, 2017, 12:19:15 PM
Side note, happy belated [birthday], Jay.  Are you not on Facebook anymore?

No, I no longer use Facebook, but thanks for the good wishes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 23, 2017, 12:50:19 PM
Even the Constitution can be amended. This doesn't sound right. Do you mean those rules can't be introduced under the current law but Congress could pass a new law?

In short, yes.  Congress can pass a new law.  That law can either revisit the issue of surface mining and water cleanliness de novo, substantially revise the existing law, or -- as I write above -- dictate specifically that a certain rule rescinded under the Congressional Review Act of 1996 may be reinstated.  It just is very unlikely to do so.  The United States has its own version of the primacy of the legislative.  Nearly every restriction imposed on the other branches may be excused by an act of Congress.  The much ballyhooed Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution says the President can receive gifts from foreign powers if Congress approves.  So if Vladimir Putin wants to buy Donald Trump a vacation dacha on the Black Sea, Congress merely has to pass a resolution approving it.  It just doesn't do such things very often.

The power of the Code of Federal Regulations cannot be overestimated.  As I write above, it's our de facto law for most regulated activities.  As a maker of technology I'm subject to, for example, the body of Federal Aviation Regulations, title 14 of the CFR, and export restrictions, 15 CFR.  The U.S. Departments of Transportation and of Commerce, respectively, contain the offices that make and enforce those rules.  They receive their authority to do so from Congress, which exercises general control over them and passes general legislation both empowering and funding the activities of these offices and also laying down the general laws these offices are to give enforceable teeth to by their activities. To make an airworthy aircraft, I have to turn to various parts of 14 CFR that govern in precise terms what constitutes the concept of airworthiness.  These criteria change from time to time.  Congress doesn't have to act on each change; it is concerned only with the mandate that aircraft produced and flown in the United States be suitably airworthy.

The act of Congress in 1977 that mandated surface mining be conducted with proper care toward reclamation of the mining sites and preservation of the cleanliness of water created an office of the executive to make and enforce specific rules.   Since 1977 those rules have been revised many times, but most recently not since 2001.  In 2016 we have the power to revise what can be enforced as "feasible" or "adequate," since those depend on advances in technology which have come about since 2001.  Coal mining in the U.S. is held only to the standards of "adequate" and "feasible" that presumed 2001 levels of technology.  As we become more adept, we raise the bar for what constitutes responsible mineral extraction, just as we revise what constitutes "airworthy" based on what we can reasonably attain in the industry.

Congress largely doesn't care about these things.  It writes laws generally so that only minimal revision are necessary and the day-to-day revisions are handled in the executive through hearings, petitions, and votes in executive commissions.  Congress, in delegating this power to the executive offices, mandates in each case what accountability each office must have to the public and what sorts of procedures it must follow when making rules.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 23, 2017, 01:13:46 PM
I've been watching the news reports of the anger being expressed at GOP town halls, and it is reassuring to me that people are speaking up and resisting. But I do worry that it will lose steam before the next election.

It didn't quell the Tea Party uprising that continued until the 2010 elections in which a number of well-seated Democrats lost.  The Tea Party movement began precisely as a grass-roots opposition to the situation after the 2008 election.  And we remember town-hall meetings held by Democratic incumbents that were every bit as raucous as these today, largely due to Tea Party involvement.  I think in the next two years we're going to see something in the Democratic party similar to the Tea Party -- some sort of grass-roots backlash against the party establishment that will affect the 2018 midterm elections and may affect both major parties.

I have to say it's disappointing that the widespread and vocal opposition to so many GOP officials in their constituencies is being dismissed as mercenary opposition rather than genuine feelings.  Leave it to that party to foment conspiracy theories to explain away opposition.

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The "party first, country second" attitude is so frustrating to me. It's not just limited to the Republicans, or even the United States...

Agreed.  While we can cite egregious examples in both parties, this is an increasingly frustrating problem all around.  And it results in ineffective government.  I can remember when partisanship was still a thing, but the overriding need was to progress with good government.  The Tea Party seems to have removed the aspect of government in which compromises were reached across party lines.  Today there is simply no effective bipartisanship.

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I was skeptical that the "checks and balances" were going to be effective when Republicans  basically control everything, so it was reassuring that the courts blocked the travel ban.

Indeed, and it's not as if the Republicans didn't take the Democrat executive to court in order to seek to have its executive orders overturned.  They were even successful a few times.  So complaining that the executive is reactionary or that the President's decrees are unreviewable is disingenuous.

As to checks and balances, they were formulated long before the two-party situation developed.  The Framers consider partisanship, but envisioned that no party would be able to gain ascendency and that the normal checks and balances would suffice.  Nor did they foresee a system in which two parties, together holding near unanimous constituency, would be able to so effectively wield government power against each other in a partisan way.  They envisioned a system more akin to the coalitions in some of the modern European democracies.  The checks and balances simply can't cope with a two-party stronghold unless the parties agree that government is more important.

But it looks like Chaffetz may be in real danger of losing his seat.  So we may see some movement.

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The only way a GOP Congress would impeach President Trump is if he were to do something so treasonous as to make it inevitable political suicide to continue to support him.

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It sure sounds like if the intelligence agencies keep digging they will find something treasonous.

That's one thing we hear from former administration officials of both parties:  don't cross the intelligence community.  Apparently everyone there is a little bit J. Edgar Hoover at heart.  That's given rise to Deep State conspiracy theories, of course.  Most other occupants of the White House seem to have enough political savvy to at least gently disagree with the intelligence-gatherers when they disagree.  But Trump seems to be a bull in a china shop, and he might be making the sort of enemy he's not accustomed to dealing with.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 24, 2017, 05:13:15 AM
Side note, happy belated [birthday], Jay.  Are you not on Facebook anymore?

No, I no longer use Facebook, but thanks for the good wishes.
Sensible. Facebook is the devil's plaything run by Lex Luthor.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 25, 2017, 09:08:23 AM
Not heard back from FCO yet. Really. If you can't rely on Boris Johnson, who can you rely on?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on March 01, 2017, 04:05:40 AM
As to checks and balances, they were formulated long before the two-party situation developed.
I wouldn't say "long before"; it was just a few years before the "factionalism" that Washington warned about in his farewell address was firmly established. It's the reason for the 12th Amendment, ratified in 1803, that revised the procedures for electing the President and Vice President.

If not for the 12th Amendment, Hillary Clinton would be Vice President today, as she got the second largest number of electoral votes in the 2016 election. The 12th Amendment established the "party slate" system we have today.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 01, 2017, 04:53:04 AM
This is a fascinating read. And terrifying  :(


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 01, 2017, 07:26:32 AM
The media is out of control? Isn't that what the first amendment is supposed to achieve, keeping the media out of control?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 02, 2017, 04:10:02 PM
FCO is no help. Just say contact the Americans about it. But they're far too scary.  I'm only going on this trip because it was arranged back in September and wasn't even my idea.

There have been stories about how visitor numbers are down on the back of fears about ott immigration.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 02, 2017, 11:53:38 PM
I've read that tourism as an industry is taking a serious hit.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 03, 2017, 05:51:21 AM
So, Trump's administration still running like a finely tuned machine now that Sessions has been caught being, ahem, economical with the truth....
And Pence has now been caught using an AOL email address for years. From the mid 1990s right up to 2016, including use after the account had been hacked and compromised.
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/02/pence-used-personal-email-state-business----and-hacked/98604904/
https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2017/03/mike-pence-used-an-aol-e-mail-account-for-state-business-and-it-got-hacked/?comments=1

No doubt we'll hear the Republicans demanding that pence undergoes a FBI investigation and cries of "Lock him up!".  :o ::) ::) ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 03, 2017, 07:54:12 AM
There's an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon can go to China.

But there's a reverse of that. Where some people can't say things or do things because their behaviour adds a sinister tone to such things.

Take the border wall. Stopping undocumented movement across the Mexican border is the policy of at least the last two administrations. So Trump pressing the issue is not in of itself something to be all horrified about. But it's the tone he adopts that puts it in a context that makes even those who do want to control immigration uneasy.

Or the media. In other times, many would agree you shouldn't trust much of what you read and hear in the press. But when a POTUS makes such persistent and vitriolic attacks on the media, it has unsettling connotations.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 03, 2017, 12:21:58 PM
I wouldn't say "long before"; it was just a few years before the "factionalism" that Washington warned about in his farewell address was firmly established. It's the reason for the 12th Amendment...

Yes, you make a good point.  I had it in my mind that the reforms for electing the executive came later than 1803, i.e., after the generation who weren't founding fathers came to power.  Clearly partisanship took an early foothold.  But I don't think it was sufficiently considered when the checks and balances were first formulated.  Even with the coherently elected executive, I reckon they thought partisanship in Congress wouldn't reach a point where they'd refuse to impeach an errant president of the same party.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 03, 2017, 12:24:33 PM
I got accused of being hypocritical for criticizing the fact that the Yemen raid got people killed and doesn't seem to have produced any useful intelligence, given that the intelligence the administration hyped as proving that the whole thing was "worth it" had been available online for years.  And that there was no investigation suggested by the Republican leadership to look into its failures.  Was that actually hypocritical?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 03, 2017, 01:29:06 PM
I wouldn't say "long before"; it was just a few years before the "factionalism" that Washington warned about in his farewell address was firmly established. It's the reason for the 12th Amendment...

Yes, you make a good point.  I had it in my mind that the reforms for electing the executive came later than 1803, i.e., after the generation who weren't founding fathers came to power.  Clearly partisanship took an early foothold.  But I don't think it was sufficiently considered when the checks and balances were first formulated.  Even with the coherently elected executive, I reckon they thought partisanship in Congress wouldn't reach a point where they'd refuse to impeach an errant president of the same party.
Sounds like they were maybe a wee bit naive.

I heard it say that America is a monarchy with an elected king while Britain is a republic with a hereditary president. Apparently that was said by an American journalist in the late 19th century.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 03, 2017, 03:59:58 PM
Sounds like they were maybe a wee bit naive.

Just a bit, yes.

James Madison believed (or is commonly interpreted to believe) that partisan politics were inevitable, and that the only solution was to mitigate the effects, not stem the causes.  He wrongly assumed a number of things.  First, he assumed that only the rabble would be partisans.  Second, and therefore following from his first assumption, he assumed that anyone qualified enough to be electable from a party would be smart enough to put the public interest before party.  Third, he assumed a multitude of factions, not a bifurcation toward two dominant parties.  And on and on.  Madison's arguments were not founded in the separation of powers directly, but in the careful analysis of the scale of the prospective government and the proportions of representation.  His analysis was reasonably cogent for the 18th century but not for the 21st, and not in light of how the American party system actually developed.  But inasmuch as Madison's argument was founded in quantitative electoral arguments, the whole thing exists in the framework of the separation of powers in which those elected to the offices of one power would not necessarily be subject to the same flavor of factious emotions as the other branches.

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I heard it say that America is a monarchy with an elected king while Britain is a republic with a hereditary president. Apparently that was said by an American journalist in the late 19th century.

I wouldn't dispute this.  I assume entire books have been written comparing the American republic to the British one from which it sprang.  But I wouldn't have the time to read them all.  I see vestiges in the American system that give homage to a "ruling class," which may or may not ever have existed in valid form anywhere.   Judges were appointed and senators given lengthier terms on the basic understanding that the people holding these offices were not the "rabble" of the House, but rather those who -- for lack of a better characterization -- had been groomed into the leadership class.  The Founding Fathers had not yet warmed fully to the idea that any of the unwashed rabble would ever be fit to lead.  This harks back to the notion of monarchs and peers who followed genealogical lines of succession and were thus bred from youth to assume offices of leadership.  (There is, however, a remarkable episode of Netflix's The Crown in which Elizabeth realizes she has been inadequately prepared intellectually.)  Whether some hereditary lord or monarch actually had leadership talents was mitigated in the idea that for better or for worse they would be prepared as well as possible for the role.

I gather the Founding Fathers were somewhat conflicted about the executive.  On the one hand it's obvious, having just escaped what they believed to be the tyranny of a monarch, they felt reticent about vesting in one person so much power.  But on the other hand, if the executive could be a person who was carefully and soberly chosen and vetted by a similarly conscientious college of electors -- and not so much just the person bearing the proper DNA or having electioneered most viciously -- then they could be less anxious about giving him so much direct power.  Thus I can see that the English system benefits from the primacy of Parliament in order to quench the power of whatever random monarch ascends the throne.  It makes sense.  Succession is what it is, and it points to the next bloke in line regardless of his actual qualifications.  That's a rational reaction to having lived for hundreds of years in a monarchy, and taking steps over the following hundreds of years (i.e., since Magna Carta) to move toward democracy.

In contrast, had the American electoral college worked the way it was in part envisioned, Trump would not have been elected.  That was one of the mechanisms envisioned to prevent despots and demagogues from acquiring the kinglike powers the Constitution granted to the executive.  Contrary to the feelings that evolved later, the President was, from the start, not to be elected directly or by a purely popular vote.  Even in the now-remote case where the House would elect the President it does so by state, contrary to the customary method of polling the House.  In the context of your quote, we seem to have elected ourselves into the mess England learned long ago to avoid.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 04, 2017, 05:40:33 AM
I wouldn't say "long before"; it was just a few years before the "factionalism" that Washington warned about in his farewell address was firmly established. It's the reason for the 12th Amendment...

Yes, you make a good point.  I had it in my mind that the reforms for electing the executive came later than 1803, i.e., after the generation who weren't founding fathers came to power.  Clearly partisanship took an early foothold.  But I don't think it was sufficiently considered when the checks and balances were first formulated.  Even with the coherently elected executive, I reckon they thought partisanship in Congress wouldn't reach a point where they'd refuse to impeach an errant president of the same party.

I read an article somewhere (no hope now of finding a link) in which the writer pointed out that in any parliament (or congress or whatever you want to call it) where members are each elected to represent a single electorate, you're always going to move towards a two-party system; whereas where members are elected by proportional representation you're always going to move towards endless multiple coalitions. The former occurs because being part of a party machine represents the better chance of being elected than standing as an independent, and the latter occurs because even a small party can be guaranteed getting enough votes across a country/representative region to gain at least one seat.

Here in Australia, the Federal Parliament started out in 1901 with three factional groupings - Free Traders, Protectionists and the Australian Labor Party. For the first few years they formed and broke a number of coalitions until eventually the Free Traders and Protectionists formed a permanent alliance (known initially as Fusion) of more conservatively aligned politicians against the more left wing workers party of the ALP. And that alignment has stayed pretty firm over the last century. The ALP has split a few times (for example, in World War One over conscription, and in the 1960s over Communism) but it has generally stayed the party of choice for working class people.

But that's changed since the 1990s and the (arguably neo-con) reforms of the Hawke and Keating ALP governments of 1983-1996. Since then the ALP has drifted to the political centre as union power has weakened, and its place on the left wing has been occupied by the Greens.

The return of One Nation in the last few years doesn't quite fit the same narrative on the right. For one thing the Liberals (who are actually the conservative party in the country) haven't drifted to the centre, despite comments by deposed PM Tony Abbott. As I understand it, One Nation supporters have generally come from working class and middle class families with a conservative outlook, many of whom in the past would have voted for the ALP; they're similar to Trump Republicans as people who feel they've lost out from globalism.

Now the difference between the USA and Australia is how our political systems cope with these protest votes. In Australia our House of Reps has individual seats, and as mentioned above this promotes a two-party outcome: out of 150 seats in the HoR, 147 are held by members of the two major parties. But the Senate, with 12 Senators elected in each state (and two in each territory), allows far wider political representation. As a result, the two major parties between them hold only 55 of the 76 seats; the crossbench of 21 represents a wide range of political views, and quite a headache for the government to get legislation passed. But at least it's possible to say that nearly everyone's political views have been represented in the Senate, at least to some extent.

But in the USA, where each state elects only two Senators, there isn't much chance for minor parties to be elected. So their best chance has been to be part of one of the two major parties of the System, hence the infiltration of the Republican Party by the Tea Party. If the US Senate had provided for more Senators per state then I'd suggest the Tea Party people may have preferred to guarantee representation in the Senate by running their own candidates outside the Republican Party, while the Democrats could easily fracture into a worker's party and a more liberal middle-class party.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 04, 2017, 07:55:10 AM
The thing is that news travelled slowly in the 18th century (cf the apocryphal story of George III writing in his diary on 4th July 1776 that nothing important happened that day), and it may well be that the colonial leaders were a little out of touch with how far British system had moved. The Glorious Revolution and the Act of Settlement established the precedent that the monarch can be changed if not suitable (just a few years ago, not one but a half dozen elected Parliaments changed the line of succession again). The succession of the House of Hanover, itself the result of Parliament choosing the line succession, brought in a King who didn't speak English and so started the practice that the monarch doesn't lead the Cabinet.  So it may be that the Founding Fathers diagnosed the problem based on an outdated perception.  They're called Intolerable Acts not Intolerable Royal Proclamations.

The House of Lords here is also a bastion if crossbenchers. However it is also a mess. It is one of only a small handful of upper houses larger than lower houses, because it gets packed with new wood after every change of government while the old wood remains. It's a truly British thing of just fudging and making do. Everyone agrees it needs to change, but no-one agrees to what. Change doesn't necessarily mean making it elected. There is value in it being appointed and therefore not just a clone of the Commons. But if appointed, how to keep the herd suitably thinned and how to avoid it just being a dumping ground for political apparatchiks who can't win Commons seats? Of course, anything radical is likely to be put on hold for the next few years to see if the UK lasts out the next decade.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 04, 2017, 02:18:13 PM
But in the USA, where each state elects only two Senators, there isn't much chance for minor parties to be elected.

Or for dark horse candidates to attract the attention of one of the major parties.  I was tangentially involved with one of my colleagues' unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate, on a major party ticket.  He lost in the primaries, as we expected he would, because the winning candidate was carefully tailored to be just off-center enough to get nominated -- not because he had any great ideas for how to govern.  Or any prior experience in governing.  But yes, I think your discussion of Australian parties is very much in the same vein as Madison's in the 18th century, albeit with more hindsight.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 04, 2017, 02:44:25 PM
...and it may well be that the colonial leaders were a little out of touch with how far British system had moved.

Quite likely, although as a vital colony of the Crown it's not as if the inhabitants of the Americas were unaware of English politics.  It's more likely that my analysis lacks sophistication.  Hamilton (the statesman, not the musical) was reasonably correct about how the electoral college should have worked to deny Trump the presidency, but there is more to the crafting of the executive than I can recall off the top of my head.  My personal feeling is that the American Republicans are content to let Trump lead the media around by the nose and be generally the buffoon we knew he would be in order to distract attention from the efforts of the Republican establishment to dismantle and defuse the previous eight years of progressive policy.

Quote
It's a truly British thing of just fudging and making do. Everyone agrees it needs to change, but no-one agrees to what.

On the contrary, some of the UK's deepest and most respected thinkers have proposed a marvelous way of culling the herd.


Quote
...to see if the UK lasts out the next decade.

Yikes, don't say that.  Various forces in my life are making it somewhat likely I may sojourn in the London area for a few years.  Or that's one possibility.  I understand Dalston is a nice place to have a flat, but I'm also considering Hammersmith (having stayed there some years ago and recalling liking it).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 04, 2017, 03:09:50 PM
Dalston? I guess it has been gentrified a bit lately, especially since the extension of London Overground. Hammersmith is fine. Of course, you don't get much for your money these days. London will of course always be there and chugging just fine. Still so much development. What it's the capital of is the question.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 05, 2017, 05:35:20 AM
Okay, so what's the go with Trump's Twitter allegation about Obama bugging his office during the election campaign?

According to the Australian ABC article, Trump provided no evidence, but it seems pretty clear he was basing his claim on the Breitbart article.

Over on Unexplained Mysteries, Trump supporters are just about going into meltdown, with the basis of the allegation being (if I understand it correctly) the likelihood that Obama authorised the phone tapping which demonstrated Trump's team had been talking to the Russians.

So is that so? Or is it completely wrong? Or is it plausible?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on March 05, 2017, 10:06:20 AM
Standard Trump diversionary tactics: when under attack, attack back with bigger allegations.

It's extremely unlikely the Obama Whitehouse did what he alleges: it's illegal, it's not Obama's style; see http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trumps-early-morning-tweets for one.

Trump, though, gets much of his news from sites like Brietbart and Alex Jones' site, both of which are prone to breathless unsubstantiated conspiracy theories as I'm sure you know.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 05, 2017, 12:02:44 PM
If Obama had Trump's office bugged (amusing as Stephen King's flight of fancy about Obama doing it personally is, it seems unlikely!), it was likely with a legitimate warrant.  The only way one would be likely to be issued by a judge would be if there were sufficient evidence to prove that the Trump campaign had been involved in some nasty shenanigans.  So either Trump has evidence of a criminal activity and is releasing it by tweet instead of having it investigated, he's revealing evidence of an ongoing criminal investigation that doesn't make him look good, or he's making things up.  None of those say good things about him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on March 05, 2017, 03:00:37 PM
There is no way this Administration will last four years.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 06, 2017, 06:30:35 AM
There is no way this Administration will last four years.

Possibly so. But how it ends and what comes after worries me more than what the Trump Administration is doing now.

I find it hard not to draw comparisons between events in the USA at the moment and the closing decades of the Roman Republic. To that end, I strongly recommend reading Tom Holland's "Rubicon".
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 06, 2017, 08:07:12 AM
How does the administration end early though? As Jay has said, the system has become so corrupted by partisanship, the accusation would need to be treason before Congress would impeach him. Little misdemeanours wouldn't get a look in.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 06, 2017, 11:15:08 AM
For one thing, I wouldn't be surprised if he pulled a Palin.  "No, I'm done.  I've made America great, and I don't have to do this anymore."  He's discovering that this is work, and he can't just do whatever he wants to and expect people to do what he tells them to.

I also have several scenarios considered where he just dies, not least because he's seventy and not in great health.  Or I could see someone pulling a Guiteau and assassinating him because he hadn't, say, actually had Hillary Clinton locked up or even investigated again.  Or an accident involving a gun at one of his rallies.

Or, possibly, everything is getting too big even for the Republicans in Congress to ignore.  Treason sounds like it's coming up, to me.  Failing that, the Democrats could take back Congress in two years and do what needs to be done.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 06, 2017, 11:22:51 AM
As long as he continues to sign executive orders that dismantle environmental protections, restrictions on big business and fossil fuels the Republicans will continue to back him. If he had an attack of morality or consciousness and refuses to continue to remove years of progress then he will be out of the White House post haste.
Sad, but true. He's just a puppet for dangerous people and his whole Twitter fiasco is nothing more than a puppet-show on stage whilst the truly nefarious deals are being done in the shadows of the wings.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 06, 2017, 11:45:17 AM
...his whole Twitter fiasco is nothing more than a puppet-show on stage whilst the truly nefarious deals are being done in the shadows of the wings.

Agreed.  It looks like the Republican strategy is to allow Trump to distract the media while the Republican establishment hands the country back to the corporations and banks.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 06, 2017, 01:52:16 PM
But really what we need to discuss with such learned company is was the Louisiana Purchase a case of executive overreach?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 06, 2017, 03:27:21 PM
But really what we need to discuss with such learned company is was the Louisiana Purchase a case of executive overreach?

Not according to Madison, who placed it squarely within the power of the Executive to negotiate treaties.  But ssssh! or else Trump will want to build another couple of walls and make France pay for them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on March 07, 2017, 06:05:59 AM
I've read that tourism as an industry is taking a serious hit.
Me too. And it's really quite ironic, give that it's a major export industry. Many not in percent of our GNP, but certainly large in absolute dollars per year.

And not just tourism either. International business travelers are rightfully afraid to come to the US. If I were organizing one of the big international meetings of Internet engineers I used to attend, I would probably agree that the ones normally held in the US should be moved to Canada for the time being. They've often been held in Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal and I'm sure the Canadians would welcome the extra business.

I like to say that higher education is one of this country's most important exports, given how many foreign students you see at almost any university. The rest of the world has always looked to the United States as the world leader in advanced education, basic and applied research and market creation, and they try to send us their best students. That's something we have every right to be proud of. Yet Trump is happily dynamiting all that in the ironic name of "making America great again". Ugh. He has absolutely no idea what made this country great in the first place.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on March 07, 2017, 06:14:01 AM
Speaking of higher education, everybody knows there's a strong correlation between support for Trump and the lack of a college degree. I think I know why this is, and it's not the extra education per se.

It's that many young people meet foreigners -- lots of 'em -- for the very first time when they go to college. When I was a Cornell undergrad in the 1970s, I had fellow students from practically every country in the world, but especially (pre-revolutionary) Iran, China and India. You quickly accept them as fellow students who just happen to look a little different and speak English a little differently (although that part could be a problem).

Many people without the benefit of a college degree, especially those who grow up, go to public school and live their entire lives in rural areas, never get that opportunity. And so they (can be made to) fear those they do not know.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on March 07, 2017, 06:22:17 AM
Not according to Madison, who placed it squarely within the power of the Executive to negotiate treaties.  But ssssh! or else Trump will want to build another couple of walls and make France pay for them.
Hey, the German comedian Jan Böhmermann points out that Germany also built a big, beautiful wall and they even made the Russians pay for it!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 07, 2017, 08:08:59 AM
Speaking of higher education, everybody knows there's a strong correlation between support for Trump and the lack of a college degree. I think I know why this is, and it's not the extra education per se.

It's that many young people meet foreigners -- lots of 'em -- for the very first time when they go to college. When I was a Cornell undergrad in the 1970s, I had fellow students from practically every country in the world, but especially (pre-revolutionary) Iran, China and India. You quickly accept them as fellow students who just happen to look a little different and speak English a little differently (although that part could be a problem).

Many people without the benefit of a college degree, especially those who grow up, go to public school and live their entire lives in rural areas, never get that opportunity. And so they (can be made to) fear those they do not know.

That's certainly the impression I get from some of the more frothy-mouthed Trump supporters on Unexplained Mysteries - their fear of Muslims is so visceral and hysterical I find it easy to believe they've never actually knowingly met one. I'd suggest that they chill out and go have lunch at their local Turkish restaurant or Lebanese take-away, but then I wonder whether they actually have such treasures where they live...

And the irony is, you go to a Turkish restaurant here in Australia, and they're so strictly Islamic they serve wine and offer Christmas banquets...  ::)

And another thought - if you want to see a crowd of 100,000 fanatic Muslims: go to the cricket in Pakistan or Bangladesh, rather than the mosque. I'm not going to say I'd feel safe at a cricket match in Karachi in a crowd that big, but I don't think I'd be at risk from religious violence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 07, 2017, 08:32:56 AM
Just to add to my previous point about Pakistani cricket crowds, it's worth looking at the player lists for the five teams in the Pakistani Super League (the local competition of the short-short version of cricket - Twenty20): http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan-super-league-2016-17/content/squad/index.html?object=1075974

Even those who know nothing about cricket will see that all five squads have a decent number of black (West Indian) and white (English, South African, Australian and New Zealander) players. What's not so obvious is that most teams also have one or two Sri Lankan players as well, and for one club their captain is a Sri Lankan. Sure, I don't think there's a single Indian player there, but the cosmopolitan nature of the teams should be pretty obvious: the fans and the organisers want good players, not just good Pakistani players.

And while most of the games in the comp were played in the UAE, the final was played in Lahore in front of a crowd of 22,000 very excited Pakistanis.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 07, 2017, 10:58:53 AM
It isn't even just meeting foreigners.  It's meeting anyone who is not just like you.  I would suspect that, in many places, college-educated people are the ones most likely to have met black or Hispanic people, to have met people from multiple socioeconomic strata, to have met essentially anyone who lives a different lifestyle.  It's why I get so deeply annoyed at the concept of a "liberal bubble" coming from people where 90% of the population is the same ethnicity, religion, and class whose families have all lived in the same place for five generations.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on March 07, 2017, 04:24:51 PM
There's an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon can go to China.
I thought it was an old Klingon proverb.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 08, 2017, 02:44:41 AM
There's an old Vulcan proverb: Only Nixon can go to China.
I thought it was an old Klingon proverb.
No it's Vulcan. You must be thinking of revenge is a dish best served cold.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gwiz on March 08, 2017, 06:34:41 AM
I like to say that higher education is one of this country's most important exports, given how many foreign students you see at almost any university. The rest of the world has always looked to the United States as the world leader in advanced education, basic and applied research and market creation, and they try to send us their best students. That's something we have every right to be proud of. Yet Trump is happily dynamiting all that in the ironic name of "making America great again". Ugh. He has absolutely no idea what made this country great in the first place.
We've got a similar situation in the UK, foreign student numbers down since the Brexit vote and also, apparently, fewer UK students going to European universities.  This cutting off of links puts all the rhetoric about the UK going to be a great global player into perspective.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Dalhousie on March 12, 2017, 11:28:41 PM
I've just cancelled a visit to the US, it was only a short stop over to present at a conference.  Must too much of a potential hassle for this Malaysian born research to cope with.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on March 14, 2017, 09:18:22 AM
I think that's a shame. However the Trump presidency is so determinedly anti-intellectual that they probably think fewer foreign academics entering the country is negligible at worst and an achievement in "purity" at best.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 14, 2017, 11:19:08 AM
Two weeks till I travel. If I survive, I will report on how I got on, most critically that I survived. That Iraq is no longer on the naughty step may make things easier.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 14, 2017, 12:26:40 PM
I've read that tourism is already down and likely to decrease further.  Which, of course, will hurt the economy and cost jobs, just like everything else from the administration.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on March 14, 2017, 03:03:54 PM
I'm seriously thinking about buying a Resistance T-shirt for my next trip to Washington. If they stop me at the border, WIN! No more getting sent on business travel to the U.S.

Hehehe (evil cackle)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 15, 2017, 11:45:50 AM
The most recent executive order appears intended to just outright destroy any number of agencies.  I really don't think it'll hold up in court.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 16, 2017, 10:24:40 AM
The most recent executive order appears intended to just outright destroy any number of agencies.  I really don't think it'll hold up in court.

Which is why so much effort was made to keep the seat open on the Supreme  Court until a conservative swing justice could be appointed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 16, 2017, 11:16:58 AM
I'm not sure I see all the conservative justices there now as being willing to approve it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 16, 2017, 11:30:46 AM
It is being reported that he us cancelling Asteroid Redirect Mission. So preventing a future apocalypse is not considered important. Maybe he's expecting another apocalypse sooner?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 16, 2017, 12:47:52 PM
I'm not sure I see all the conservative justices there now as being willing to approve it.

No, they probably won't.  But still in the American system Congress holds the pursestrings.  The President can suggest a budget, but it's up to Congress to actually write it.  And from the early reports I've seen, many in Congress have no intention of cutting that deeply.  Some of the programs on the chopping block have historically had bipartisan support despite partisan fluctuations in spending for them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on March 16, 2017, 04:10:58 PM
I've read that tourism is already down and likely to decrease further.  Which, of course, will hurt the economy and cost jobs, just like everything else from the administration.

I thought of going with my GF. I think we'll wait about 3y10mds.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 16, 2017, 04:48:44 PM
Count your blessings. At least your country will still exist in 2020.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on March 16, 2017, 07:43:02 PM
Don't worry - we have our own problems, with rising crime and politicians who want to be "politically correct" and not do anything about it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on March 17, 2017, 02:30:56 AM
The US will recover. I think they are beginning to wake up to exactly what they have elected but they will recover. That's the benefit of a democracy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 17, 2017, 04:33:34 AM
Unfortunately the recent votes and votes to come shortly for us aren't the kind you can take back.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on March 17, 2017, 10:22:00 AM
I wish Bob B. hadn't stormed off. I wonder what his opinion is of Trump's cuts to NASA. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/16/trumps-nasa-budget-preserves-mars-mission-cuts-earth-science-asteroid-trip-education/99227378/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 17, 2017, 10:32:10 AM
To be fair, he was a bit outnumbered.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 17, 2017, 11:23:35 AM
He was, but he was also being incredibly dismissive of real concerns.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on March 17, 2017, 12:35:50 PM
I think he deeply believed that Trump was the right choice for the nation. However, my personal opinion is that he glossed over Trump's anti-science stance, which has become more apparent (at least in my eyes). I wonder if Trump's supporters in the scientific fields have been able to reconcile themselves with this.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 17, 2017, 03:52:38 PM
It's okay, Germany. Wir werden dein Freund sein.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 17, 2017, 05:55:51 PM
http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/03/17/trump-just-refused-shake-hands-germanys-angela-merkel-video/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on March 17, 2017, 09:27:42 PM
I don't understand what is going on.

Sure, big improvements are going to take time: dropping the unemployment rate, boosting the economy, etc... we won't see any improvement for a while.

The way President Trump is behaving, though.... what is going on? Sure, he's different and won't be the same as others, but the tweets, his comments regarding other nations, the claims he makes... they are completely detrimental to himself, his Administration and the US in general.

This is not just things a 'radical' would do when trying to 'clean up the swamp'. These are things I simply cannot explain.

It's as if he was deliberately trying to bring himself into disrepute.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on March 18, 2017, 12:01:27 AM
Sigh. And here I was hoping for a replay of the Thatcher/Palin meeting (that wasn't).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 18, 2017, 11:27:42 AM
I think he deeply believed that Trump was the right choice for the nation. However, my personal opinion is that he glossed over Trump's anti-science stance, which has become more apparent (at least in my eyes). I wonder if Trump's supporters in the scientific fields have been able to reconcile themselves with this.

I just literally don't understand how an intelligent person could have missed not only Trump's anti-science stance but his genuine incompetence.  Or the fact that his proposed policies are nightmarish.  The claim that there's no evidence that feeding poor children "works"?  Even if you needed the excuse to make sure that poor children don't go hungry, that's flatly wrong.  Every study done shows that the most effective way to improve children's performance in school is to feed them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on March 20, 2017, 11:23:12 AM
Many people so strongly object to paying taxes beyond the bare minimum that they may overlook the faults of candidates who promise to lower them.

However, this is an odd stance for a supporter of NASA and state-sponsored (that is, taxpayer supported) science. When government costs are cut, we see things without immediate tangible benefits being the first on the chopping block.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 20, 2017, 12:31:42 PM
Such as feeding poor children, yes.  Or, apparently, educating them--goodbye, Corporation for Public Broadcasting!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 20, 2017, 03:25:30 PM
Every study done shows that the most effective way to improve children's performance in school is to feed them.

Indeed, but I look at that program at a more basic level.  Trying to correlate children's performance in school with food programs certainly has value.  But for me the program shows results when kids don't go hungry.  You can feed hungry kids in the hopes of boosting their performance in school.  But you can also feed hungry kids because it's the right thing to do.  You succeed when there are fewer hungry kids.  That's how you measure the success of the program.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 21, 2017, 11:45:43 AM
Oh, definitely.  I don't disagree with the idea of just feeding all school kids, regardless of their income status.  But if you're not going to do it for compassionate reasons, there at least is a practical one.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 25, 2017, 08:25:40 AM
Every study done shows that the most effective way to improve children's performance in school is to feed them.

Indeed, but I look at that program at a more basic level.  Trying to correlate children's performance in school with food programs certainly has value.  But for me the program shows results when kids don't go hungry.  You can feed hungry kids in the hopes of boosting their performance in school.  But you can also feed hungry kids because it's the right thing to do.  You succeed when there are fewer hungry kids.  That's how you measure the success of the program.

And anyone cutting such a program no doubt agrees with you.

In the vernacular of the Australian Parliament, "The honourable member for Salt Lake City knows that no one recognises the value and importance of such a program more than me. But due to the fiscal black hole left to us by the previous government, the members on the opposite side of the chamber surely understand that we've had to make some tough decisions to help bring the budget back into surplus."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 25, 2017, 11:37:30 AM
Cutting these programs isn't helping the budget given the incredible increase the administration wants to give defense spending.  Or even just the cost of supporting the First Lady in her residence in New York.  I agree that it's best for their kid if he stays in his school at least through the end of the school year; continuity is good for a kid.  But if tough sacrifices are being made, maybe start there?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 25, 2017, 01:16:16 PM
Cutting these programs isn't helping the budget given the incredible increase the administration wants to give defense spending.

Indeed, the programs the President wants to eliminate have, in general, miniscule budgets compared even to the incidental costs of maintaining the opulent lifestyle of the First Family.  When transitioning from a liberal to a conservative government, it is common and expected to eliminate discretionary spending.  However, the programs in question have had bipartisan support in some cases for many decades.  While their budgets grow and shrink according to the preferences of the party in power, they have never been slated for wholesale elimination.  Thus the present budget recommendation is being viewed as more of a political statement than a plan for fiscal responsibility.

The proposed increase in defense spending is incongruous with the President's campaign promise to ask U.S. allies to shoulder more of the cost of coalition actions worldwide.  Among all the topics that could arise in this thread, military policy is likely to be the most contentious.  There are wide and deeply felt rifts in belief over what military action should be taken in what circumstances, by whom, and how paid for.  Whether it's true or not, Trump's campaign rhetoric was that America has been paying too much for the world's defense.  Then it gets harder to ask for more defense spending.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 25, 2017, 06:56:27 PM
Some 70% of Americans believe in government funding of PBS.  It's less than a percent of the federal government.  Barely a hundredth of a percent, in fact.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 28, 2017, 04:29:07 PM
I made it. Had some extra questions about past travels at the booth and they thought I might have to show my visa to secondary people but after checking said it wasn't necessary. And most significantly, the officer was really nice about it. Got through quickly enough to have to stand around waiting for baggage.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 29, 2017, 11:19:34 AM
Glad to hear that, and still angry for people who aren't that lucky.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on March 29, 2017, 11:37:48 AM
Glad to hear that, and still angry for people who aren't that lucky.

The Toronto School Board isn't going to send any more school trips to the U.S. until things are settled. They're worried what would happen if one student was stopped at the border, and wasn't allowed to go with the others.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 29, 2017, 05:40:44 PM
Which is a legitimate worry.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 29, 2017, 07:33:39 PM
I have an observation even more shocking than the shocks I saw over the wing if the 757 I was on between PHL and MCO.

I have narrowed the time period of Frontierland to between 1877 and 1890 due to a flag displayed over a refreshment stand which has 38 stars. But what is more shocking than shocks is that the pattern of stars is a rectangular grid of 5 rows and 8 columns where on the second and fourth row it is the left most stars which are missing, not the right, as most history pages seem to suggest.

I think Frontierland might be fake and Brer Rabbit was never kidnapped by Brer Fox. How did he escape anyway?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 30, 2017, 09:25:01 AM
Born and bred in a briar patch!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on March 31, 2017, 09:30:27 PM
Speaking of strange American things, is it a done thing to pay the principle of the bill on card and leave cash for the tip?

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 01, 2017, 05:24:49 AM
Cutting these programs isn't helping the budget given the incredible increase the administration wants to give defense spending.  Or even just the cost of supporting the First Lady in her residence in New York.  I agree that it's best for their kid if he stays in his school at least through the end of the school year; continuity is good for a kid.  But if tough sacrifices are being made, maybe start there?

To which the likely response would be...

"If the honourable Senator from Washington is asking whether I'm a patriot for my country...if the honourable Senator is asking whether I care about the safety of the people of this country...then I'm proud to say, 'Guilty as charged'. The honourable Senator from Washington may not care about protecting this land of ours, but I and my colleagues do!"

In other words, as soon as you talk about trading off any social welfare program against a military program the response will be to challenge your patriotism regardless of how wasteful or pointless it is, and remain silent about the social welfare program regardless of how beneficial it is.

Seriously, these sorts of speeches and sound-bites just about write themselves (more's the pity).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 01, 2017, 12:04:32 PM
Speaking of strange American things, is it a done thing to pay the principle of the bill on card and leave cash for the tip?

There's usually a tip line on credit card receipts.  However, if you pay cash for the tip, your server is guaranteed to get the tip that day; it's my understanding that this isn't always true with credit cards, depending on the restaurant.  (I've never worked somewhere you could accept tips--the rule at the Burger King where I did my food service was that you couldn't.)  If the management is really unpleasant, they might never get a credit card tip at all.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 01, 2017, 03:58:24 PM
So basically I did good.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Dalhousie on April 01, 2017, 06:57:31 PM
Cutting these programs isn't helping the budget given the incredible increase the administration wants to give defense spending.  Or even just the cost of supporting the First Lady in her residence in New York.  I agree that it's best for their kid if he stays in his school at least through the end of the school year; continuity is good for a kid.  But if tough sacrifices are being made, maybe start there?

To which the likely response would be...

"If the honourable Senator from Washington is asking whether I'm a patriot for my country...if the honourable Senator is asking whether I care about the safety of the people of this country...then I'm proud to say, 'Guilty as charged'. The honourable Senator from Washington may not care about protecting this land of ours, but I and my colleagues do!"

In other words, as soon as you talk about trading off any social welfare program against a military program the response will be to challenge your patriotism regardless of how wasteful or pointless it is, and remain silent about the social welfare program regardless of how beneficial it is.

Seriously, these sorts of speeches and sound-bites just about write themselves (more's the pity).

The responses to that sort of chest thumping idiocy also write themselves, but I will resist, as it is not my country (something I am very grateful for)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 01, 2017, 09:36:39 PM
So basically I did good.

Yes.  Cash tips are further appreciated because there's no paper trail to remind you to report it as income for tax purposes.  If you get what I mean.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 01, 2017, 11:18:24 PM
Cutting these programs isn't helping the budget given the incredible increase the administration wants to give defense spending.  Or even just the cost of supporting the First Lady in her residence in New York.  I agree that it's best for their kid if he stays in his school at least through the end of the school year; continuity is good for a kid.  But if tough sacrifices are being made, maybe start there?

To which the likely response would be...

"If the honourable Senator from Washington is asking whether I'm a patriot for my country...if the honourable Senator is asking whether I care about the safety of the people of this country...then I'm proud to say, 'Guilty as charged'. The honourable Senator from Washington may not care about protecting this land of ours, but I and my colleagues do!"

In other words, as soon as you talk about trading off any social welfare program against a military program the response will be to challenge your patriotism regardless of how wasteful or pointless it is, and remain silent about the social welfare program regardless of how beneficial it is.

Seriously, these sorts of speeches and sound-bites just about write themselves (more's the pity).

The responses to that sort of chest thumping idiocy also write themselves, but I will resist, as it is not my country (something I am very grateful for)

Oh, it's not my country either, but there aren't many Australians who can resist poking fun at Americans...sometimes in deadly seriousness.

In a way it's an indictment of Australian politics too, that I was doing only a small amount of paraphrasing of things I'm sure I've heard Australian politicians say.

And on that point, it has to be said that the popularity of Australian politicians with the Australian public has rarely been lower.

For example, we've recently had the Fair Work Commission (a government agency which oversees industrial relations) recommend cuts to pay rates for weekend work for people in the hospitality sector, a move applauded by the (politically conservative) government as boosting the economy. And then a couple of weeks later the government announced its intention to cut company tax rates to boost the economy. So apparently giving people more money is bad for the economy when it's given to low-paid people, but good when it's given to rich people.

Then there's the robo-debt welfare problem, in which an automated data-matching system is sending letters out to people claiming that they're inappropriately claiming benefits (often erroneously), while politicians are living high on the hog inappropriately claiming travel and accommodation benefits (often erroneously). The hypocrisy is frustrating.

Then there's been the business of power cuts. South Australia now generates about 30% of its electricity needs from renewables like solar and wind, but when a couple of tornadoes blew down transmission lines which led to a statewide blackout that was blamed on the renewables. Meanwhile, the current PM, who has previously endorsed the idea of a carbon emissions trading scheme is now sitting back while his ministers tout the benefits of building new coal-fired power station, and himself touting a multi-billion dollar expansion of the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme having recently lectured us on the importance of cutting government spending to reduce the deficit. *

To add to the problem, several states have privatised their electricity networks, with a number of power stations now being owned by foreign companies. Over the last few years several of these foreign-owned coal-fired power stations have been closed down, noticeably reducing the amount of electricity generated in the country, and there are now serious warnings of electricity shortages and blackouts as early as next summer. Naturally, manufacturers who rely on electricity to make things aren't thrilled, and both energy operators and political parties of all stripes are preferring to spend their time blaming each other rather than do anything about it.

So in the context of possible blackouts next summer, I'm going to be accelerating my plans to have some solar PV panels, a battery system, and a solar hot water system installed.

* Meanwhile, the skepticism about global warming coming from engineers, geologists and certain lobby groups is disturbing, even as the Great Barrier Reef experiences more frequent and serious bleaching events.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Dalhousie on April 02, 2017, 04:27:17 AM
* Meanwhile, the skepticism about global warming coming from engineers, geologists and certain lobby groups is disturbing, even as the Great Barrier Reef experiences more frequent and serious bleaching events.

Don't entirely discount the scepticism of geologists.  They know more about climate change than most scientists and the limits of mathematical modeling of complex environmental systems..  Many of them provide important corrections to some of the more silly things said about climate change.  But that's another topic.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 02, 2017, 12:24:50 PM
Shocking pollution in Trumpistan. The Swiss Family Treehouse had a neat system for extracting water from a stream using a water wheel and delivering it to the kitchen, but the kitchen discharges its grey water back into the stream upstream of the extraction.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on April 07, 2017, 03:27:19 AM
I should say that although I am against Trump, I am happy with what he did , bombing the Syrian airport. This is not enough, however. This Syrian tragedy should be stopped once for all. The seen of the kids suffocating from the gas is so heartbreaking  :'(  the hits on the Assad regime should be more painful.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on April 07, 2017, 05:39:08 PM
So basically I did good.

Yes.  Cash tips are further appreciated because there's no paper trail to remind you to report it as income for tax purposes.  If you get what I mean.

It doesn't really matter if you tip on card on cash. The employees and the business are only interested in the total amount of cash in the till and on card and the sum of the days sale. Where I live, tips are tax exempt, they have been ruled to be gifts. Unless a tip is "substantial" - like a days wage or more. Then the receiver is obliged to self-report it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 08, 2017, 11:28:06 AM
Here, servers are supposed to report all their tips; there are plenty of places in the US (blessedly not here) where servers are quite legally paid less than minimum wage, because it's assumed that tips will make up for the rest of their earnings.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 08, 2017, 05:35:26 PM
Well, this is going to be interesting.

I know President Trump doesn't have any type of strategy but I can't say I disagree with his ordering a Syrian strike. Being ex-military, I tend to sometimes favour military options where they are quick and leave the message 'do not poke the tiger!'.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 09, 2017, 02:06:59 AM
Well, this is going to be interesting.

I know President Trump doesn't have any type of strategy but I can't say I disagree with his ordering a Syrian strike. Being ex-military, I tend to sometimes favour military options where they are quick and leave the message 'do not poke the tiger!'.

As with a lot of what happens in the Middle East, I'm unsure about whether it was a good thing.

For example, I note that North Korea has pointed out the value of its nuclear weapons in the context of the attack on Syria - I think it's pretty unlikely that the USA would attempt an attack of this sort on North Korea...

For another thing, it certainly hasn't helped the relationship between the USA and Russia.

But something else to consider is that the attack came a day after Steve Bannon was removed from the National Security Council. As I understand it, the alt-right was unhappy with Trump getting the US more deeply involved in Syria, so I wonder what the relationship is between the removal of the alt-right's poster boy from the NSC one day and the attack on Syria the next.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 09, 2017, 09:54:51 AM
And even if it flawlessly succeeded at what it was intended to do--it hasn't--with no further political consequences--not likely--I don't like that Russia knew about it before Congress, when Congress is supposed to authorize military intervention in the first place.  I didn't like it when Bill Clinton intervened without Congressional authorization; I didn't like it when Obama did.  I wouldn't have liked it if Hillary had.  We have checks and balances for a reason.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on April 09, 2017, 06:07:33 PM
Problem is, if the president asks congress for permission to do a single operation, the target of that operation will get advance knowledge of the operation, and can either hide the intended target, disperse it, or beef up the defenses.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on April 10, 2017, 01:17:21 AM
Problem is, if the president asks congress for permission to do a single operation, the target of that operation will get advance knowledge of the operation, and can either hide the intended target, disperse it, or beef up the defenses.



Yep, there are basically two ways to get a message to the widest possible audience

1. Television.
2. Tell Congress.

Much as I detest Trump (IMO, he is a misogynistic nitwit and about the worst choice of US President in the 240 year history of the country), I do agree that the President should have the power to act without reference to Congress. He is, after all, the CinC of US forces.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 10, 2017, 11:59:08 AM
But not a dictator.  I don't care why he does it; the point is that he still has to follow the Constitution.  And after all, letting Johnson avoid going through Congress got us Vietnam.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on April 10, 2017, 03:53:57 PM
But not a dictator.  I don't care why he does it; the point is that he still has to follow the Constitution.  And after all, letting Johnson avoid going through Congress got us Vietnam.

You are probably right, but as a person with a military background, if I am a soldier, sailor or airman embarking on a dangerous mission, I sure as hell don't want the bunch of self-interested politicians in the leaking tank that is the US Congress knowing anything about it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on April 11, 2017, 02:00:03 AM
Meh. Just limit the size of what can be mobilized without consultation. Above a certain point, you aren't going to be able to get the troops moving without everyone knowing about it already.

It's been a while, but wasn't that one of the reasons the RDF was around?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 11, 2017, 05:55:44 AM
Should the President of the European Commission be allowed to deploy armed forces? He technically doesn't have any who are responsible to him so that does make it difficult.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on April 11, 2017, 08:04:50 AM
Forgive my political naivety, but isn't allowing the President to act unilaterally when it comes to military action against any other country because there's too much risk of the plans being leaked if Congressional approval is sought solving the wrong problem? Might even be advantageous if military plans were leaked on all sides, since that would effectively create a military stalemate where no actual shooting or bombardment would happen because everyone knows and is prepared for it, thus rendering it pointless.

Or am I just being too liberal and wishy-washy in being amazed and disappointed that we can, collectively, put people on the Moon, eradicate some illnesses, treat others very well and improve life in many ways, yet we can't seem to find ways to solve many differences that don't involve blowing the crap out of large groups of people?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 11, 2017, 08:35:12 AM
Not only that, but letting Russia know first that we were bombing a Russian ally has its own set of problems.  Some people who ought to have known in advance read about it in the media, a recurring problem with this administration.

The reason the President is not, according to the Constitution, allowed to declare war despite being C-in-C is that the Founding Fathers were generally (there were exceptions) terrified of a tyranny and didn't want a single person to be able to make decisions of that magnitude.  They were afraid that a single person would be more likely to act for foolish or selfish reasons.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 11, 2017, 10:38:59 AM
Well we vest such a power in the Queen and yet in 65 years she has never done it. So there.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Trebor on April 11, 2017, 03:58:54 PM
Well we vest such a power in the Queen and yet in 65 years she has never done it. So there.
The best quality in a leader is the ability to do nothing ever.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on April 11, 2017, 10:56:48 PM
Or am I just being too liberal and wishy-washy in being amazed and disappointed that we can, collectively, put people on the Moon, eradicate some illnesses, treat others very well and improve life in many ways, yet we can't seem to find ways to solve many differences that don't involve blowing the crap out of large groups of people?

In an ideal world, I agree, but it only works if both sides are willing to solve their differences that way, if at all.

In the real world, there are people/groups of people who will take advantage of your liberal wishy-washyness; they see it as a weakness to be exploited for their own gain. These people only understand "blowing the crap out of" things/people. If you don't do it to them first, they will eventually do it to you.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on April 12, 2017, 12:23:25 AM
[The founding fathers] were afraid that a single person would be more likely to act for foolish or selfish reasons.

Foolish; selfish, hmm. That reminds me of someone, his name's on the tip of my tongue....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on April 12, 2017, 07:43:07 AM
If you don't do it to them first, they will eventually do it to you.

Seriously? Sorry, but that attitude just seems to set up the whole problem in the first place. I have less of a problem with the idea of retaliation to an actual attack, but boy do I have a big problem to anyone who answers the question: 'why did you attack that person/town/country' with: 'well, they'd attack me some day so I thought I'd better do it first'.

It was put humorously by Dave Allen decades ago when he told the story of his father telling him when he went to school that there will be someone there who'll want to hit him. That's a bully. All bullies are cowards, so if you hit him first he'll run away. Within a week he was expelled for being a bully, going around hitting everyone first before they could hit him!

I think it's ridiculous to try to justify actually killing a bunch of people on the grounds that one day they will kill you. Really? When the first world war began every combatant believed, adamantly, they were waging a defensive war. Some a defence against actual invasion, some a defence against perceived future threats, but all believed they were defending their homes and all believed that right and god was on their side. Someone has to be the first to say 'actually, there's no point in killing and blowing things up, or we'll just end up with thousands of people getting slaughtered for the sake of capturing a few miles of blasted mud with nothing useful left standing on it', or we end up... well, we know how that ended up.

Anyway, my point was not to suggest how things should be done, but to point out how sad it is that we have advanced so much but still resort to sabre rattling and destructive action to show off our might rather than finding other ways to settle differences that don't involve the collateral damage of innocent deaths. However either side feels about it, surely everyone can recognise that destructive conflict is not in anyone's interests? I don't have a solution, but that doesn't mean I can't be dismayed about it or feel that people in positions of power should be doing their damndest to find that solution rather than making sure we all have the capability to blow up entire countries, just in case, and every so often blasting a little chunk of one of them just to make sure they get the message.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 12, 2017, 09:31:10 AM
God was on all their sides. But as the Professor said, perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 12, 2017, 09:37:37 AM
[The founding fathers] were afraid that a single person would be more likely to act for foolish or selfish reasons.

Foolish; selfish, hmm. That reminds me of someone, his name's on the tip of my tongue....

Yeah, can't imagine who.

I'm generally disdainful of people who say "the Founding Fathers thought," or similar.  The example I tend to give is that if Alexander Hamilton'd said the sky was blue, three guys at least would've gone to the window.  But I think it's quite clear from the remaining notes we have about the Constitutional Convention that preventing a Trump-like figure is exactly why the Constitution spells out the kinds of checks and balances it does.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on April 13, 2017, 03:33:27 AM
If you don't do it to them first, they will eventually do it to you.

Seriously? Sorry, but that attitude just seems to set up the whole problem in the first place.

Jason its not an "attitude" is reality

Do you really think there was any possibility of negotiating with Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930's? I mean, really?

On September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain returned to England from the Munich Conference. On the tarmac at Heston Aerodrome, West London, he waved a piece of paper about, and said "I have returned from Germany with peace for our time". He might as well have used it to wipe his arse for all it was worth....in less than 12 months Hitler's invaded Poland and soon after, the war began. Hitler never had any intention of honoring that agreement. He just used the delays yo build up his forces.

Do you think ISIS can be negotiated with... really?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 13, 2017, 07:03:09 AM
Do you think ISIS can be negotiated with... really?

It's a tricky one. We used to say that we couldn't negotiate with the IRA too. Or ETA.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 13, 2017, 07:23:27 AM
The question is could ISIS ever get war weary as the IRA did? And would we be able to offer anything? Putting an end to the Protestant Ascendency redux, which had been going on in Northern Ireland since partition, was something quite valuable that made the IRA able to think they had gotten something.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 13, 2017, 10:08:28 AM
As a general principle, though, not every first strategy should be "bomb them first."  We've managed to go quite a long time without bombing North Korea.  Stalin was awful, but bombing the Soviet Union would have been worse for more people than not, no matter what Churchill thought, especially once nuclear weapons became a possibility.  His people would have been better off without him, to be sure, but stalemate did happen between his regime and the US.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on April 13, 2017, 04:00:46 PM
Forgive my political naivety, but isn't allowing the President to act unilaterally when it comes to military action against any other country because there's too much risk of the plans being leaked if Congressional approval is sought solving the wrong problem? Might even be advantageous if military plans were leaked on all sides, since that would effectively create a military stalemate where no actual shooting or bombardment would happen because everyone knows and is prepared for it, thus rendering it pointless.

Or am I just being too liberal and wishy-washy in being amazed and disappointed that we can, collectively, put people on the Moon, eradicate some illnesses, treat others very well and improve life in many ways, yet we can't seem to find ways to solve many differences that don't involve blowing the crap out of large groups of people?

Well, yes, it might be advantageous if all sides leaked equally. But it's unlikely that we could get North Korea or even Russia to have the relatively tolerant approach to leakers that the Western countries have.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on April 13, 2017, 05:32:24 PM
Do you think ISIS can be negotiated with... really?

It's a tricky one. We used to say that we couldn't negotiate with the IRA too. Or ETA.

You can't really make that comparison.

The IRA was strictly a local group that attacked the British in Ireland and in England.
The ETA were similar but were based in the Basque Country and attacked the Spanish and the French.

Neither group...

► used brainwashed members with no fear of death as suicide bombers
► declared war on the rest of the world
► had tens of thousand of followers world-wide traveling to Ireland/Basque Country to join in the fight
► had followers world-wide carrying out terrorist acts.


The IRA were always willing to negotiate, its just that what they wanted (a unified Ireland and the British out of Ireland completely) was totally unacceptable to the British. It was the British Government who refused to negotiate.

Likewise, ETA wanted independence for the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa (in Spain) and Labourd, Basse-Navarre and Soule (in France). and were willing to negotiate for it. Neither France or Spain were willing to have talks.

ISIS, on the other hand, are totally uninterested negotiating. They have no a specific aim beyond controlling the rubble pile that is their patch of ground. They appear to be an angry horde of insane individuals who routinely murder people over what they wear, what they say and what they believe. They consider anyone who is not of their unique form of Islam has no right to be alive. Every single one of us non-believers; you, me, everyone on this forum, in all our respective countries, is Infidel, and is therefore marked for execution. We all have targets on our backs.

Negotiation with groups of this type of mentality and holding this kind of belief system, is impossible. There are only two things you can do;

1. Put yourself behind an impenetrable wall and hope that it really is impenetrable.

2. Wipe them out before they wipe you out.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: AstroBrant on April 14, 2017, 03:26:38 AM
I know I'm coming in late in this discussion, but I thought I should go on record.

I have never been a very "political" person -- at least not until Trump was nominated. I was shocked that there were enough Americans with so little regard for their government and so much contempt for facts, decency, integrity, intelligence, maturity, professionality, and competence as to actually put someone like that in a presidential race. Clinton was not a great candidate, but Trump was a nightmare. I was horrified when he was elected. I feel this marks the death of the American democratic ideal. I fear that the world will never view my country with respect again. What's worse, this could result in unprecedented international catastrophe. At the very least it validates all the worst kind of thinking that we find so commonly among conspiracy theorists, woo-woos, religious fundamentalists, and political extremists. For a long time, regarding such types, I've been saying, "These people serve on juries?? Vote?? Have children?? Drive cars??"

Well, now we see the results. Idiocracy is officially here. 

Since the election, my online time has been dominated by this frightening situation. It has caused me to neglect my video-making. In November, I was in the middle of a video response to a flat Earth video, and haven't touched it since. I really must get back to that.

Speaking of which, I've been asking several flat-Earthers if they were Trump fans. I'd really love to know how much of a correlation there is.

I know I will lose some friends over this. That's sad.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 14, 2017, 07:17:38 AM
If you don't do it to them first, they will eventually do it to you.

Seriously? Sorry, but that attitude just seems to set up the whole problem in the first place.

Jason its not an "attitude" is reality

Do you really think there was any possibility of negotiating with Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930's? I mean, really?

Yes, I think there was. Hitler was an opportunist - he kept pushing as long as he thought he'd face no opposition. Remember, when he gave orders for the army to reoccupy the Rhineland, they included the condition that if the French army made any move the German forces were to immediately abandon the reoccupation.

Had Hitler been faced by a united front of nations he would have been unwilling to risk war, because up to 1940 Germany simply didn't have the military strength to fight a two-front war. It wouldn't have removed Hitler from power but it would have kept peace in Europe (with the ongoing possibility of a military coup removing Hitler).

Quote
On September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain returned to England from the Munich Conference. On the tarmac at Heston Aerodrome, West London, he waved a piece of paper about, and said "I have returned from Germany with peace for our time". He might as well have used it to wipe his arse for all it was worth....in less than 12 months Hitler's invaded Poland and soon after, the war began. Hitler never had any intention of honoring that agreement. He just used the delays yo build up his forces.

But so did the British and French. It's worth considering the difference to the RAF an extra year of rearmament allowed.

The Polish invasion was only possible because someone else had managed to negotiate an agreement with Hitler. Had the British and French been serious about an agreement with Stalin (and forced the Poles to come along with them) Hitler wouldn't have had a hope of invading Poland. As it was German forces were being rushed over to the Western Front even before the conquest of Poland was complete.

Quote
Do you think ISIS can be negotiated with... really?

Yes. Everyone has their price.

Consider that for all their bluster about destroying old monuments they're actually making a fair amount of money from the sale of antiquities on the black market. So they're perfectly happy to compromise their principles if there's money involved. And once money is involved it's simply a matter of working out the most effective way to spend money in such a way as to ruin the organisation from the inside.

Let me give a couple of examples. Back in the 10th century, in that part of the world, the Byzantine Empire was fighting against a particularly skillful Muslim general named Sayf Ed-Dawla. But the Byzantines were also skilled in winning wars without having to do much fighting. So, for example, one year the local Byzantine general, John Curcuas, sent bags of gold with letters addressed to senior subordinate generals of Sayf. The letters thanked these men for their assistance. Curcuas then arranged for the letters and gold to fall into Sayf's hands. Sayf had his subordinates arrested and interrogated to find out what assistance they'd given to Curcuas. They'd done nothing wrong, of course, but the interrogations and loss of trust meant that Sayf's planned campaign for that year had to be abandoned.

Similarly, one of the methods used to defeat the Huk Rebellion in the Philippines in the early 1950s involved offering rewards for the capture of various leaders, but offering lower rewards for the highest-ranked leaders. This led to internal bickering between the various leaders over who thought themselves the most significant.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 14, 2017, 09:29:03 AM
^^All of the above.

If your favourite, or only, tool is a hammer then all problems look like nails.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 14, 2017, 10:30:56 PM
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-14/nothing-unpredictable-about-dangerous-north-korea/8444778

Here's an interesting assessment of North Korea, which pretty much tallies with comments I've made in the past over at UM about the current leadership of that delightful country.

Quote
...the Kim regime is dangerous, brutal and petulant but if anything, predictable.

= = = =

Incidentally, on the issue of whether you can negotiate with terrorists, another example I read about was a method used by the US military occupying forces in Iraq to defuse the threat of Al Qaeda: they set up a Sunni self-defence militia and invited any local Sunnis to join, no questions asked.

They were paid a small allowance - small in Western terms, but enough money that members of the militia didn't need to work. The result was that large numbers of Al Qaeda members deserted that organisation to join the militia, patrolling their communities alongside American troops they'd been shooting at only weeks before. The number of AQ attacks went down, the militia were respected by their community, and the cost in terms of salaries was far smaller than the cost of sending hundreds of resented American soldiers in to patrol the communities.

Of course, it raises a bunch of questions: What did the American soldiers think of walking the streets with men who'd probably been responsible for the deaths of their own comrades? Was it moral or ethical to take such a mercenary stand in relation to people who'd previously sworn their opposition to the USA?

But this is the problem you get when you treat a group or a country as some sort of eternal enemy and pre-emptively rule out any possibility of negotiation. For one thing, when circumstances dictate that you do have to negotiate with them then you look like a hypocrite (think of the various Western hostages in Lebanon back in the 1980s whose eventual liberation relied on American negotiations with their supposed arch-enemy Iran). For another thing becoming too doctrinaire or belligerent when speaking about a current enemy makes it that much harder to back down later if you need to ask for their assistance. Consider the way Admiral Bill Halsey spoke during World War Two about Japanese people in general, and consider that if his attitude had permeated the American occupation forces in the years after the end of the war, it would have been that much harder to use Japan as a staging post for American and allied forces in South Korea.

That's why, in terms of foreign relations, I think it's better to be a guarded pragmatist - you never know when today's enemy might be a useful ally.

So in that regard (with both North Korea and Syria) I'm fairly positive about Rex Tillerson as Trump's Secretary of State.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on April 14, 2017, 11:00:49 PM
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-14/nothing-unpredictable-about-dangerous-north-korea/8444778

Here's an interesting assessment of North Korea, which pretty much tallies with comments I've made in the past over at UM about the current leadership of that delightful country.

Quote
...the Kim regime is dangerous, brutal and petulant but if anything, predictable.

= = = =

Incidentally, on the issue of whether you can negotiate with terrorists, another example I read about was a method used by the US military occupying forces in Iraq to defuse the threat of Al Qaeda: they set up a Sunni self-defence militia and invited any local Sunnis to join, no questions asked.

They were paid a small allowance - small in Western terms, but enough money that members of the militia didn't need to work. The result was that large numbers of Al Qaeda members deserted that organisation to join the militia, patrolling their communities alongside American troops they'd been shooting at only weeks before. The number of AQ attacks went down, the militia were respected by their community, and the cost in terms of salaries was far smaller than the cost of sending hundreds of resented American soldiers in to patrol the communities.

Of course, it raises a bunch of questions: What did the American soldiers think of walking the streets with men who'd probably been responsible for the deaths of their own comrades? Was it moral or ethical to take such a mercenary stand in relation to people who'd previously sworn their opposition to the USA?

But this is the problem you get when you treat a group or a country as some sort of eternal enemy and pre-emptively rule out any possibility of negotiation. For one thing, when circumstances dictate that you do have to negotiate with them then you look like a hypocrite (think of the various Western hostages in Lebanon back in the 1980s whose eventual liberation relied on American negotiations with their supposed arch-enemy Iran). For another thing becoming too doctrinaire or belligerent when speaking about a current enemy makes it that much harder to back down later if you need to ask for their assistance. Consider the way Admiral Bill Halsey spoke during World War Two about Japanese people in general, and consider that if his attitude had permeated the American occupation forces in the years after the end of the war, it would have been that much harder to use Japan as a staging post for American and allied forces in South Korea.

That's why, in terms of foreign relations, I think it's better to be a guarded pragmatist - you never know when today's enemy might be a useful ally.

So in that regard (with both North Korea and Syria) I'm fairly positive about Rex Tillerson as Trump's Secretary of State.

Could these examples, and what has taken place recently, be Realpolitik?

(Realpolitik is politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises. In this respect, it shares aspects of its philosophical approach with those of realism and pragmatism. It is often simply referred to as pragmatism in politics, e.g. "pursuing pragmatic policies". The term Realpolitik is sometimes used pejoratively to imply politics that are coercive, amoral, or Machiavellian.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 15, 2017, 01:36:34 AM
Yes, that term would fit too.

And that circles back around to topics we covered a page or two ago, about the expenditure of money on various domestic programs...

In the years after World War Two the USA spent large amounts of money rebuilding Western European countries devastated by the war - the Marshall Plan.

Now obviously, there was a propaganda aspect to the plan, in presenting the USA as a generous donor country, compared with those nasty Communists in the Soviet Union.

But there was a pragmatic angle to it too. By rebuilding the economies of those countries they were able to start producing stuff to sell overseas, which gave them the money to buy stuff from the USA. In other words, the money the USA spent rebuilding the European economies was amply repaid to the USA. The Marshall Plan kickstarted something like 25 years of economic growth after World War Two.

So it frustrates me when people want to cut a program (any program) which costs money when those programs are easily demonstrated to save a lot more money down the track.

For example, a study pointed out the benefits of simply placing homeless people in a house - it would be cheaper in the long run for the relevant government to pay the rent than to have to pay the law enforcement and health costs of that homeless person staying on the street.

The problem is, of course, for many people (on both sides of politics) ideological purity is more important than results or costs.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 15, 2017, 05:13:06 AM
Incidentally, on the issue of whether you can negotiate with terrorists, another example I read about was a method used by the US military occupying forces in Iraq to defuse the threat of Al Qaeda: they set up a Sunni self-defence militia and invited any local Sunnis to join, no questions asked.

They were paid a small allowance - small in Western terms, but enough money that members of the militia didn't need to work. The result was that large numbers of Al Qaeda members deserted that organisation to join the militia, patrolling their communities alongside American troops they'd been shooting at only weeks before. The number of AQ attacks went down, the militia were respected by their community, and the cost in terms of salaries was far smaller than the cost of sending hundreds of resented American soldiers in to patrol the communities.

That reminds me of the book 'Once A Warrior King' by "David Donovan", about a soldier's experiences in Vietnam.

https://www.amazon.com/Once-Warrior-King-Memories-Paperbacks/dp/0753819562

 I don't have any experience in that area, but it sounds like a good plan.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 15, 2017, 06:52:35 AM
Another demonstration of Realpolitik comes from examining the claims of those who talk about a Muslim-Christian culture war. Such a culture war exists only to the extent that it serves the agenda of those who claim the culture war's existence.

Consider the Coalition from the First Gulf War - USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, etc etc. Plenty of Muslim countries which saw their interests better served by aligning themselves with the Crusaders than with their fellow Muslims.

During World War One, Germany and Austria-Hungary had no problems aligning themselves with Ottoman Turkey, and religious figures in Turkey had no problems calling down a fatwa on some Christians - that is, the UK, Russia and France.

And about 60 years earlier those same Brits and Frogs had been Ottoman allies in the fight against Russia - because once again geopolitics was far more important than religion.

In fact throughout history it's easy to find examples where Christians and Muslims found geopolitics trumped religion, such as in the 16th century when France was surrounded by the politically and religiously aligned Spanish and German Empires, so the King of France made an alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent of Turkey.

But the best examples come from the Crusades. Anyone who thinks the Crusades were solely about Christians fighting Muslims knows nothing about the Crusades.

= = = =

1. The origin of the Crusades lay in a religious dispute, but not one involving Christians. In the early 11th century the Seljuk Turks, then located in Central Asia, converted to Sunni Islam, and then vowed to unite the whole Islamic world for the (then powerless) Caliph in Baghdad. This meant conquering the Shia Fatimids of Egypt and their heretic Caliph in Cairo. On the way to Egypt some loosely allied Turkoman tribes decided on a bit of freelance raiding of the Byzantine Empire. The Emperor responded and his army was soundly defeated. The Turkish tribes occupied most of Asia Minor (that is, what's now Asian Turkey). Twenty years later another Byzantine Emperor, Alexius, asked for assistance from Western European leaders. He was looking for mercenaries. What he got was the First Crusade.

2. The Pope's model for organising the Crusade was the Norman invasion of England 30 years earlier, to the extent of formally blessing the standards of the commanders. Yes, back in 1066 the Pope at the time had formally endorsed Duke William's invasion because at the time the English church was considered to be heretical. Thus William's invasion had, among other objectives, the very religious objective of rescuing the English church from heresy. Much the same formulation was followed for the First Crusade.

3. The first target of the Crusaders was the city of Nicaea. However the Crusaders had little knowledge of siege warfare and Nicaea had high stone walls. Emperor Alexius soon turned up with a siege train, and the Byzantine siege engines knocked down a section of wall. The Crusaders informed Alexius they were going to attack the city the next morning, but the next morning they were astonished to discover Byzantine flags flying from the city's towers. Overnight Alexius had convinced the Turkish garrison to surrender and leave the city. The Crusaders were furious that Alexius had effectively stolen the city from under their noses, firstly because it now meant they wouldn't be able to sack the city, and secondly because the Turks were allowed to live and might fight them again in the future. But Nicaea's population was still overwhelmingly Greek and Christian and Alexius wanted the city back intact. He paid off the Crusaders with a large pile of gold - still cheaper than rebuilding a destroyed city.

4. During the march to Antioch, the Crusaders received an embassy from some Muslims who were seeking an alliance. Given that they saw their job as killing Muslims, the Crusaders dismissed the embassy. It turned out the embassy was from the Fatimids, who were just about holding the Seljuks at bay on the border of Egypt, and who saw the Crusaders as a useful ally in what they (the Fatimids) thought was a war against a common enemy.

5. After capturing Antioch (after a siege lasting more than a year), the Crusaders had to turn around and face a large Turkish army, consisting mostly of cavalry. But the Crusaders had lost so many horses to starvation that their army was now mostly infantry. Yet despite being hungry, outnumbered and mostly on foot, the Crusaders were victorious. No wonder the victory was seen as a miracle. But what the Crusaders didn't realise was that the Turkish tribal leaders saw their own commander as more of a threat to their independence than this Christian army and abandoned him, leaving him to fight the battle with only his own retinue. No surprise then that he was defeated.

6. The Crusaders, now full of religious fervour from their 'miraculous' victory, marched on to Jerusalem, which they captured. What they didn't realise was that the garrison was actually Fatimid, not Turkish. The Crusaders were so unaware of Muslim politics that in marching from Antioch to Jerusalem they didn't notice they'd crossed the front line of a completely separate religious war.

7. The First Crusade created a power vacuum in the Middle East. The Crusader princes immediately fell to arguing and fighting among themselves, and all sides soon realised the benefits to be gained by forming alliances with local Muslim tribal leaders, who were just as fractured among themselves as the Crusaders were. Within 10 years of the Crusader capture of Jerusalem we have records of battles in which both armies consisted of Crusaders and Muslims.

Now in the end the Crusaders lost their last cities to a united Muslim state (the Mamluk Sultanate), but this Muslim unity was the exception rather than the rule. The main reason the Crusader states lasted nearly two centuries was because for most of that time the Muslims of the region were divided among themselves, and saw the Crusaders as useful allies rather than a religious enemy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 15, 2017, 10:48:52 AM
So it frustrates me when people want to cut a program (any program) which costs money when those programs are easily demonstrated to save a lot more money down the track.

For years, I got my birth control through a program from the state of Washington.  A friend got a vasectomy through the program!  I forget how much the program was estimated to save the state every year, but it was a lot.  And, yes, certain lawmakers were routinely trying to end the program.

Quote
For example, a study pointed out the benefits of simply placing homeless people in a house - it would be cheaper in the long run for the relevant government to pay the rent than to have to pay the law enforcement and health costs of that homeless person staying on the street.

A friend or possibly relative of a friend insists that can't be true, because how much can homeless people cost?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 15, 2017, 02:51:31 PM
If you need more shame, there's this.

The Flower & Garden Festival at Epcot has a number of lovely outdoor kitchens. The Bauernmarkt in the Germany pavilion in World Showcase offers currywurst.

However, when they say currywurst with chips, it came with crisps, not fries. I have photographic evidence of authentic Berliner currywurst that shows the research had a small gap in it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 15, 2017, 06:41:49 PM
Quote
For example, a study pointed out the benefits of simply placing homeless people in a house - it would be cheaper in the long run for the relevant government to pay the rent than to have to pay the law enforcement and health costs of that homeless person staying on the street.

A friend or possibly relative of a friend insists that can't be true, because how much can homeless people cost?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-16/cheaper-to-provide-homes-for-homeless-rather-sleep-rough/8354284

Here's the article. As it happens, it was talking about last-resort housing, not ordinary housing. So there's some difference there. But the article summarises the costs:

Quote
Getting people off the streets was calculated to have the following economic benefits per person:
Type of cost   Savings per year, per bed
Health cost:   $8,429
Reduced crime:    $6,182
Individual costs:   $6,500
Improved human capital:   $4,236
Other:   $268
Total:   $25,615
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 16, 2017, 09:30:34 AM
Yeah, we presented him with facts.  He couldn't seem to grasp them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on April 16, 2017, 05:23:17 PM
Another demonstration of Realpolitik comes from examining the claims of those who talk about a Muslim-Christian culture war. Such a culture war exists only to the extent that it serves the agenda of those who claim the culture war's existence.

Consider the Coalition from the First Gulf War - USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, etc etc. Plenty of Muslim countries which saw their interests better served by aligning themselves with the Crusaders than with their fellow Muslims.

During World War One, Germany and Austria-Hungary had no problems aligning themselves with Ottoman Turkey, and religious figures in Turkey had no problems calling down a fatwa on some Christians - that is, the UK, Russia and France.

And about 60 years earlier those same Brits and Frogs had been Ottoman allies in the fight against Russia - because once again geopolitics was far more important than religion.

In fact throughout history it's easy to find examples where Christians and Muslims found geopolitics trumped religion, such as in the 16th century when France was surrounded by the politically and religiously aligned Spanish and German Empires, so the King of France made an alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent of Turkey.

This concept makes great comedy

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 17, 2017, 01:33:40 AM
Great comedy (I used to love watching Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister) but there's truth in it too.

Over that 500 year period that Sir Humphrey talks about, England's/Britain's strategic security has been based on keeping Europe divided. Only a united Europe has the strength to invade Britain, so British foreign policy involves opposing any state on the road to controlling/uniting Europe. Hence: backing the Dutch against Spain in the late 16th century; backing the alliance against Louis XIV in the late 17th century *; backing various coalitions against Napoleon in the early 19th century; backing the Entente against Germany in WW1; opposing Germany in WW2; and backing NATO against the USSR.

* One of the reasons for Parliament overthrowing James II in 1688 was his desire to ally with France, which was severely against England's strategic interests.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 17, 2017, 01:46:51 AM
Meanwhile, in South Korea...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-17/pence-north-korea/8447606

Quote
Pointing to the quarter-century since North Korea first obtained nuclear weapons, the Vice President said a period of patience followed.

"But the era of strategic patience is over," he warned.

I wonder what the South Korean government thinks about that. I suspect they'd be keen to try to stretch things out as long as they can, given the number of artillery pieces pointing at Seoul.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 17, 2017, 06:53:41 PM
For example, a study pointed out the benefits of simply placing homeless people in a house - it would be cheaper in the long run for the relevant government to pay the rent than to have to pay the law enforcement and health costs of that homeless person staying on the street.

That study took place (at least partly) in my city.  Your analysis is spot-on.  Not only did we save money by simply providing subsidized housing for the homeless, but (according to my friend who's a county prosecutor) so much of the crime associated with homelessness such as drug dealing was reduced.  That resulted in a safer city and lower costs of public law enforcement and court proceedings.  The situation is objectively improved across the board when homelessness isn't made a law-enforcement problem.  But alas you're correct:  the notion of "coddling" the homeless was ultimately politically unsustainable.

As it regards arts programs, I like to note that we observe cultures with subsistence economies still allocating their scarce resources to their "arts" programs such as traditional celebrations, dance, visual art, etc.  These forms of expression are deeply rooted in who we are as a species.  Of course there's the famous (and perhaps apocryphal) Churchill quote.  When it was suggested that Britain forego its arts in favor of the war effort, Churchill responded:  "Then what are we fighting for?"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on April 18, 2017, 02:05:27 AM
Next......tactical patience.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 18, 2017, 03:35:32 AM
I wonder if this is what's been needed? Okay, try diplomacy and patience but at a certain point you have to take some type of action. Back about 10 or so years ago, the DPRK was thought to have only one or two "deliverable" nuclear weapons... and that was short range with their largest delivery vehicles. That's now up to 15 or so and their bombs are getting smaller... and their launch vehicles are getting a longer range with bigger payloads.

If left unchecked, at a certain point they are going to pose a serious threat to numerous nations.

Perhaps now is the time to put the brakes on, take away their dangerous toys. The solution would ideally involve China but how long do you wait? One moment you have a yappy puppy... the next, you have a fully grown savage dog.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 18, 2017, 04:28:13 AM
I wonder if this is what's been needed? Okay, try diplomacy and patience but at a certain point you have to take some type of action. Back about 10 or so years ago, the DPRK was thought to have only one or two "deliverable" nuclear weapons... and that was short range with their largest delivery vehicles. That's now up to 15 or so and their bombs are getting smaller... and their launch vehicles are getting a longer range with bigger payloads.

If left unchecked, at a certain point they are going to pose a serious threat to numerous nations.

Perhaps now is the time to put the brakes on, take away their dangerous toys. The solution would ideally involve China but how long do you wait? One moment you have a yappy puppy... the next, you have a fully grown savage dog.

Possibly...

The thing is, though, the ultimate objective of the Kim regime is survival. Both Kim and his generals would be well aware that going to war would result in at least the loss of their cushy lifestyle and at worst death. Why would they do anything to risk that?

My understanding of the strategic purpose of North Korea's nuclear weapons is to discourage anyone from attacking them for fear of getting a nuclear reprisal. At the moment that reprisal would be against South Korea or Japan, which might not be enough to discourage the USA. But consider, they've had the ability to rain nuclear destruction down on those two countries for several years and haven't done so - they don't because they know if they do it means the end of their cushy lifestyle...etc etc.

So I think we should see their nuclear arsenal as defensive or retaliatory rather than offensive. And that's what makes America's current threats so dangerous - it brings about exactly the circumstances in which the North Koreans would feel the need to use their weapons.

I think I'd prefer the USA just quietly pay a billion dollars a year into a Swiss bank account for Kim's personal use (that is, for distribution among the generals to keep them on-side *). In the long run it'd be cheaper than war.

* And if the Americans wanted to be vindictive, drop a hint to the generals that Kim was getting two billion a year and have them all wonder how Kim was spreading it around.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on April 18, 2017, 05:10:41 PM
On another forum I frequent, the simple solution to the North Korean problem was suggested, possibly only half jokingly as :
Quote
"South Korea should surrender, and welcome in their brothers from the North with open arms.  The Kim regime would last about two weeks..."
:)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on April 18, 2017, 09:17:08 PM
If left unchecked, at a certain point they are going to pose a serious threat to numerous nations.

Exactly. We here in Canada have 'no interest' in this, but if they nail Seattle, the closest American city except for perhaps Anchorage, we'll have to abandon Vancouver, which would to say the least make me deeply unhappy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on April 24, 2017, 04:59:30 PM
I wonder if this is what's been needed? Okay, try diplomacy and patience but at a certain point you have to take some type of action. Back about 10 or so years ago, the DPRK was thought to have only one or two "deliverable" nuclear weapons... and that was short range with their largest delivery vehicles. That's now up to 15 or so and their bombs are getting smaller... and their launch vehicles are getting a longer range with bigger payloads.

If left unchecked, at a certain point they are going to pose a serious threat to numerous nations.

Perhaps now is the time to put the brakes on, take away their dangerous toys. The solution would ideally involve China but how long do you wait? One moment you have a yappy puppy... the next, you have a fully grown savage dog.

Possibly...

The thing is, though, the ultimate objective of the Kim regime is survival. Both Kim and his generals would be well aware that going to war would result in at least the loss of their cushy lifestyle and at worst death. Why would they do anything to risk that?

That assumes that Kim and his regime have, in Adam Savage's famous phrase, accepted our reality and not substituted their own.

But Kim isn't even a garden-variety dictator who thrust his own way to power. He's the son of one, and has been given near-divine veneration all his life. How he sees the world must be incredibly different from how someone from the West would see it. He appears to truly see his position as some sort of divine right. How dangerous is it to play with nukes when you're the Chosen One? All his life has been a guaranteed win. I presume even as a toddler no one ever won at making sandcastles with him. The thought of losing probably is beyond his ken.

His mental state is probably something similar to Saddam Hussein, who could have ruled in comfort until he died a natural death if he'd understood the limits of his power, and that God wouldn't automatically make his the winning play every time the roulette wheel was spun.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on April 24, 2017, 07:36:47 PM
(https://s30.postimg.org/69tp92569/360344225_21ab62e2dd_o.jpg)
  "North Korea follows Songun, or "military-first" policy.[34] It is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve, and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, the United States and India.[35]"

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea

  He may well think he can take on any and all comers.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 24, 2017, 09:50:16 PM
I wonder if this is what's been needed? Okay, try diplomacy and patience but at a certain point you have to take some type of action. Back about 10 or so years ago, the DPRK was thought to have only one or two "deliverable" nuclear weapons... and that was short range with their largest delivery vehicles. That's now up to 15 or so and their bombs are getting smaller... and their launch vehicles are getting a longer range with bigger payloads.

If left unchecked, at a certain point they are going to pose a serious threat to numerous nations.

Perhaps now is the time to put the brakes on, take away their dangerous toys. The solution would ideally involve China but how long do you wait? One moment you have a yappy puppy... the next, you have a fully grown savage dog.

Possibly...

The thing is, though, the ultimate objective of the Kim regime is survival. Both Kim and his generals would be well aware that going to war would result in at least the loss of their cushy lifestyle and at worst death. Why would they do anything to risk that?

That assumes that Kim and his regime have, in Adam Savage's famous phrase, accepted our reality and not substituted their own.

But Kim isn't even a garden-variety dictator who thrust his own way to power. He's the son of one, and has been given near-divine veneration all his life. How he sees the world must be incredibly different from how someone from the West would see it. He appears to truly see his position as some sort of divine right. How dangerous is it to play with nukes when you're the Chosen One? All his life has been a guaranteed win. I presume even as a toddler no one ever won at making sandcastles with him. The thought of losing probably is beyond his ken.

His mental state is probably something similar to Saddam Hussein, who could have ruled in comfort until he died a natural death if he'd understood the limits of his power, and that God wouldn't automatically make his the winning play every time the roulette wheel was spun.

Re: the bolded text. I don't think so. He wasn't Kim Jong-Il's oldest son, which means there must have been some sort of selection process at which he excelled. On top of that have been the occasional purges, sometimes of close relatives (including uncle and older half-brother).

This suggests to me he's someone with a ruthless survival streak, and in turn this makes me think he's more likely to be a pragmatist.

Sure, I could be wrong - I'm not an expert on North Korea - but that's how I read his behaviour.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 25, 2017, 03:09:09 AM
Let's say Kim gets ideas above his station and tries it on. The moment he does, he's dead and North Korea is dead. Given the provocation, the Allies swarm into North Korea, ending the division. China at this point cares far more about trade with the rest of the world than it does about their goofy pet project and they know that a united Korea is far more of a business opportunity.

But what happens after the fall of Pyongyang?  They can't just declare the Wall fallen and be done with it. North Korea is far more of an alien landscape than East Germany ever was. There would need to be a period where North Korea is an occupied zone, to be rehabilitated before proper unity can be achieved.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 25, 2017, 10:51:03 AM
Also, he's the grandson of the guy who seizes power--and his long-dead grandfather still officially runs the government.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on April 27, 2017, 09:36:10 PM
[...] threat to numerous nations.

Exactly. We here in Canada have 'no interest' in this [....]

  It's fun to be smug when you have "no interest" (like I really think the DPRK has the ability to deliver any kind of payload to North America.)

  How quickly things change. I'm interested now. We, and I mean BC, not Canada per se, are trying to get into a trade war with the US. Probably a bad idea. All you can do is laugh. Right in the middle of a provincial election even.

(https://s11.postimg.org/c40lxhy0j/clark-and-trump-composite_1.jpg)

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=/amp/s/sec.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/christy-clark-v-donald-trump-the-proverbial-knife-to-the-gun-fight/article34831213/%253Fservice%253Damp&ved=0ahUKEwi4soyK-sXTAhUT9GMKHU-SC6EQiJQBCBwwAA&usg=AFQjCNHiNndMvui07iNx47m4ZbbHCkBIwg&sig2=0XfL6FRKvqkPSh58a8qbaA

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-moves-to-ban-u-s-coal-transport-in-retaliation-for-softwood-duties-1.4086688
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on April 28, 2017, 08:25:15 AM
[...] threat to numerous nations.

Exactly. We here in Canada have 'no interest' in this [....]

  It's fun to be smug when you have "no interest" (like I really think the DPRK has the ability to deliver any kind of payload to North America.)

  How quickly things change. I'm interested now. We, and I mean BC, not Canada per se, are trying to get into a trade war with the US. Probably a bad idea. All you can do is laugh. Right in the middle of a provincial election even.

(https://s11.postimg.org/c40lxhy0j/clark-and-trump-composite_1.jpg)

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=/amp/s/sec.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/christy-clark-v-donald-trump-the-proverbial-knife-to-the-gun-fight/article34831213/%253Fservice%253Damp&ved=0ahUKEwi4soyK-sXTAhUT9GMKHU-SC6EQiJQBCBwwAA&usg=AFQjCNHiNndMvui07iNx47m4ZbbHCkBIwg&sig2=0XfL6FRKvqkPSh58a8qbaA

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-moves-to-ban-u-s-coal-transport-in-retaliation-for-softwood-duties-1.4086688
The last time British Columbia got into a dispute with America, Germany gave them a bunch of Canada's islands.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on April 28, 2017, 12:52:00 PM
There's an odd call-in show going on on public radio (I never seem to tune in early enough to catch the name). The interesting part is they are making a huge effort to get equal numbers of callers self-identified as from different ends of the current political divide.

In any case, most recent show they were asking for letter grades for Trump's first hundred days. The grades were not on a spectrum. A small variety of D's, plus and minus, maybe a C or two. And then, on the other end. A+. Across the board, every single caller. Not the slightest sign of "maybe he isn't quite what we hoped," much less, "Oops." Instead a firm "absolutely the greatest president ever, doing every single thing perfectly."

I'm sorry but I see disconnect here.


(And, no, it isn't helping that in the wider world of debate those opposing Trump oppose him on what HE is doing and saying. Trump supporters still reach for "but Obama....but Hillary....")
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: onebigmonkey on April 28, 2017, 03:38:27 PM
Apparently it's not the job he thought it would be..

(http://i.imgur.com/X1oKDKt.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on April 28, 2017, 05:02:28 PM
The last time British Columbia got into a dispute with America, Germany gave them a bunch of Canada's islands.

  Oh yeah - the Pig War. I'd forgotten all about that. I guess I learned about it in high school,  but I only learned this interesting detail today:

  "As a result of the negotiations, both sides agreed to retain joint military occupation of the island until a final settlement could be reached, reducing their presence to a token force of no more than 100 men.[6] The "English Camp" was established on the north end of San Juan Island along the shoreline, for ease of supply and access; and the "American Camp" was created on the south end on a high, windswept meadow, suitable for artillery barrages against shipping.[8] Today the Union Jack still flies above the "English Camp", being raised and lowered daily by park rangers, making it one of the few places without diplomatic status where U.S. government employees regularly hoist the flag of another country."

  I wonder where the other few places are, and which flags are involved.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 29, 2017, 01:28:16 AM
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/04/28/4660433.htm

Here's an analysis of Trump which makes a lot of sense to me. It assesses him as a guy who's addicted to winning, and to him the only purpose of other people is to help him win whatever his current objective is. But people shouldn't expect any loyalty from him - his interest in them ends as soon as he's reached his objective (or redefined it in such a way that they're no longer useful to him).

This assessment helps explain why, for example, he hasn't bothered to prosecute Hillary Clinton: he only said that during the election campaign because it helped win him votes. Now that he's won the election he'll only pursue a prosecution against Clinton if it will help him reach some new objective.

= = = =

In this regard Trump reminds me of the Australian businessman Kerry Packer. Packer was also the son of a successful businessman, and one who ruthlessly pursued desired objectives, using and discarding people depending on how useful or obstructive they were in reaching his objectives. A Packer story might help explain things...

Back in the 1970s the (government-owned) Australian Broadcasting Commission held the rights to broadcast international cricket on television. It was a threadbare operation, undertaken with a grand total of two cameras, but it still rated well. Packer saw that holding the broadcast rights for such a high-rating sport would allow him to earn heaps in advertising dollars, so he offered a huge amount of money (more than five times what the ABC paid) for the rights, but was turned down. So Packer set up a rebel cricket operation called World Series Cricket (WSC), and he recruited international cricketers from around the world by paying them enough that they could be full-time cricketers (at the time even international cricketers were paid a pittance and needed a full-time job outside cricket). He then screened his own games on his own TV network, in direct competition with the international cricket on the ABC.

It helped that Packer was a cricket fanatic in his own right. He encouraged all sorts of innovations which are now standard to either the game or the process of broadcasting the game (one-day cricket, coloured uniforms, stump microphones, anything up to a dozen cameras). And he also cared for the cricketers - when one cricketer was hit in the head by a cricket ball and needed to get to hospital quickly, Packer put the player in his own limousine and got him there faster than waiting for an ambulance. As a result of Packer's attention to detail WSC soon out-rated the official product, which was now looking distinctly old-fashioned.

After two years Packer finally obtained the rights to broadcast international cricket, and he proceeded to make every last dollar from advertising that he'd expected. He therefore wound up WSC and moved on to his next business venture.

But the thing that struck me about the story was the experience of the cricketers: they appreciated Packer's interest in them, they liked being paid enough that they could play cricket full-time, and they were affected by his concern for the injured cricketer. But once WSC ended, so did the careers of quite a few of the cricketers, as there was now only one game in town, not two. Packer tore up the players' contracts and left them to compete for the now-smaller number of positions available; his interest in the players' welfare simply evaporated, as they were no use to him achieving his next business objective.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on May 02, 2017, 04:44:41 AM
Suddenly Britain not looking so bad, maybe?
Ugh. I take it back. I'm a bit worried that the PM has gotten a bit drunk on the "je suis Napolean" koolaid. And the alternative is a nutjob who never met a terrorist he didn't like.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on May 02, 2017, 02:44:29 PM
I'm becoming more and more convinced I've been magically transplanted into a political satire novel. Because in no real universe would they elect a president who, in a rambling format, would indicate that Andrew Jackson, more than 15 years dead, would have "worked out" the Civil War, and claim that no one until said president had ever wondered why the Civil War occurred. And if he did, there's no way that his supporters wouldn't have started quiet negotiations of their own to gently but firmly remove him from power.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on May 02, 2017, 06:06:25 PM
I watched the '100 Days' speech President Trump gave to his supporters and frankly I was dumbfounded: couldn't those people recognise the same rhetoric? Had they been watching a different person for the last few months?

I just can't help but think of this:

(http://mste.illinois.edu/patel/chisquare/gifs/peanutsfair.gif)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 09, 2017, 08:58:43 PM
Today...

(http://i68.tinypic.com/vfio0z.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 10, 2017, 11:45:21 AM
I hope this is enough for some of the Republican Senators to recover their backbones and ethics.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 10, 2017, 12:47:06 PM
I hope this is enough for some of the Republican Senators to recover their backbones and ethics.

I hope so too, but Mitch McConnell has already dismissed the need for a special prosecutor, so it looks like he is going to continue to put party loyalty ahead of the best interests of your country.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 11, 2017, 12:30:27 PM
Shocked, shocked, winnings.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 15, 2017, 07:12:52 PM
Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_trumpintel-0504pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.3d6bf698894f)

 ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on May 16, 2017, 02:42:18 AM
Does this man have ANY redeeming qualities?
Read one of the linked transcripts in this article. Truly he is the singularity at the centre of a black hole of ignorance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/opinion/donald-trump-degradation-of-the-language.html?_r=0
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on May 16, 2017, 05:11:59 AM
Does this man have ANY redeeming qualities?... Truly he is the singularity at the centre of a black hole of ignorance.

Like the bumper sticker said:--

ELECT A CLOWN -
EXPECT A CIRCUS


:) :) :) :) :)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 16, 2017, 11:25:09 AM
Our nation's epitaph is going to be "but her e-mails."  I literally saw a screencap from Fox News (I think from their website) that asked yesterday if she was going to be investigated some more.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on May 17, 2017, 09:45:58 AM
Here's something worth pondering.

Penn Jillette talks, in his latest podcast, about his trip to London last week. He describes being astounded how the media is about seemingly entirely about American stories with the occasional reference to himself.

Erm, did he not notice we have a general election on?

Is this what they call confirmation bias?

He sees the stories of interest to him and ignores those that are not. So the reason he thinks it's wall to wall America is because that is the only time he's actually paying attention. The 90% of time it's about domestic news, most likely the election, he tunes out. And so when reviewing the balance of coverage, he incorrectly perceives it as being more American centred than it is.

I feel this is somehow relevant to this topic.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on May 17, 2017, 10:57:53 AM
Our nation's epitaph is going to be "but her e-mails."  I literally saw a screencap from Fox News (I think from their website) that asked yesterday if she was going to be investigated some more.

Seriously, if I were Hilary Clinton, I'd have my bags packed and a place to go with no extradition. Because I can see Trump reaching the conclusion that a good show trial is the best way to divert attention from his actions. I'm sure he remembers how popular the "lock her up" chants were at his rallies.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on May 18, 2017, 01:18:40 AM
Here's an excellent opinion piece from Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post about Trump's problems.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/05/15/a-shake-up-may-make-things-worse/?utm_term=.702844c8e02f

Quote
The president has a congenital inability to take personal responsibility for his own mistakes.

...every error is someone else’s fault...

...when they are fired, aides have more incentive to rat out their former colleagues and boss.

Rather than a career-making move, going to work for Trump nearly guarantees one will appear dishonest and gullible. With each round of replacements the quality likely diminishes. Loyalty — toadyism, actually — is such an overarching requirement in this White House that new staff is unlikely to bring new ideas and/or help guide the president away from his own worst instincts.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 18, 2017, 12:22:38 PM
I would think most truly competent people would have looked at his record and refused to have anything to do with him.  Especially anywhere he, personally, would be paying their salaries.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on May 27, 2017, 06:54:57 PM
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/05/27/trump-tired-ride-golf-cart-foreign-leaders-walked.html

Says it all, really.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on May 28, 2017, 04:06:04 AM
To be fair, isn't he the oldest of the lot?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 28, 2017, 11:31:03 AM
He also believes that exercise is bad for you because you have a finite amount of energy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on May 28, 2017, 01:35:34 PM
To be fair, isn't he the oldest of the lot?

He's also the fattest, the dumbest, the most obnoxious and the most incompetent.Heck, it was only 700 metres of a walk!

I did laugh at this though....Macron did absolutely the right thing here in going straight to his allies and friends.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 28, 2017, 06:29:31 PM
To be fair, isn't he the oldest of the lot?
Yeah, but he has been known to brag about how physically fit he is.

Sent from my SM-N920W8 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on May 28, 2017, 07:55:54 PM
To be fair, isn't he the oldest of the lot?

He's also the fattest, the dumbest, the most obnoxious and the most incompetent.Heck, it was only 700 metres of a walk!

I did laugh at this though....Macron did absolutely the right thing here in going straight to his allies and friends.
He went straight for Merkel.

France and Germany are united like never before. A thousand years of British foreign policy, to keep Europe from uniting against us, lies in ruins. Sir Humphrey would be apalled.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on May 29, 2017, 07:52:58 AM
So let's recap. The election was about a woman running on a campaign of vote me just coz, expecting to walk it against a buffoonish outsider who has said all sorts of reprehensible things and acted in all sorts of reprehensible ways but is able to overperform expectations by putting forward a bunch of outlandish populist policies that can strike a chord despite being hugely expensive, pointless and quite often counterproductive.

Why does this sound so familiar?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on May 29, 2017, 09:36:32 AM
To be fair, isn't he the oldest of the lot?

Yes, but he boasted about how he would be a powerhouse of a president. No golfing vacations or naps for him! No sirree. Not like that elderly woman who had to sit down just because she had pneumonia.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 29, 2017, 12:30:10 PM
So let's recap. The election was about a woman running on a campaign of vote me just coz, expecting to walk it against a buffoonish outsider who has said all sorts of reprehensible things and acted in all sorts of reprehensible ways but is able to overperform expectations by putting forward a bunch of outlandish populist policies that can strike a chord despite being hugely expensive, pointless and quite often counterproductive.

Why does this sound so familiar?

It doesn't sound like the election I voted in.  I voted in an election where an experienced woman presented a lot of intelligent campaign proposals that no one listened to because they'd been programmed not to trust her for decades.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on May 30, 2017, 04:06:31 AM
I would think most truly competent people would have looked at his record and refused to have anything to do with him.  Especially anywhere he, personally, would be paying their salaries.
Apparently not. I have a friend who works for a gaming machine company (slot machines, video poker, etc). Their company lost a few hundred $K by agreeing to sell some of their machines to Trump's casinos in Atlantic City before they went bankrupt.

Needless to say, my friend didn't vote for Trump.

I can easily imagine how it went for many of Trump's contractors and suppliers. They figured he was too big to fail, that if the investors were willing to support his projects then they would at least get paid. Trump milked this assumption to the hilt, then ridiculed the banks for being foolish enough to believe him. An incredibly dishonest man.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 01, 2017, 11:59:05 AM
Covfefe.  That is all.

Side note, whoever's doing the social media for Merriam-Webster is just killing it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on June 02, 2017, 01:07:28 PM
Covfefe

Is there somebody here who PUH-lease has the courtesy and intelligence to explain to we non-Americans what the hell that gibberish is all about?

Is it just another in-joke about The Chump? That clown you voted in as a President?

We don't always "get" this stuff down here in the southwest Pacific. We can't figure it out and we don't always have time to.  Our country, our lives, sometimes matter a little more to us than yours. We are left wondering who is telling the truth about American politics and who is bullshitting us.

In the last hour I have wasted 20 minutes scouring past issues of my local newspaper, trying  to find a piece where somebody wrote something about some chump talking people into investing in his schemes, and when something went bust, one or two of his companies or something, he berated the banks for trusting him.

I didn't cut the article out at the time because I thought it HAD to be just another stupid, sick joke. I couldn't believe that it was the truth. Even the meanest, nastiest rich people I've heard of in my country never stooped as low as that, and in any case, there's thankfully very few of them. Surely, no-one with half a brain would vote in as their president (of a country that's a little more important to the world than Jersey), some chump, some untrustworthy, bullshitting bastard who has done that.

Is it a joke or is it not? Am I and others, on the right track or not? Is there still some honour left in the USA? Or not?

Having no luck finding the paper version of the article, but during the search, finding equally horrific articles about the Potus, I Googled the few words I remembered and didn't find it, but did find this:

Quote
...don't you get the impression that Donald Trump gets some positive pleasure out of taking people who make the mistake of trusting him for a ride?

That's from a Paul Krugman who apparently has something to do with the New York Times.  Never heard of him before. But even if he's pulling our legs three-quarters of the time, everything else he wrote in the same article about the new Chumpcare sounds to me, in my ignorance, pretty bad for many Americans. Unless it's just another joke that nobody's letting us know about.

So besides telling us what Covfefe is all about, can anyone recommend some commentator on American affairs who is worth believing?

Some interesting names from my local paper (Manawatu Standard) are:

Jennifer Rubin - "Shake-up may make things worse" - "It's Watergate on amphetamines"
David Brooks - "The talent vacuum that is the Trump administration"
Ana Palacio - "Lack of leadership creates troubles"
Karl Du Fresne - ??? (Nah!  He's a Kiwi. But two days ago wrote an excellent piece about Vaxxing, free speech, democracy, tolerance, dissent, and sexist rants.)

The only article I liked was headlined, "Trump calls for quicker Mars trip."

Edited to add: Apologies to those who don't understand my use of Potus. Apparently it stands for President of the United States. Some months ago I read POTUS over and over and over and nobody ever bothered explaining this widely-unknown term, and I never imagined the "O" might stand for "of" because that's just not done in British English.  Nor is the upper case if the abbreviation is pronouncable, like Nasa, Unesco and Anzus. We all have our strange, illogical quirks - it makes the world interesting.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 03, 2017, 11:14:41 AM
We'd have to understand "covfefe" first.  The other night, somewhat after midnight, he tweeted, ""Despite the constant negative press covfefe".  Now, you'll note I'm putting the period outside the quotation marks, even though I normally follow American style guidelines and put it inside.  That's because I want to emphasize that there wasn't one on the initial tweet.  Obviously, he seems to have meant "coverage."  But he didn't finish the tweet, and he posted it.  And then I guess went to bed, because there was no follow-up for hours, and the tweet remained up the whole time.  (There's actually speculation that deleting tweets may, for him, violate federal law about preserving the President's communications, but so far as I know there's no real certainty there, and it's hardly as though this one went unnoticed.)  I had been quietly reading a book that evening, went online, and discovered perhaps a dozen or more jokes before giving up and Googling the thing myself, since none of them included any context.

All of this is weird enough--we were actually discussing the possibility of a Stalin situation, where he'd died and no one dared check on him--but initially, his press secretary made the claim that "he and a small group of people" knew what "covfefe" meant.  Which is obviously ridiculous.  Because it's not a word.  I've read that someone claims it means something in Arabic; it does not.  Another of his supporters proudly tweeted that it was proof that he doesn't focus group everything, which I suppose is true enough but not really the point here.  And because we are in desperate need for a laugh, we latched onto "covfefe" and wouldn't let go.  I maintain we don't have to; it's emblematic.

As for "POTUS," we in the US don't usually include "of" in abbreviations.  We do in this instance because that makes it--and SCOTUS, FLOTUS, and a few others--pronounceable.  (Supreme Court, First Lady.)  I'm aware of the "if it's a word, lowercase for most of it" rule in British English, but you'll understand that it took some getting used to.

And, yes, everything about the "planned" replacement for the Affordable Care Act is terrible for Americans, unless they happen to be rich.  That is true of pretty much every plan the administration has.  This includes a suggested maternity leave law that would only apply to married women.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 03, 2017, 11:16:15 AM
Oh, and, yes, I'm pretty sure that he's duped plenty of people and then said it was their fault for trusting them.  He's gone bankrupt repeatedly, including bankrupting a casino, which ought to be impossible to do.  They may be professional and not personal bankruptcies, but for someone who ran in no small part on his success as a businessman, that's not better.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on June 04, 2017, 05:34:47 PM
Oh, and, yes, I'm pretty sure that he's duped plenty of people and then said it was their fault for trusting them.  He's gone bankrupt repeatedly, including bankrupting a casino, which ought to be impossible to do.  They may be professional and not personal bankruptcies, but for someone who ran in no small part on his success as a businessman, that's not better.
I've heard it said (I can't recall where) that if he had invested his inheritance from daddy in moderately conservative index funds, he'd be worth far more than he is now. I can't and won't vouch for the accuracy of that statement, but it certainly rings true.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 05, 2017, 11:11:31 AM
I mean, we can't know without the release of his tax returns.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on June 06, 2017, 03:17:52 AM
Do you think that somewhere, rather than rolling in his grave, Richard Nixon is cheering? That he won't top the list of 'tainted' US presidents anymore?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 06, 2017, 11:33:23 AM
Honestly?  I think that Richard Nixon, for all his failings, still wanted what was best for the country, and Trump wants what's best for Trump.  Yes, Nixon saw "what's best for the country" through the eyes of it probably also being what was best for Richard Nixon, but he also legitimately thought hippies and so forth were bad for the country.  After all, Vietnam wasn't about power for Nixon.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on June 09, 2017, 02:29:23 PM
So let's recap. The election was about a woman running on a campaign of vote me just coz, expecting to walk it against a buffoonish outsider who has said all sorts of reprehensible things and acted in all sorts of reprehensible ways but is able to overperform expectations by putting forward a bunch of outlandish populist policies that can strike a chord despite being hugely expensive, pointless and quite often counterproductive.

Why does this sound so familiar?
It's like the world is stuck on repeat.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on July 09, 2017, 06:56:26 PM
Quote
Scathing, searing and brutal were just a few of the adjectives flying around social media on Sunday following an eloquent takedown of Donald Trump by ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) political editor Chris Uhlmann.

Speaking to Insiders from Hamburg, Uhlmann delivered a wrap on the G20 summit that has since gone viral, resonating with people from around the world and astonishing American political commentators.

https://twitter.com/InsidersABC/status/883829926993862656/video/1
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on July 22, 2017, 03:50:56 AM
Yup. Brutal and dead on target. Especially the bit about pushing fast forward on the decline of the United States.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on July 31, 2017, 05:05:42 PM
http://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-removes-anthony-scaramucci-as-communications-director-just-days-after-hiring-him-20170731-gxmnb0.html

Seriously - impeach President Trump before he actually does something that will kill people.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on July 31, 2017, 05:15:09 PM
http://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-removes-anthony-scaramucci-as-communications-director-just-days-after-hiring-him-20170731-gxmnb0.html

Seriously - impeach President Trump before he actually does something that will kill people.

To be fair, that was Kelly showing everyone that a new gunslinger is in town. Scaramucci* did say that he was a front-stabber. I guess he didn't expect that he was the one to be stabbed though.


*will he do the fandango? ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: sandopan on July 31, 2017, 08:27:58 PM
http://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-removes-anthony-scaramucci-as-communications-director-just-days-after-hiring-him-20170731-gxmnb0.html

Seriously - impeach President Trump before he actually does something that will kill people.

Trump has already killed quite a lot of people, if we take the radical, extremist view that Africans and Asians count as people.  His immediate predecessor killed many thousands, and the one before that had a truly impressive body count.  Had the November 2016 election gone the other way, the new US president would have come into office on day one with quite a long trail of dead bodies already behind her.  Whether Trump manages to send more people to their graves than his two predecessors or his election rival, time will tell, although I don't see a whole lot of reason to expect him to show any more restraint than they did.

None of them were impeached, before or after killing large numbers of Africans or Asians who are sometimes alleged to be people.  I’ll be surprised if that changes any time soon.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: sandopan on July 31, 2017, 08:32:15 PM
To be fair, isn't he the oldest of the lot?
Yeah, but he has been known to brag about how physically fit he is.

Sent from my SM-N920W8 using Tapatalk

He's possibly more fit than William Howard Taft was.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 01, 2017, 10:35:16 AM
http://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-removes-anthony-scaramucci-as-communications-director-just-days-after-hiring-him-20170731-gxmnb0.html

Seriously - impeach President Trump before he actually does something that will kill people.

Trump has already killed quite a lot of people, if we take the radical, extremist view that Africans and Asians count as people.  His immediate predecessor killed many thousands, and the one before that had a truly impressive body count.  Had the November 2016 election gone the other way, the new US president would have come into office on day one with quite a long trail of dead bodies already behind her.  Whether Trump manages to send more people to their graves than his two predecessors or his election rival, time will tell, although I don't see a whole lot of reason to expect him to show any more restraint than they did.

None of them were impeached, before or after killing large numbers of Africans or Asians who are sometimes alleged to be people.  I’ll be surprised if that changes any time soon.

Do you think that the leaders of any powerful country with military presence have never contributed to the death of anyone?

There's no one out there with clean hands. No one.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 01, 2017, 11:36:51 AM
He's possibly more fit than William Howard Taft was.


Though Taft, to my knowledge, didn't claim that the human body had a finite amount of energy and that exercise was bad for you.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 01, 2017, 11:37:52 AM
Oh, and regarding Scaramucci, because of when his official start date at the White House is listed, served I believe -16 days, which has to be some kind of record.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on August 01, 2017, 12:36:10 PM
What a name. That'll play great in the movie.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: sandopan on August 01, 2017, 12:59:57 PM
Do you think that the leaders of any powerful country with military presence have never contributed to the death of anyone?

There's no one out there with clean hands. No one.

There are lots of countries out there which have not openly declared that they are at war with an ill-defined enemy and that the entire world is a battlefield, so that everyone is a combatant, and may be killed at will.  In fact, to the best of my knowledge, only one country has done that.

Quite a lot of countries have not engaged in aggressive military action for many years, in some cases, centuries.  One country seems to have trouble refraining from doing so for five minutes.

But, some of the people alluded to in my post don't seem to have gotten the "it's all business as usual" message, given the blistering denunciations they issue of foreign leaders who do a small fraction of what they do themselves.  The next time Putin invades someone else's territory, or Duterte conducts a bunch of extrajudicial killings, you can explain why it's all good.

On other fronts, much of the news in the US recently has been about allegations that some other country attempted to influence the election.  Those people don't seem to have gotten the message that it's all business as usual either.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: sandopan on August 01, 2017, 01:07:33 PM
Seriously, if I were Hilary Clinton, I'd have my bags packed and a place to go with no extradition. Because I can see Trump reaching the conclusion that a good show trial is the best way to divert attention from his actions. I'm sure he remembers how popular the "lock her up" chants were at his rallies.

That seems like it would have been a good to thing to think about before she repeatedly voted in the senate to strengthen the government's ability to detain suspects indefinitely, or just assassinate them.  But I suppose she always figured she would be on the other side of that transaction.  Rather odd, because she is not stupid.  She generally opposed US membership in the ICC, which seems like a good idea for someone with her policies, who was hoping to become president in the same year that "aggression" became a defined crime under the Rome statute.  A bit surprising that she could anticipate the danger to herself in the one context, but completely miss it in the other.

However, I would give her the opposite advice, and tell her to stay in the US - she'll be much safer there, than in some country that might actually try her or send her to the ICC.  She is a spent force, no danger to the Trump presidency; if he wants a show trial, it will be someone who is currently in power and blocking him from achieving his objectives.  And if he just needs a general popularity plug, he can always do what she would have done, and go kill a few hundred thousand Muslims.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on August 01, 2017, 05:03:43 PM
http://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-removes-anthony-scaramucci-as-communications-director-just-days-after-hiring-him-20170731-gxmnb0.html

Seriously - impeach President Trump before he actually does something that will kill people.

Here's the problem with that...

Congress (specifically the House) has to initiate impeachment proceedings against the President, and this particular Congress (or at the very least, Speaker Ryan) won't do that, even if Mueller discovers all kinds smoking guns regarding collusion, election fraud, etc.  The fact that Congress isn't batting an eye over President Trump wanting to fire Mueller speaks volumes (part of the reason President Nixon was impeached was for firing Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate break-in). 

Then again, this Congress is on pace for accomplishing absolutely dick-all in this entire session.  That will be a singular achievement on both Ryan's and McConnell's resumes. 

As someone else said, the scary thing isn't that President Trump's approval rating is so low, but that it's so high.  38% of Americans polled are perfectly happy with what he's doing, because what he's doing is pissing off liberals, intellectuals, the media, etc., and that's what they care about.  These are people who've been screwed, repeatedly, by both parties for the last few decades.  They've lost their voice, they've lost whatever power they had, their communities are dying, and their voting for Trump was basically primal scream therapy. 

President Trump didn't actually want to win - he didn't actually want the office.  He wanted to boost his brand, start a new TV network, something like that.  He's manifestly unqualified for the job, and he knows it, and he hates it - it shows

The only way President Trump is going to be removed from office is if he loses re-election in 2020 or if he kicks after one too many Trump Tower Taco Bowls.  Much as he hates the job, he won't resign.  He will not be impeached (there's no way we're turning over the House before 2020).  If he ran for re-election, I'm not sure he'd lose.  We have deep, systemic, intractable problems in the US that are not being addressed by either party, and the growing know-nothing movement is a response to that.  President Trump found a direct line into the lizard brain of a lot of voters and yanked on it as hard as he could. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on August 01, 2017, 09:48:26 PM
What a name. That'll play great in the movie.

"Scaramouche (from Italian scaramuccia, literally "little skirmisher"), also known as scaramouch, is a stock clown character of the comic theatrical arts of Italian literature. The role combined characteristics of the Zanni (servant) and the Capitano (masked henchman). Usually attired in black Spanish dress and burlesquing a don, he was often beaten by Harlequin for his boasting and cowardice."

I wonder if Anthony does the fandango!!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 02, 2017, 10:28:21 AM
Seriously, if I were Hilary Clinton, I'd have my bags packed and a place to go with no extradition. Because I can see Trump reaching the conclusion that a good show trial is the best way to divert attention from his actions. I'm sure he remembers how popular the "lock her up" chants were at his rallies.

That seems like it would have been a good to thing to think about before she repeatedly voted in the senate to strengthen the government's ability to detain suspects indefinitely, or just assassinate them.  But I suppose she always figured she would be on the other side of that transaction.  Rather odd, because she is not stupid.  She generally opposed US membership in the ICC, which seems like a good idea for someone with her policies, who was hoping to become president in the same year that "aggression" became a defined crime under the Rome statute.  A bit surprising that she could anticipate the danger to herself in the one context, but completely miss it in the other.

However, I would give her the opposite advice, and tell her to stay in the US - she'll be much safer there, than in some country that might actually try her or send her to the ICC.  She is a spent force, no danger to the Trump presidency; if he wants a show trial, it will be someone who is currently in power and blocking him from achieving his objectives.  And if he just needs a general popularity plug, he can always do what she would have done, and go kill a few hundred thousand Muslims.

Exactly what country do you think would attempt to try Mrs. Clinton? Please list them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 02, 2017, 11:22:16 AM
He will not be impeached (there's no way we're turning over the House before 2020).

I think we've got a strong chance for 2018, honestly.  For one thing, the party of the President tends to lose seats at the midterm even when the President is popular.  Which this one isn't remotely; his numbers continue to fall.  One of the reasons Republicans tend to do better at midterms is that Democrats don't turn out, and I have a sneaking suspicion it'll be a lot easier to get Democratic turnout this time 'round.

I also still think it's possible he'll declare victory and resign, as Palin did.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 02, 2017, 04:54:03 PM
If things get really bad, I suspect he could announce illness (he's not a young man, after all) and resign "for reasons of health."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on August 02, 2017, 07:39:49 PM
Maybe this should go under 'Other Conspiracy Theories', but the US and Russia have been rattling sabres something fierce lately, and if Russia and Trump have connections, maybe the order to have 15,000 troops removed was an effort to decrease US combat readiness. OK, I don't really believe that, at least not 100%, but it certainly makes more sense than that bullshit. After all, the amount of money the US military spends on Viagra and related medication and treatment  (https://thinkprogress.org/transgender-military-viagra-5a4f3b38e445)is ten times, a whole order of magnitude, more than would be spent on trans folks medical needs. I'm a) Canadian and b) don't have any interest in serving in the military, but even if I wasn't transgender, I'd hope I'd be disgusted with this development. 
There might be LGBTQAI+ for Trump, but he sure ain't for them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 04, 2017, 07:29:07 AM
Prime Minister Turnbull (PM, Australia): Good evening.

The President: Mr. Prime Minister, how are you?

Prime Minister Turnbull: I am doing very well.

The President: And I guess our friend Greg Norman, he is doing very well?

Prime Minister Turnbull: He is a great mutual friend yes.

The President: Well you say hello to him. He is a very good friend. By the way thank you very much for taking the call. I really appreciate it. It is really nice.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Thank you very much. Everything is going very well. I want to congratulate you and Mike Pence on being sworn in now. I have spoken to you both now as you know. I know we are both looking to make our relationship which is very strong and intimate, stronger than ever – which I believe we can do.

The President: Good.

Prime Minister Turnbull: I believe you and I have similar backgrounds, unusual for politicians, more businessman but I look forward to working together.

The President: That is exactly right. We do have similar backgrounds and it seems to be working in this climate – it is a crazy climate. Let me tell you this, it is an evil time but it is a complex time because we do not have uniforms standing in front of us. Instead, we have people in disguise. It is brutal. This ISIS thing – it is something we are going to devote a lot of energy to it. I think we are going to be very successful.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Absolutely. We have, as you know, taken a very strong line on national security and border protection here and when I was speaking with Jared Kushner just the other day and one of your immigration advisors in the White House we reflected on how our policies have helped to inform your approach. We are very much of the same mind. It is very interesting to know how you prioritize the minorities in your Executive Order. This is exactly what we have done with the program to bring in 12,000 Syrian refugees, 90% of which will be Christians. It will be quite deliberate and the position I have taken – I have been very open about it – is that it is a tragic fact of life that when the situation in the Middle East settles down - the people that are going to be most unlikely to have a continuing home are those Christian minorities. We have seen that in Iraq and so from our point of view, as a final destination for refugees, that is why we prioritize. It is not a sectarian thing. It is recognition of the practical political realities. We have a similar perspective in that respect.

The President: Do you know four years ago Malcom, I was with a man who does this for a living. He was telling me, before the migration, that if you were a Christian from Syria, you had no chance of coming to the United States. Zero. They were the ones being persecuted. When I say persecuted, I mean their heads were being chopped off. If you were a Muslim we have nothing against Muslims, but if you were a Muslim you were not persecuted at least to the extent – but if you were a Muslim from Syria that was the number one place to get into the United States from. That was the easiest thing. But if you were a Christian from Syria you have no chance of getting into the United States. I just thought it was an incredible statistic. Totally true – and you have seen the same thing. It is incredible.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Well, yes. Mr. President, can I return to the issue of the resettlement agreement that we had with the Obama administration with respect to some people on Nauru and Manus Island. I have written to you about this and Mike Pence and General Flynn spoke with Julie Bishop and my National Security Advisor yesterday. This is a very big issue for us, particularly domestically, and I do understand you are inclined to a different point of view than the Vice President.

The President: Well, actually I just called for a total ban on Syria and from many different countries from where there is terror, and extreme vetting for everyone else – and somebody told me yesterday that close to 2,000 people are coming who are really probably troublesome. And I am saying, boy that will make us look awfully bad. Here I am calling for a ban where I am not letting anybody in and we take 2,000 people. Really it looks like 2,000 people that Australia does not want and I do not blame you by the way, but the United States has become like a dumping ground. You know Malcom, anybody that has a problem - you remember the Mariel boat lift, where Castro let everyone out of prison and Jimmy Carter accepted them with open arms. These were brutal people. Nobody said Castro was stupid, but now what are we talking about is 2,000 people that are actually imprisoned and that would actually come into the United States. I heard about this – I have to say I love Australia; I love the people of Australia. I have so many friends from Australia, but I said – geez that is a big ask, especially in light of the fact that we are so heavily in favor, not in favor, but we have no choice but to stop things. We have to stop. We have allowed so many people into our country that should not be here. We have our San Bernardino's, we have had the World Trade Center come down because of people that should not have been in our country, and now we are supposed to take 2,000. It sends such a bad signal. You have no idea. It is such a bad thing.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Can you hear me out Mr. President?

The President: Yeah, go ahead.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Yes, the agreement, which the Vice President just called the Foreign Minister about less than 24 hours ago and said your Administration would be continuing, does not require you to take 2,000 people. It does not require you to take any. It requires, in return, for us to do a number of things for the United States – this is a big deal, I think we should respect deals.

The President: Who made the deal? Obama?

Prime Minister Turnbull: Yes, but let me describe what it is. I think it is quite consistent. I think you can comply with it. It is absolutely consistent with your Executive Order so please just hear me out. The obligation is for the United States to look and examine and take up to and only if they so choose – 1,250 to 2,000. Every individual is subject to your vetting. You can decide to take them or to not take them after vetting. You can decide to take 1,000 or 100. It is entirely up to you. The obligation is to only go through the process. So that is the first thing. Secondly, the people – none of these people are from the conflict zone. They are basically economic refugees from Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. That is the vast bulk of them. They have been under our supervision for over three years now and we know exactly everything about them.

The President: Why haven't you let them out? Why have you not let them into your society?

Prime Minister Turnbull: Okay, I will explain why. It is not because they are bad people. It is because in order to stop people smugglers, we had to deprive them of the product. So we said if you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Noble [sic] Prize winning genius, we will not let you in. Because the problem with the people –

The President: That is a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am.

Prime Minister Turnbull: This is our experience.

The President: Because you do not want to destroy your country. Look at what has happened in Germany. Look at what is happening in these countries. These people are crazy to let this happen. I spoke to Merkel today, and believe me, she wishes she did not do it. Germany is a mess because of what happened.

Prime Minister Turnbull: I agree with you, letting one million Syrians walk into their country. It was one of the big factors in the Brexit vote, frankly.

The President: Well, there could be two million people coming in Germany. Two million people. Can you believe it? It will never be the same.

Prime Minister Turnbull: I stood up at the UN in September and set up what our immigration policy was. I said that you cannot maintain popular support for immigration policy, multiculturalism, unless you can control your borders. The bottom line is that we got here. I am asking you as a very good friend. This is a big deal. It is really, really important to us that we maintain it. It does not oblige you to take one person that you do not want. As I have said, your homeland officials have visited and they have already interviewed these people. You can decide. It is at your discretion. So you have the wording in the Executive Order that enables the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State to admit people on a case by case basis in order to conform with an existing agreement. I do believe that you will never find a better friend to the United States than Australia. I say this to you sincerely that it is in the mutual interest of the United States to say, "yes, we can conform with that deal - we are not obliged to take anybody we do not want, we will go through extreme vetting" and that way you are seen to show the respect that a trusted ally wants and deserves. We will then hold up our end of the bargain by taking in our country 31 [inaudible] that you need to move on from.

The President: Malcom [sic], why is this so important? I do not understand. This is going to kill me. I am the world's greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And now I am agreeing to take 2,000 people and I agree I can vet them, but that puts me in a bad position. It makes me look so bad and I have only been here a week.

Prime Minister Turnbull: With great respect, that is not right – It is not 2,000.

The President: Well, it is close. I have also heard like 5,000 as well.

Prime Minister Turnbull: The given number in the agreement is 1,250 and it is entirely a matter of your vetting. I think that what you could say is that the Australian government is consistent with the principles set out in the Executive Order.

The President: No, I do not want say that. I will just have to say that unfortunately I will have to live with what was said by Obama. I will say I hate it. Look, I spoke to Putin, Merkel, Abe of Japan, to France today, and this was my most unpleasant call because I will be honest with you. I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.

Prime Minister Turnbull: I would not be so sure about that. They are basically –

The President: Well, maybe you should let them out of prison. I am doing this because Obama made a bad deal. I am not doing this because it fits into my Executive Order. I am taking 2,000 people from Australia who are in prison and the day before I signed an Executive Order saying that we are not taking anybody in. We are not taking anybody in, those days are over.

Prime Minister Turnbull: But can I say to you, there is nothing more important in business or politics than a deal is a deal. Look, you and I have a lot of mutual friends.

The President: Look, I do not know how you got them to sign a deal like this, but that is how they lost the election. They said I had no way to 270 and I got 306. That is why they lost the election, because of stupid deals like this. You have brokered many a stupid deal in business and I respect you, but I guarantee that you broke many a stupid deal. This is a stupid deal. This deal will make me look terrible.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Mr. President, I think this will make you look like a man who stands by the commitments of the United States. It shows that you are a committed –

The President: Okay, this shows me to be a dope. I am not like this but, if I have to do it, I will do it but I do not like this at all. I will be honest with you. Not even a little bit. I think it is ridiculous and Obama should have never signed it. The only reason I will take them is because I have to honor a deal signed by my predecessor and it was a rotten deal. I say that it was a stupid deal like all the other deals that this country signed. You have to see what I am doing. I am unlocking deals that were made by people, these people were incompetent. I am not going to say that it fits within the realm of my Executive Order. We are going to allow 2,000 prisoners to come into our country and it is within the realm of my Executive Order? If that is the case my Executive Order does not mean anything Malcom [sic]. I look like a dope. The only way that I can do this is to say that my predecessor made a deal and I have no option then to honor the deal. I hate having to do it, but I am still going to vet them very closely. Suppose I vet them closely and I do not take any?

Prime Minister Turnbull: That is the point I have been trying to make.

The President: How does that help you?

Prime Minister Turnbull: Well, we assume that we will act in good faith.

The President: Does anybody know who these people are? Who are they? Where do they come from? Are they going to become the Boston bomber in five years? Or two years? Who are these people?

Prime Minister Turnbull: Let me explain. We know exactly who they are. They have been on Nauru or Manus for over three years and the only reason we cannot let them into Australia is because of our commitment to not allow people to come by boat. Otherwise we would have let them in. If they had arrived by airplane and with a tourist visa then they would be here.

The President: Malcom [sic], but they are arrived on a boat?

Prime Minister Turnbull: Correct, we have stopped the boats.

The President: Give them to the United States. We are like a dumping ground for the rest of the world. I have been here for a period of time, I just want this to stop. I look so foolish doing this. It [sic] know it is good for you but it is bad for me. It is horrible for me. This is what I am trying to stop. I do not want to have more San Bernardino's or World Trade Centers. I could name 30 others, but I do not have enough time.

Prime Minister Turnbull: These guys are not in that league. They are economic refugees.

The President: Okay, good. Can Australia give me a guarantee that if we have any problems – you know that is what they said about the Boston bombers. They said they were wonderful young men.

Prime Minister Turnbull: They were Russians. They were not from any of these countries.

The President: They were from wherever they were.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Please, if we can agree to stick to the deal, you have complete discretion in terms of a security assessment. The numbers are not 2,000 but 1,250 to start. Basically, we are taking people from the previous administration that they were very keen on getting out of the United States. We will take more. We will take anyone that you want us to take. The only people that we do not take are people who come by boat. So we would rather take a not very attractive guy that help you out then to take a Noble [sic] Peace Prize winner that comes by boat. That is the point.

The President: What is the thing with boats? Why do you discriminate against boats? No, I know, they come from certain regions. I get it.

Prime Minister Turnbull: No, let me explain why. The problem with the boats it that you are basically outsourcing your immigration program to people smugglers and also you get thousands of people drowning at sea. So what we say is, we will decide which people get to come to Australia who are refugees, economic migrants, businessmen, whatever. We decide. That is our decision. We are a generous multicultural immigration nation like the United States but the government decides, the people's representatives decides. So that is the point. I am a highly transactional businessman like you and I know the deal has to work for both sides. Now Obama thought this deal worked for him and he drove a hard bargain with us – that it was agreed with Obama more than a year ago in the Oval Office, long before the election. The principles of the deal were agreed to.

The President: I do not know what he got out of it. We never get anything out of it - START Treaty, the Iran deal. I do not know where they find these people to make these stupid deals. I am going to get killed on this thing.

Prime Minister Turnbull: You will not.

The President: Yes, I will be seen as a weak and ineffective leader in my first week by these people. This is a killer.

Prime Minister Turnbull: You can certainly say that it was not a deal that you would have done, but you are going to stick with it.

The President: I have no choice to say that about it. Malcom [sic], I am going to say that I have no choice but to honor my predecessor's deal. I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal that I would have never made. It is an embarrassment to the United States of America and you can say it just the way I said it. I will say it just that way. As far as I am concerned that is enough Malcom [sic]. I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Do you want to talk about Syria and DPRK?

The President: [inaudible] this is crazy.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Thank you for your commitment. It is very important to us.

The President: It is important to you and it is embarrassing to me. It is an embarrassment to me, but at least I got you off the hook. So you put me back on the hook.

Prime Minister Turnbull: You can count on me. I will be there again and again.

The President: I hope so. Okay, thank you Malcolm.

Prime Minister Turnbull: Okay, thank you.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 04, 2017, 09:52:12 AM
Egad, that's painful.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on August 04, 2017, 10:59:58 AM
Interesting opinion piece re. such leaks: http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/donald-trumps-phone-call-leaks-are-a-threat-to-america/

Donald Trump’s phone-call leaks are a threat to America

"If two leaders can’t approach these conversations bluntly, with the full expectation their words will be kept private, they will hesitate to speak unvarnished truths or to make direct demands. This opens the world up to misunderstandings on important subjects. Who will want to call the United States now to have a candid chat on a tough issue? How effective can diplomacy be without this essential tool in its toolkit? If these leaks keep happening, America will lose even more influence than Trump is already throwing away."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 04, 2017, 04:04:45 PM
Well, it does make things look odd for Trump. He still rants that Clinton was a "traitor" for not properly securing her e-mails. But he can't have a secure telephone conversation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on August 06, 2017, 01:39:55 AM
What a name. That'll play great in the movie.
For some reason I kept thinking it was Scaramanga.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on August 06, 2017, 02:53:26 AM
What a name. That'll play great in the movie.
For some reason I kept thinking it was Scaramanga.
Did he have a golden gun?

Sent from my SM-N920W8 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 10, 2017, 10:05:05 AM
So, Trump has now got the U.S. involved in a nuclear standoff. This just gets better ... and ... better.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on August 10, 2017, 10:51:06 AM
To be fair, NK is saying they're going to do things which would be literally casus belli.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 10, 2017, 11:24:30 AM
After a series of moves similar to two thugs in a bar who keep deliberately provoking each other to draw their guns. Unfortunately, it may lead to massive loss of life among the other bar patrons who had nothing to do with it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on August 11, 2017, 03:23:34 PM
After a series of moves similar to two thugs in a bar who keep deliberately provoking each other to draw their guns. Unfortunately, it may lead to massive loss of life among the other bar patrons who had nothing to do with it.

Yeah, except one is holding a single shot Webley Air Pistol and the other is holding 50 calibre Desert Eagle with a 7 round clip and one in the chamber (and a couple of full spare clips in his pocket)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on August 12, 2017, 05:49:05 PM
After a series of moves similar to two thugs in a bar who keep deliberately provoking each other to draw their guns. Unfortunately, it may lead to massive loss of life among the other bar patrons who had nothing to do with it.

Yeah, except one is holding a single shot Webley Air Pistol and the other is holding 50 calibre Desert Eagle with a 7 round clip and one in the chamber (and a couple of full spare clips in his pocket)
This might be a case of the US bringing a gun to a knife fight. Any military conflict would be much different than, say, the Toyota war. A large or modern nuclear arsenal is not necessary to bring a world of hurt to South Korea. The DPRK has huge numbers of conventional artillery massed along the border. Huge, I say.

It's not just the .50 cal. Desert Eagle that makes the US hyperpowerful, but also the high level of professionalism displayed by the troops. How professional is the North Korean soldiery? We don't know, although it sure would be easy to find out. My guess is that they are "pretty professional."

We do know that since '94, Songun - a policy of "military first" - has been central to North Korea. The Korean People's Army wants for nothing, period. This is a nation-state, not some irregular force holed up in a desert or a jungle, improvising explosive devices and conducting raids on or even capturing and holding cities.

It might be useful to remember that North Korea exists because the last time we (Canada and whoever else) traded shots with them, we gave up, because they were too bad*ss.

But how bad can things get when they have aligned themselves with most of the world in one small but crucial detail: unlike regional isolationists Japan and Hong Kong, they drive on the right.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on August 12, 2017, 06:57:45 PM
Even if Trump wanted to do what Macarthur wanted to do and glass North Korea, how much  would the literal  fallout affect South Korea and/pr China? Not to mention the suffering of the North Korean people, who have done nothing to deserve the hellhole their government has created. It's not a big country. It's only a bit bigger than Pennsylvania. It wouldn't take much before there was nothing worthwhile left. Seriously, Trump needs to stop waving his nuclear dick around and . . . actually, I'd prefer if he just bloody stopped.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on August 12, 2017, 07:52:43 PM
After a series of moves similar to two thugs in a bar who keep deliberately provoking each other to draw their guns. Unfortunately, it may lead to massive loss of life among the other bar patrons who had nothing to do with it.

Yeah, except one is holding a single shot Webley Air Pistol and the other is holding 50 calibre Desert Eagle with a 7 round clip and one in the chamber (and a couple of full spare clips in his pocket)
This might be a case of the US bringing a gun to a knife fight. Any military conflict would be much different than, say, the Toyota war. A large or modern nuclear arsenal is not necessary to bring a world of hurt to South Korea. The DPRK has huge numbers of conventional artillery massed along the border. Huge, I say.

It's not just the .50 cal. Desert Eagle that makes the US hyperpowerful, but also the high level of professionalism displayed by the troops. How professional is the North Korean soldiery? We don't know, although it sure would be easy to find out. My guess is that they are "pretty professional."

We do know that since '94, Songun - a policy of "military first" - has been central to North Korea. The Korean People's Army wants for nothing, period. This is a nation-state, not some irregular force holed up in a desert or a jungle, improvising explosive devices and conducting raids on or even capturing and holding cities.

It might be useful to remember that North Korea exists because the last time we (Canada and whoever else) traded shots with them, we gave up, because they were too bad*ss.

But how bad can things get when they have aligned themselves with most of the world in one small but crucial detail: unlike regional isolationists Japan and Hong Kong, they drive on the right.
Hey. Civilised countries drive on the left. There's Ireland.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 14, 2017, 11:09:14 AM
It seems like Trump also can't bring himself to condemn literal Nazis. It might hurt Bannon and Miller's feelings, I guess.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 18, 2017, 09:38:19 AM
Another example of Trump's tendency to lie like a rug. Here's the Washington Post's summary of how violence broke out at Charlottesville. The "alt-left" charging into peaceful statue-lovers clutching their permits is noticeably missing:

Quote
Charlottesville Police Chief Al S. Thomas Jr. said the rallygoers went back on a plan that would have kept them separated from the counterprotesters. Instead of coming in at one entrance, he said, they came in from all sides. Headlong into the counterprotesters.

A few minutes before 11 a.m., a swelling group of white nationalists carrying large shields and long wooden clubs approached the park on Market Street. About two dozen counterprotesters formed a line across the street, blocking their path. With a roar, the marchers charged through the line, swinging sticks, punching and spraying chemicals.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on August 18, 2017, 10:43:38 AM
This is probably more a case of amorality rather than immorality. It's not that he is a KKK fan per se. He lacks the moral centre to care. It's that he hates being challenged and if putting down challenge means supporting the KKK then whatever.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 18, 2017, 11:21:33 AM
On the other hand, Trump has repeatedly claimed "good genes," and has since his early days been attacked for racist real estate practices.

I think he is a true racist, and can't understand why people are treating those "alt-left" protesters as better than those nice white men, many of whom were wearing MAGA insignia. He's starting to go off on neoConfederate talking points already.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 18, 2017, 11:57:30 AM
It might be useful to remember that North Korea exists because the last time we (Canada and whoever else) traded shots with them, we gave up, because they were too bad*ss.

It also had a bit to do with China.

It's disheartening to discover how racist some of my friends' friends are.  I need to stop arguing with them; it doesn't convince them, and it just makes me feel worse.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on August 18, 2017, 12:06:09 PM
Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un is standing over in the corner, waving his arms frantically, and yelling, "hey, imperialist pigs, remember me?  Still have nukes, still working on missiles."

Not that honest-to-God Nazis aren't a thing to get exercised about (especially when they kill a counter-protester and call it a good day), but...

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on August 18, 2017, 01:39:32 PM
Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un is standing over in the corner, waving his arms frantically, and yelling, "hey, imperialist pigs, remember me?  Still have nukes, still working on missiles."

Not that honest-to-God Nazis aren't a thing to get exercised about (especially when they kill a counter-protester and call it a good day), but...

Actually, he's sort of shut up. Almost as if when no one engages him (and China tells him that if he starts a shooting war, he's on his own), he crawls back into his shell.

If Steven Bannon is right about anything, it's that there's no military solution to the NK problem. Whatever the solution, threatening nuclear destruction (and then having your staff tell the public not to worry, we're just kidding) isn't it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on August 19, 2017, 01:34:05 AM
It might be useful to remember that North Korea exists because the last time we (Canada and whoever else) traded shots with them, we gave up, because they were too bad*ss.

It also had a bit to do with China.

It's disheartening to discover how racist some of my friends' friends are.  I need to stop arguing with them; it doesn't convince them, and it just makes me feel worse.

Yes, you're right, it certainly did. A lot of time has passed since then, time for them to drill endlessly, and build up a serious arsenal.

But yeah, without that bottomless supply line, they probably wouldn't last terribly long. The chinese would rather supply us with consumer goods, and get hard cash and goodwill in return.

I don't think the DPRK will fold like Saddam's forces in Desert Storm, though, and when they do go down, it will be in a spectacular fashion.

But as others have said, the regime is not suicidal. I don't think there is going to be any pitched Korean War-style battles in this current round of trumped-up crises.

As far as racists go, there is a naziesque rally planned for tomorrow, here in Vancouver. We shall see how that plays out. My prediction is it will be attended by a couple thousand antis, a couple hundred reporters, and a small basket of deplorables.

--
Haha - I'm helping a guy sitting next to me watch "Ancient Aliens" videos on his computer.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on August 19, 2017, 07:23:00 PM
It's disheartening to discover how racist some of my friends' friends are.  I need to stop arguing with them; it doesn't convince them, and it just makes me feel worse.
As far as racists go, there is a naziesque rally planned for tomorrow, here in Vancouver. We shall see how that plays out. My prediction is it will be attended by a couple thousand antis, a couple hundred reporters, and a small basket of deplorables.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/anti-racism-rally-vancouver-city-hall-1.4253117
"Around 4,000 people showed up at Vancouver City Hall to protest against a far-right rally on Saturday afternoon."
"By 3 p.m., a handful of far-right protesters appeared to have gathered."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/anti-racism-rally-boston-1.4254282
Boston's so-called 'Free Speech' rally had 40,000 people show up to protest hate speech. Good for them.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on August 20, 2017, 12:06:20 AM
I like how Vancouver handled it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on October 26, 2017, 03:05:56 PM
Holy...

I'm watching this BBC Four series about the Vietnam War.

Just got to the bit about how Nixon sabotaged peace talks in the runup to the 1968 election to help his campaign. That is so low real numbers can't quantify it. At least Trump hasn't yet gone that low.

Though after seeing the bit about John McCain's captivity, it makes Trump's remarks about McCain all the more despicable. Still not as bad as extending a terrible war for personal political gain though.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 26, 2017, 05:47:16 PM
Holy...

I'm watching this BBC Four series about the Vietnam War.

Just got to the bit about how Nixon sabotaged peace talks in the runup to the 1968 election to help his campaign. That is so low real numbers can't quantify it. At least Trump hasn't yet gone that low.

That we know of.  Yet.  Mueller's investigation is still ongoing.

Quote
Though after seeing the bit about John McCain's captivity, it makes Trump's remarks about McCain all the more despicable. Still not as bad as extending a terrible war for personal political gain though.

The sad thing is that apart from that and Watergate (and the secret bombings, and...), Nixon was one of the more effective Presidents of the 20th century (along with Johnson, who was also a complete reprobate).  He normalized relations with China, signed off on establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, established programs to treat drug addiction as a public health issue as well as a law enforcement issue, etc., etc. 

Yes, he was a nasty, venal, bitter, paranoid sonofabitch, whose advanced his career through dirty tricks and character assassination, and honestly we'd be better off as a nation had he stayed a small-time lawyer in California, but Nixon was not going to be small-time.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on October 26, 2017, 06:12:05 PM
This program is not light watching. That was one screwed up chapter that was.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 27, 2017, 11:09:25 AM
Actually, one of the laws that personally benefits me is from the Nixon administration--that's when automatic cost of living adjustments to Social Security began.  If I'm reading this right, my payments will go from $685 a month to $700 a month next year.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on October 28, 2017, 05:05:24 PM
Well that was light watching.

Maybe Schindler's List next to round off a romantic evening?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on November 10, 2017, 10:05:17 AM
Top Trump environmental nominee won't - or can't - answer if heat causes things to expand. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/09/trumps-nominee-to-lead-his-environmental-council-isnt-sure-whether-water-expands-as-it-warms/?utm_term=.d6d349af246a
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 10, 2017, 10:15:10 AM
I'm reading What Happened, and man, I wish she were President right now.  Also, she's a lot funnier than people give her credit for.  I was horrified, too, to discover that Bill was the first husband at the hospital where Chelsea was born allowed to be in the operating room while his wife was having a C-section, and they only let him in because they didn't want to argue with the governor.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on November 11, 2017, 03:59:15 AM
According to DSNY Newscast, the opening of Hall of Presidents is still delayed. The new Trump animatronic used some new tech they still working on.

Maybe they're having trouble with that hand gesture.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on November 14, 2017, 09:32:33 AM
Trump has decided not to meet with American Nobel laureates before they leave for Sweden. Stupid science people! Who needs them anyway?

Actually, I suspect that he or his handlers were worried some of them would take the opportunity to lecture him on some basic science facts, and didn't want to face the embarrassment.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 14, 2017, 11:15:12 AM
Aren't some of them immigrants?  A lot of US Nobel laureates are.  They could lecture him on more than science.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 15, 2017, 05:09:53 PM
I'm reading What Happened, and man, I wish she were President right now.  Also, she's a lot funnier than people give her credit for.  I was horrified, too, to discover that Bill was the first husband at the hospital where Chelsea was born allowed to be in the operating room while his wife was having a C-section, and they only let him in because they didn't want to argue with the governor.

The deep, deep irony is that Trump was not supposed to win; his role was to lose ungraciously and continually call into question the legitimacy of her Presidency (remember he was saying that the election would be rigged all through the primaries and general).  The Russians had a huge pile of dirt (some legit, most made up) ready to spoon-feed Congressional Republicans so that they'd start hearings the day she was inaugurated.  And, while the federal government was distracted and paralyzed, Putin could get the band back together without much interference. 

Of course, a bunch of rednecks in "real America" wrecked that particular plan, and here we are.  The GOP's entire playbook going into 2017 was going to be "oppose Clinton on literally everything"; that's why they can't freaking shut up about her, even though she's now just a private citizen with no real power.  Trump doesn't want to be President, you can tell by his manner and attitude.  He's freaking miserable in the job.  I will legitimately be surprised if he makes it to 2020 without some major health issue. 

Personally, I wish the Democratic Party could have done better than a couple of white septuagenarians - it was kind of shocking to see that the GOP field was younger and more diverse than the Dem contenders.  Yes, Clinton was genuinely historic as the first woman with a better than even chance of winning the Presidency (Fiorina was not ever going to be a contender), but even so, the Republican slate was legitimately a more representative cross-section of America. 

The Democratic party has no bench.  We've let state organizations wither on the vine, and 31 or so states have majority Republican legislatures.  The old guard won't get out of the way, they won't mentor new blood, and generally suck up all the oxygen (and money).  It's maddening.  There's a group of Democrats who want to run Joe Biden in 2020, and I want to punch them in the neck.

How 'bout we pick someone under 70 this time around, guys?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 16, 2017, 04:19:03 AM
I'm reading What Happened, and man, I wish she were President right now.  Also, she's a lot funnier than people give her credit for.  I was horrified, too, to discover that Bill was the first husband at the hospital where Chelsea was born allowed to be in the operating room while his wife was having a C-section, and they only let him in because they didn't want to argue with the governor.

The deep, deep irony is that Trump was not supposed to win; his role was to lose ungraciously and continually call into question the legitimacy of her Presidency (remember he was saying that the election would be rigged all through the primaries and general).  The Russians had a huge pile of dirt (some legit, most made up) ready to spoon-feed Congressional Republicans so that they'd start hearings the day she was inaugurated.  And, while the federal government was distracted and paralyzed, Putin could get the band back together without much interference. 

The same thing happened here in the UK with Brexit. The look of deep, deep shock on the faces of toads like Farage and Boris Johnson was evident. They were like the dog that finally caught the car after years of chasing and then realised that they were dogs and had no idea what to do with the car.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-result-nigel-farage-nhs-pledge-disowns-350-million-pounds-a7099906.html
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 16, 2017, 11:23:19 AM
She does talk a bit in her book about the need for younger people to run.  Kamala Harris and Tammy Duckworth are right there, though, so I wouldn't say "no bench."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on November 16, 2017, 07:21:14 PM
... Putin could get the band back together ...
He's on a mission from God.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on November 17, 2017, 02:10:34 PM
Quote
Of course, a bunch of rednecks in "real America" wrecked that particular plan, and here we are.  The GOP's entire playbook going into 2017 was going to be "oppose Clinton on literally everything"; that's why they can't freaking shut up about her, even though she's now just a private citizen with no real power.  Trump doesn't want to be President, you can tell by his manner and attitude.  He's freaking miserable in the job.  I will legitimately be surprised if he makes it to 2020 without some major health issue. 


I've heard rumours, not sure how accurate they are, that he's gained about 100 pounds since taking office due to stress eating.

But you're correct that the Republican/Fox conglomerate is highly confused as to what they're supposed to be doing now. The best they're hoping for  is to convince Congress to start a special investigation into Uranium One, but even most Republican Congressmembers know there's nothing in that. And Hillary, to their despair, has kept a low profile. There's nothing new they can drag out.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on December 01, 2017, 11:02:04 AM
Here we go:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trump-russia/ex-trump-adviser-flynn-charged-with-lying-to-fbi-in-russia-probe-idUKKBN1DV50U

This could be massive. According to that, Flynn is going to plead guilty and do a deal with Mueller. Also, Kushner was interviewed by the FBI earlier this week. Was Mueller sitting there with a load of information from Flynn?
I expect tomorrow's news to be full of another dose of late-night Trump tweets as he tries to create a smokescreen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on December 01, 2017, 02:18:53 PM
It only matters if Congress decides to do something about it.

They won't.

They're too busy figuring out how best to completely destroy what's left of the middle class.  Hell, the tax "reform" bill that the Senate is debating hasn't even been written yet - they're literally making it all up as they go along.  And everyone with the slightest economic clue is telling them, from Forbes to The Economist to the WSJ to the CBO, that this is a stupendously bad idea, that this "reform" will explode the debt, create structural deficits, tank savings across the board, and generally make the 2008 recession look like a minor dip. 

And DPRK has demo'd an ICBM capable of reaching pretty much anywhere in the US mainland, and we've managed to piss off Great Britain, and...

Not trying to be a drama queen here, but I honestly question if anything's going to be left standing after the new year.

Y'all gotta remember, Trump isn't the disease, he's a symptom of the disease.  The question isn't why his approval rating is so low, but why it's so high.  Literally millions of Americans think he's doing a damned fine job
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on December 02, 2017, 11:41:37 AM
The one thing they do know is that childhood tax benefits now start during pregnancy, which is a back door personhood bill.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on December 06, 2017, 06:42:14 AM
crazy Trump wants to stir unnecessary problems

https://www.livescience.com/61110-us-embassy-move-jerusalem.html?utm_source=notification
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on December 06, 2017, 10:15:53 AM
crazy Trump wants to stir unnecessary problems

https://www.livescience.com/61110-us-embassy-move-jerusalem.html?utm_source=notification

That's an endlessly repeatable post, I think. Just change the link for each unnecessary problem he provokes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on December 06, 2017, 12:25:04 PM
Indeed.  Though this particular one reinforces my belief that Jerusalem ought to be an international city, part of no country.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gwiz on December 07, 2017, 05:17:43 AM
Indeed.  Though this particular one reinforces my belief that Jerusalem ought to be an international city, part of no country.
Wasn't the late King Hussain of Jordan trying to get that done?  Pity his successor doesn't seem interested.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 07, 2017, 08:38:48 PM
... Putin could get the band back together ...
He's on a mission from God.
It's a hundred and eight miles to the White House. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Al Johnston on December 08, 2017, 06:50:08 AM
... Putin could get the band back together ...
He's on a mission from God.
It's a hundred and eight miles to the White House. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.

Hit it!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on December 20, 2017, 01:34:57 PM
I wonder if any scientists who voted for Trump can still say they'd do the same after the recent revelation that CDC scientists were warned not to include any budgetary documents that include such controversial words/phrases as "evidence-based" or "science-based" (not to mention "entitlement," "vulnerable," "transgender" or "fetus.") Then the CDC spokeswoman claimed the words weren't banned. No, the message was just given that if you use those terms, you'll not get any government money.

Along with the scrubbing of "climate change" this indicates a wholesale assault on objective science.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on December 21, 2017, 06:47:05 PM
Trump is a godsend. We got to side with France, Germany and Spain and a majority of other EU countries, which should hopefully go a wee bit towards diffusing some hostility.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 04, 2018, 10:34:43 AM
I'm reading What Happened, and man, I wish she were President right now.  Also, she's a lot funnier than people give her credit for.  I was horrified, too, to discover that Bill was the first husband at the hospital where Chelsea was born allowed to be in the operating room while his wife was having a C-section, and they only let him in because they didn't want to argue with the governor.

The deep, deep irony is that Trump was not supposed to win; his role was to lose ungraciously and continually call into question the legitimacy of her Presidency (remember he was saying that the election would be rigged all through the primaries and general).  The Russians had a huge pile of dirt (some legit, most made up) ready to spoon-feed Congressional Republicans so that they'd start hearings the day she was inaugurated.  And, while the federal government was distracted and paralyzed, Putin could get the band back together without much interference. 

Of course, a bunch of rednecks in "real America" wrecked that particular plan, and here we are.  The GOP's entire playbook going into 2017 was going to be "oppose Clinton on literally everything"; that's why they can't freaking shut up about her, even though she's now just a private citizen with no real power.  Trump doesn't want to be President, you can tell by his manner and attitude.  He's freaking miserable in the job.  I will legitimately be surprised if he makes it to 2020 without some major health issue. 


I'm just pulling this post from November back up because it fits so well with the story in the Wolff book that's blowing up Washington this week. That gives a sadly hilarious story of Trump's reaction when he realized he was going to win.

It does make me sorry for Melania, though. Yes, she agreed to sell herself to be pawed by an obnoxious old man. But she seems to be a shy, introverted person, and I don't think she realized she was signing up to be a public figure, in a country and language not her own. And inexcusably, the administration has failed to give her a strong support staff that could at least create a public persona comfortable with her role. I can truly believe she wept on realizing this was going to be her life now.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 04, 2018, 05:48:51 PM
I'm reading What Happened, and man, I wish she were President right now.  Also, she's a lot funnier than people give her credit for.  I was horrified, too, to discover that Bill was the first husband at the hospital where Chelsea was born allowed to be in the operating room while his wife was having a C-section, and they only let him in because they didn't want to argue with the governor.

The deep, deep irony is that Trump was not supposed to win; his role was to lose ungraciously and continually call into question the legitimacy of her Presidency (remember he was saying that the election would be rigged all through the primaries and general).  The Russians had a huge pile of dirt (some legit, most made up) ready to spoon-feed Congressional Republicans so that they'd start hearings the day she was inaugurated.  And, while the federal government was distracted and paralyzed, Putin could get the band back together without much interference. 

Of course, a bunch of rednecks in "real America" wrecked that particular plan, and here we are.  The GOP's entire playbook going into 2017 was going to be "oppose Clinton on literally everything"; that's why they can't freaking shut up about her, even though she's now just a private citizen with no real power.  Trump doesn't want to be President, you can tell by his manner and attitude.  He's freaking miserable in the job.  I will legitimately be surprised if he makes it to 2020 without some major health issue. 


I'm just pulling this post from November back up because it fits so well with the story in the Wolff book that's blowing up Washington this week. That gives a sadly hilarious story of Trump's reaction when he realized he was going to win.

It does make me sorry for Melania, though. Yes, she agreed to sell herself to be pawed by an obnoxious old man. But she seems to be a shy, introverted person, and I don't think she realized she was signing up to be a public figure, in a country and language not her own. And inexcusably, the administration has failed to give her a strong support staff that could at least create a public persona comfortable with her role. I can truly believe she wept on realizing this was going to be her life now.

Personally, I would not put too much stock into Wolff's book.  It's gossip from a highly suspect source (Bannon could claim that the sky was blue and water was wet and I'd still go to Snopes to verify it), and Wolff himself has a reputation as a somewhat sloppy reporter, favoring impact over accuracy. 

I'm sure there are nuggets of truth in there, but slathered under layers of bullshit. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 05, 2018, 04:59:35 AM

It does make me sorry for Melania, though. Yes, she agreed to sell herself to be pawed by an obnoxious old man. But she seems to be a shy, introverted person, and I don't think she realized she was signing up to be a public figure, in a country and language not her own. And inexcusably, the administration has failed to give her a strong support staff that could at least create a public persona comfortable with her role. I can truly believe she wept on realizing this was going to be her life now.

Yeah....this "shy introverted person" managed to get from a 2 bed apartment in a former Eastern Bloc country to the White House via the medium of modelling, soft-porn photoshoots some of which included simulated lesbian sex scenes. I cannot think of anyone that less likely fits the description of a "shy introverted person". I think that " single-minded focus", "scheming" and someone that is more than happy to use her sexual talents and attributes to sleep her way to the top is probably far more apt.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on January 09, 2018, 05:53:30 AM
A rather good editorial from my local newspaper today:--

Manawatu Standard, Tuesday 9 January 2018, page 6
Backfire and fury

Editorial
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/100394846/backfire-and-fury
   Such is the churning disgrace of the Trump presidency that it’s hard to know who to hold in greater contempt – his treacherous appointees or his loyal ones.
   The lickspittle loyalists seem capable of staring down any camera and not just disregarding, but denying, his monstrous failings as a man, let alone a leader.
   The traitors are just downstream versions of the same. In their vanity they thought they could cunningly manage the man-child, or at least personally prosper from their temporarily high status.
   Some were jettisoned after the forces of official accountability came knocking. Others fell from, well, we hesitate to say, grace. They fell from favour amid the internecine combat of the loose affiliation of warring tribes that the White House promptly became under Donald Trump.
   Among the dumped is chief strategist Steve Bannon. The Republicans rightly saw him as a scornful enemy from the extremities of the Right and Trump’s kids saw him as a Rasputin-like influence on their dad.
   He was a key source for Michael Wolff’s instantly notorious book Fire and Fury, dishing withering criticisms of those around Trump, and the man himself.
   It was almost jolly to hear the president’s top political adviser Stephen Miller call Bannon an "angry, vindictive person", as if this had suddenly become a bad thing in Trumpland.
   Angry and vindictive pretty much describes the greater part of Trump’s electoral catchment. Add boastful and you have a precis of his own campaign speeches.
   Bannon has denied the book’s account of him accusing Donald Trump Jr of treachery to the United States, but he hasn’t backed down on a bunch of other scornful descriptions, including those of "dumb as a brick" Ivanka Trump or her husband Jared Kushner.
   Then we have the who’s-crazy allegations. The book adds fuel to fears that Trump is not just emotionally unstable, but unravelling mentally. To which the president declares himself "a very stable genius". That’s not typically a title that’s self-bestowed.
   And now Bannon, amid the fallout pressure from, among others, funders of his Breitbart News, declares that he is "unwavering" in his support of Trump.
   Such is the state of US politics, where people are prepared, if needs be, to deny the wetness of water. And that includes the host of Republicans, even those who slip coded escape clauses out of their endorsements. Like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson now calling Trump "the most unique president we have ever seen in modern history".
   Quite so.
   Unique as a meat axe.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 09, 2018, 11:25:47 AM

It does make me sorry for Melania, though. Yes, she agreed to sell herself to be pawed by an obnoxious old man. But she seems to be a shy, introverted person, and I don't think she realized she was signing up to be a public figure, in a country and language not her own. And inexcusably, the administration has failed to give her a strong support staff that could at least create a public persona comfortable with her role. I can truly believe she wept on realizing this was going to be her life now.

Yeah....this "shy introverted person" managed to get from a 2 bed apartment in a former Eastern Bloc country to the White House via the medium of modelling, soft-porn photoshoots some of which included simulated lesbian sex scenes. I cannot think of anyone that less likely fits the description of a "shy introverted person". I think that " single-minded focus", "scheming" and someone that is more than happy to use her sexual talents and attributes to sleep her way to the top is probably far more apt.

There's a bit of a difference between posing in a photo studio and being mobbed by reporters over every stupid thing your husband says.  There are plenty of actors and performers who can bare it all on camera and yet be painfully shy or withdrawn around other people. 

AFAIK, she's not taking an active role in running the WH or participating in any policy discussions, so frankly her past and character are irrelevant and should not be part of the discussion.  Ivanka and Jared are fair game since they obviously have a hand in running the place. 

It's 2018.  Murkians, get thee registered to vote if you aren't already.  Find out who's running for what in your city, state, and congressional district, read up on any bonds and other ballot initiatives (and in Texas, find out what this year's spate of Constitutional amendments will be), and VOTE.  Harangue your family, friends, and neighbors to do the same.  Slap the first person who bitches about gerrymandering (which is a problem, but can be overcome with sufficient turnout). 

We get exactly the government we deserve.  If we think we deserve better, then we have to work for it. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 09, 2018, 12:24:54 PM
I mostly agree, but there are places where gerrymandering cannot be overcome with sufficient turnout; that's the whole point.  Not unless a certain proportion of voters in those districts realize they've been had.  Especially with current voter suppression tactics.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 09, 2018, 12:37:06 PM
I mostly agree, but there are places where gerrymandering cannot be overcome with sufficient turnout; that's the whole point.  Not unless a certain proportion of voters in those districts realize they've been had.  Especially with current voter suppression tactics.

Yeah, gerrymandering has to be fixed at the state level, which honestly is where we need to fix most of our attention in 2018 and 2020.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 09, 2018, 04:18:11 PM

It does make me sorry for Melania, though. Yes, she agreed to sell herself to be pawed by an obnoxious old man. But she seems to be a shy, introverted person, and I don't think she realized she was signing up to be a public figure, in a country and language not her own. And inexcusably, the administration has failed to give her a strong support staff that could at least create a public persona comfortable with her role. I can truly believe she wept on realizing this was going to be her life now.

Yeah....this "shy introverted person" managed to get from a 2 bed apartment in a former Eastern Bloc country to the White House via the medium of modelling, soft-porn photoshoots some of which included simulated lesbian sex scenes. I cannot think of anyone that less likely fits the description of a "shy introverted person". I think that " single-minded focus", "scheming" and someone that is more than happy to use her sexual talents and attributes to sleep her way to the top is probably far more apt.

You may be right about scheming or single-minded. But I've never seen a First Lady who looks so ill-at-ease in her position. Her body language consistently screams "Get me out of here!" rather than "Look at me! I'm on top of the world!"

As I said, I think she sold herself to an old man for money. But I'm pretty sure that she never figured being a public figure into it. She looks like imposter syndrome weighs heavily on her. She knows this isn't a role she was cut out for, and her attempts at smiling through it are pitiable. And I'm sure Trump gives her no praise for what success she has, and plenty of criticism if he feels she doesn't make him look good.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 09, 2018, 05:48:59 PM
You may be right about scheming or single-minded. But I've never seen a First Lady who looks so ill-at-ease in her position. Her body language consistently screams "Get me out of here!" rather than "Look at me! I'm on top of the world!"

As I said, I think she sold herself to an old man for money. But I'm pretty sure that she never figured being a public figure into it. She looks like imposter syndrome weighs heavily on her. She knows this isn't a role she was cut out for, and her attempts at smiling through it are pitiable. And I'm sure Trump gives her no praise for what success she has, and plenty of criticism if he feels she doesn't make him look good.


(http://78.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4h9d3MI4v1rwcc6bo1_500.gif)

i'm sure that she sobs herself to sleep every night on a pile of dollar bills.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 10, 2018, 02:53:19 PM
I doubt Trump lets her spend a dime without his OK. He doesn't act like an old fool who believes this beautiful younger woman's loins burn for him. He acts like a man who purchased, in his words "a hot piece of ***."

Sure, she's not suffering like immigrant women who are suddenly facing deportation, or women who need health insurance, or all those women who've been dealt body blows by the Trump administration. But I don't think she's happy where she is. Let's just say that the day she gets her widow's weeds out will be the day she'll wear the most genuine smile she's had since Trump started to run.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 11, 2018, 04:58:01 AM
But I don't think she's happy where she is. Let's just say that the day she gets her widow's weeds out will be the day she'll wear the most genuine smile she's had since Trump started to run.

Indeed.
I'm sure the substantial inheritance will help to wash away the memories of Trumps corpulent mass humping away on her.....  :)

As Nicholas Soame's first wife once said that sex with Soames was "like having a wardrobe fall on top of you with the key sticking out"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 11, 2018, 11:41:18 AM
I also rather dislike the idea that rich people aren't allowed to be unhappy, even if the thing that makes them unhappy is of their own doing.  Yes, she made the choice to marry him, one she probably regrets.  But unless she herself is a terrible person--which I have no reason to assume she is--how do you think she likes bringing up her son in that environment, with that father?  It's not surprising to me that the only one of the adult offspring who seems at all normal is the one whose mother kept her from being influenced by her father as much as possible.  And I know someone who knows people who work at Barron's school, and he's apparently a pretty decent kid.  I'm sure his mother would like him to stay that way, and she's seen the older sons.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 13, 2018, 11:18:16 AM
So, it appears that Trump wants, someday, to go to Mars.

But for the time being, NASA gets severe cuts on studying climate change.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on February 13, 2018, 12:44:08 PM
So, it appears that Trump wants, someday, to go to Mars.

But for the time being, NASA gets severe cuts on studying climate change.

He also talked about going to the Moon, but funded next to nothing. The old adage applies "No bucks, no Buck Rogers"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 13, 2018, 12:49:12 PM
He apparently wants to privatize the ISS, which I'm pretty sure he can't do.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 13, 2018, 03:32:55 PM
As someone on another forum pointed out, Presidential budgets are aspirational; the Congressional budget is what becomes law.  Trump already signed the two-year budget deal passed by Congress, so his budget is pretty much just a long read. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on February 13, 2018, 04:05:09 PM
Just when I think that there's surely no more ways for this bloviating sack of sh1te to disgust me, he manages to find one:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/op-ed-the-story-behind-the-satellite-that-trump-wants-dead/

"By trying to kill this program, people in the administration are sending two messages. One is that everything they've been saying when they try to explain why they're taking no actions on climate change is a sham—they don't actually believe any of it. And the second message is they'd rather waste millions of taxpayers' dollars than gather data that could possibly tell us we need to act."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 13, 2018, 04:55:52 PM
He specifically wants to defund the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, because he thinks that anyone or anything that mentions those nasty ole greenhouse gases is his personal enemy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 22, 2018, 11:47:56 AM
Who has to write down "I'm listening" as a response to people in crisis?  Then again, I'd also thought he was functionally illiterate, so at least he can read it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 23, 2018, 06:12:25 PM
Oh boo hoo. You think you got problems? At least in three years you'll be done with this. In three years, our problems will only be just beginning.

What hope for us when a country that has an unelected head of government, an unelected head of state, an unelected upper chamber, an unelected civil service*, acts like somehow we're being oppressed because we don't get to directly vote for the President of the European Council, who doesn't even have legislative or executive power. Perhaps illusion might describe the mindset.

* not that I have a problem with most of that though I'm open minded about Lords reform

Sorry. Someone was wrong on the Internet and it got me worked up. I restrain myself from participating in the places I read, so I dumped here where noone will see it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on February 25, 2018, 03:56:33 AM
Saturdays UK Daily Telegraph.

(http://i68.tinypic.com/35jy1xx.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on February 25, 2018, 10:32:52 AM
Oh boo hoo. You think you got problems? At least in three years you'll be done with this. In three years, our problems will only be just beginning.

What hope for us when a country that has an unelected head of government, an unelected head of state, an unelected upper chamber, an unelected civil service*, acts like somehow we're being oppressed because we don't get to directly vote for the President of the European Council, who doesn't even have legislative or executive power. Perhaps illusion might describe the mindset.

* not that I have a problem with most of that though I'm open minded about Lords reform

Sorry. Someone was wrong on the Internet and it got me worked up. I restrain myself from participating in the places I read, so I dumped here where noone will see it.

I feel your pain. It seems like the UK has been taken over by idiots and nationalists (is there a difference??). Watching the current UK government imploding in slow motion is painful.
My new word of the month is kakistocracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy)..."a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens". Sounds like that admirably describes the current incumbents on both sides of the Atlantic.


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 25, 2018, 05:48:01 PM
If there was at least an opposition that wasn't terrifying, there would be a glimmer of hope. But that's too much to ask it seems.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on February 25, 2018, 08:09:01 PM
As a PM of ours said, the first Trudeau, "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." These messes are going to freaking reverberate.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on February 26, 2018, 03:14:21 AM
If there was at least an opposition that wasn't terrifying, there would be a glimmer of hope. But that's too much to ask it seems.

Shocking, isn't it? All Labour seem to be doing is enabling a shambolic Tory government.

Oh, and making a song and dance about a change in direction to go for something that the EU has explicitly ruled out from day one.  ::) ::) ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 26, 2018, 10:26:17 AM
Oh boo hoo. You think you got problems? At least in three years you'll be done with this.

Optimist. 

Democrats are going to run midterms on a platform of impeachment, which will just entrench support for Trump the way it did for Clinton in the '90s (even if Mueller finds multiple smoking guns).  Then they'll find the worst possible Presidential candidates in 2020 and he'll be re-elected handily.  Will Rogers had our number 80 years ago, and it's still true today. 

The only way he doesn't serve eight years in office is because of a stroke or an exploding ticker. 

Quote
In three years, our problems will only be just beginning.

What hope for us when a country that has an unelected head of government, an unelected head of state, an unelected upper chamber, an unelected civil service*, acts like somehow we're being oppressed because we don't get to directly vote for the President of the European Council, who doesn't even have legislative or executive power. Perhaps illusion might describe the mindset.

* not that I have a problem with most of that though I'm open minded about Lords reform

Sorry. Someone was wrong on the Internet and it got me worked up. I restrain myself from participating in the places I read, so I dumped here where noone will see it.

Heh.  Brings new meaning to "security through obscurity". 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on February 26, 2018, 11:38:28 AM
If the US can't get rid of Trump, who does absolutely nothing to hide his vice and his incompetence, well, you deserve your slide into fascism. I'd say at this point everyone knows who Trump is. No one's expecting him to start being "presidential" at any moment, except some reporters who apparently are in deep denial of just how much trouble the country is in.

Quite honestly, if I read a fictional POTUS like him in a book, I'd expect it to be crazy satire, because if it were intended to be realistic I'd have told the author "dial it back to believable levels of stupidity and corruption."

Unfortunately it seems the Bernie bros will be out in force to try to commandeer the Democratic party to accept a leader who's never been a Democrat, and they'll resume their sulking wait for the end of the world when it doesn't.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 26, 2018, 11:49:36 AM
I am cautiously optimistic based on how various elections have been going around the country.  Sure, okay, it feels like shooting fish in a barrel to beat the pedophile for Senate.  But in such a deeply red state, in which the pedophile still won the primary, it's definitely something.

Meanwhile, an idiot in my state has proposed a law to arm teachers, and I got an e-mail this morning telling me how my son's school district is preparing for live shooting incidents.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 26, 2018, 11:50:22 AM
Also, I frankly wouldn't put it past Trump to claim to have accomplished everything he wants to in a single term and just not run again.  I don't think he likes being President.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 26, 2018, 01:22:15 PM
Also, I frankly wouldn't put it past Trump to claim to have accomplished everything he wants to in a single term and just not run again.  I don't think he likes being President.

This is true - he didn't actually want to win, he wanted to boost his resale value.  And yeah, he can just say "nope, done" in 2020 and go back to hawking steaks. 

I don't expect that, personally - between the apparent narcissistic personality disorder, the continued fellating by certain wings of the GOP, and the ever-present threat of a polonium cocktail from the Russians once he stops being useful, I fully expect that he will run for re-election (assuming he's healthy enough). 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on February 26, 2018, 03:52:34 PM
Considering that the main thing he likes is money, are there any financial benefits he will get from being an ex-POTUS? Normally there would be 'celebrity' status, appearances, talking tours, etc but he already has that as being 'Trump'.

Is there anything he will actually get that would be of value to him?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on February 26, 2018, 09:55:55 PM
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-florida-shooting-parkland-school-run-into-no-gun-stop-shooter-broward-deputy-a8229536.html
It's easy to be brave after the fact. ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Geordie on February 27, 2018, 12:54:06 PM
Quite honestly, if I read a fictional POTUS like him in a book, I'd expect it to be crazy satire, because if it were intended to be realistic I'd have told the author "dial it back to believable levels of stupidity and corruption."
Perhaps he's a comedian, playing the long game, like Andy Kaufman.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on February 27, 2018, 01:14:18 PM
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-florida-shooting-parkland-school-run-into-no-gun-stop-shooter-broward-deputy-a8229536.html
It's easy to be brave after the fact. ::)

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 27, 2018, 01:42:15 PM
"Sure, bone spurs in I-Don't-Remember-Which foot kept me out of Vietnam, but I'm sure Rambo now!"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Apollo 957 on February 27, 2018, 04:43:20 PM
It's easy to be brave after the fact. ::)

He would have "run in" ..... ?

Has anyone, anywhere, seen Trump run AT ALL in living memory? I would ask how quick he could run a 100metres, if I thought he could complete but a fraction of that....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 28, 2018, 12:00:36 PM
He believes exercise is bad for you.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 28, 2018, 01:48:56 PM
Quite honestly, if I read a fictional POTUS like him in a book, I'd expect it to be crazy satire, because if it were intended to be realistic I'd have told the author "dial it back to believable levels of stupidity and corruption."
Perhaps he's a comedian, playing the long game, like Andy Kaufman.

No lie, I used to fantasize about running as a candidate so unhinged, so obviously batshit head-trauma crazy, that it would scare everyone into voting for the other guy.

Trump's election has shown me that such a plan could never work.  People will happily, nay eagerly vote for batshit head-trauma crazy. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on May 05, 2018, 01:12:28 PM
So now Trumps great insight is, if the UK relaxes its gun laws perhaps it will be a solution to London’s knife problem?  :o  :o
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 05, 2018, 03:18:22 PM
You have to remember that guns are magic and solve everything, even the problems they cause.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on May 05, 2018, 06:13:51 PM
It's easy to be brave after the fact. ::)

He would have "run in" ..... ?

Has anyone, anywhere, seen Trump run AT ALL in living memory? I would ask how quick he could run a 100metres, if I thought he could complete but a fraction of that....

I remember a picture from a certain summit, with the world leaders walking across a green and, in the back, Trump sitting in a cart.

This is after all the man who has professed that you only get a certain number of heartbeats in your life, so why do anything to use them up faster.

Heck, I'm kinda surprised, given his record, the Candyman wasn't picked for Surgeon General.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 05, 2018, 11:21:38 PM


This is after all the man who has professed that you only get a certain number of heartbeats in your life, so why do anything to use them up faster.

I'm pretty sure Neil Armstrong said that too.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on May 06, 2018, 02:54:06 AM
You have to remember that guns are magic and solve everything, even the problems they cause.

Yes as per the NRA’s idea to stop school masacares, “let’s arm the teachers!” Why do these barmy ideas not sound idiotic to the people that propose them?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on May 06, 2018, 07:17:53 AM
You have to remember that guns are magic and solve everything, even the problems they cause.

Yes as per the NRA’s idea to stop school masacares, “let’s arm the teachers!” Why do these barmy ideas not sound idiotic to the people that propose them?

Selling a gun to the teachers to stop the man that you sold a gun to sounds awfully like the logic of a person who wants to sell two guns.
 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 06, 2018, 12:20:21 PM
Selling a gun to the teachers to stop the man that you sold a gun to sounds awfully like the logic of a person who wants to sell two guns.
 

You're not wrong; these days, the NRA supports gun manufacturers a lot more than they support gun owners.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on May 07, 2018, 10:04:59 AM
You have to remember that guns are magic and solve everything, even the problems they cause.

I thought that was beer.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on May 07, 2018, 10:34:53 AM
You have to remember that guns are magic and solve everything, even the problems they cause.

Yes as per the NRA’s idea to stop school masacares, “let’s arm the teachers!” Why do these barmy ideas not sound idiotic to the people that propose them?

Selling a gun to the teachers to stop the man that you sold a gun to sounds awfully like the logic of a person who wants to sell two guns.

Yup.  The modern NRA serves the interests of the gun manufacturers, period.  Anything that could possibly slow down gun sales (waiting periods, background checks, real licensing) is cast as an Assault On Freedom, while anything that could possibly drive up sales (arming teachers, students, cafeteria workers, janitors) is Standing Up For America.  And the goddamned rednecks buy it wholesale. 

FTR, I own a couple of weapons (a .38 Colt Police Positive revolver that belonged to one grandfather, and a .22 Remington rifle that belonged to the other).  Neither have been fired in years. I've been toying with the idea of getting a Concealed Carry license just in case the state of Texas decides that's the only allowable form of voter ID going forward (I wouldn't put it past this bunch of idiots).  I wouldn't want to use the .38 for the training, though - it's old, and modern .38 ammo is a little too powerful for it, so I'd need to find a new(er) weapon. 

I wouldn't actually carry concealed, mind you - I'm not that paranoid about my personal safety.  Again, I'd just want the license for ID purposes. 

Worked a short-term contract with a gold-plated gun nut with a CCL who brought his weapon to the office.  Let's just say I was happy to not get my contract renewed. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on May 07, 2018, 02:11:25 PM
Was just reading this thread and someone shared this with me.. There is a video attached as people outside the UK (and some inside the UK) will not understand the reference.




(http://i68.tinypic.com/2jax2cj.jpg)

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gwiz on May 08, 2018, 06:34:48 AM
Was just reading this thread and someone shared this with me.. There is a video attached as people outside the UK (and some inside the UK) will not understand the reference.
There's a small industry working this meme:
https://www.facebook.com/TrumptonMayor/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on May 08, 2018, 09:01:39 AM

There's a small industry working this meme:
https://www.facebook.com/TrumptonMayor/

Just a quick glance and we find, "Briton's be prepared: - Show your rump to Trump." Had to chuckle at that one.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on May 08, 2018, 04:01:37 PM
I try not to get too involved in political discussions, but I'm appalled at Trump pulling the US out of the Iran deal.  I had hoped some of his associates could talk sense into him, but the White House now seems to be full of hawks who'd no doubt prefer conflict to a peaceful solution.  (Not to mention it'll likely push oil prices up, much to the delight of many of their sponsors.)

Quote
As he left the podium, Trump took a question from a journalist asking how the deal will affect US security.

 "How does this make America safer?" asked the journalist.

"This will make America much safer," Trump responded.
Well, I'm really glad you cleared that up for us Mr President...

My only hope is that Europe, Russia, China etc. can persuade Iran that it's still worth continuing the deal.  That however would leave the US very isolated, potentially leading to other problems.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 08, 2018, 04:50:07 PM
It's starting to look like a good time to stop letting the US "lead" the way for the rest of the world, at least until they elect a leader with a functional brain.

The fact that he thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize is ridiculous. For what? If he has had any beneficial effect on North Korea it is by pure luck. He could have just as easily started a nuclear war.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 08, 2018, 05:00:37 PM
Christiane Amanpour on CNN makes a good point.

Trump is making the same mistake as George W. Bush by taking advice from Benjamin Netanyahu. He was the one who said it would have a beneficial effect on the region to remove Saddam Hussein. And we are still cleaning up that mess 15 years later.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luke Pemberton on May 08, 2018, 07:04:53 PM
My only hope is that Europe, Russia, China etc. can persuade Iran that it's still worth continuing the deal.  That however would leave the US very isolated, potentially leading to other problems.

That was my thought tonight. The UK, France and Germany have already declared commitment to the deal. It could of course have the effect of increasing the rhetoric between Iran and Trump, and given his fragile ego and complete lack of diplomacy, increase the tensions further.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nweber on May 09, 2018, 12:25:40 AM
It's starting to look like a good time to stop letting the US "lead" the way for the rest of the world

It's been a good time for many years.

The fact that he thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize is ridiculous.

That prize was completely discredited, if it hadn't been already, when it was given to Barack Obama, who had done nothing to earn it at the time (his own words), and subsequently became quite expert at extrajudicial assassination.

The espionage indictment from the United States Department of Justice is a more prestigious award for service to humanity, although the prize that comes with the Nobel is better.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on June 16, 2018, 11:50:57 AM
I expected corruption. I expected sanctions to be lifted from Russia. I expected the EPA to be dismantled.

I did not expect children to be separated from their parents and thrown into internment camps. Disgusting.(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180616/d740f3b2c1223b9fdb601d0a4c48138b.jpg)

Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on June 16, 2018, 05:50:00 PM
I expected corruption. I expected sanctions to be lifted from Russia. I expected the EPA to be dismantled.

I did not expect children to be separated from their parents and thrown into internment camps. Disgusting.(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180616/d740f3b2c1223b9fdb601d0a4c48138b.jpg)

Sent from my SM-T713 using Tapatalk
It's absolutely appalling, and hasn't escaped notice in the rest of the world.  I cannot understand how anyone can either sanction or carry out these "orders" with a clear conscience.  The conditions the children are being held in are terrible, and now they're planning on using tents to accommodate even more!

The fact that he's blaming the Democrats for the policy, and is refusing to sign a bill to stop it* makes the whole situation even worse.  (I'm not going to get into the "religious justification for it" issue, which is also appalling, at least not on a public forum.)


[ * or at least according to reports I've read - it's hard to tell truth from fiction in the media these days ]
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on June 22, 2018, 07:02:24 AM
https://www.facebook.com/100002127357968/posts/1725908540823374/

This is too much. .he is a crazed monster and should be made to resign
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on June 22, 2018, 11:48:11 AM
https://www.facebook.com/100002127357968/posts/1725908540823374/

This is too much. .he is a crazed monster and should be made to resign
Link does not work.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 22, 2018, 01:19:09 PM
The college roommate of a friend is asking why people are protesting children who've been separated from their parents when they arrive at LaGuardia instead of just taking those children in and feeding and sheltering them and so forth.  The article she commented on was talking about how protestors were there arguing about the policy, not least because the federal government was preventing the state government of New York from providing the children in question with medical care.  When I told her that the federal government literally wouldn't let people do anything for these children, she started going off about Oskar Schindler, because of course that's a directly comparable situation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 22, 2018, 03:31:46 PM
https://www.facebook.com/100002127357968/posts/1725908540823374/

This is too much. .he is a crazed monster and should be made to resign

I've said it before, Trump isn't the problem, he's a symptom of the problem.

There is a significant fraction of American voters who like what he is doing and want him to do more of it, either because of like-minded cruelty, gob-smacking ignorance and stupidity, or just plain nihilism. Honest-to-God white nationalists and Nazis are gaining power in Congress and state houses for the same reason.  If the Democrats fail to flip either the House or the Senate this fall (which is likely, because Democrats don't vote in the midterms), hang on to your socks.  We may be seeing reruns of 1968-level domestic violence. 

Of course, this is all Newt Gingrich's fault.  He's the one who started the whole toxic partisanship shitball rolling.  In another 100 years his name will be in the history books as one of the chief architects of America's collapse. 

15 years ago I blasted anyone who thought of giving up their US citizenship and moving to another country - running away wasn't going to fix anything.  Now, I'm halfway seriously considering it myself, because I don't think things can be fixed anymore. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on June 22, 2018, 03:53:56 PM

15 years ago I blasted anyone who thought of giving up their US citizenship and moving to another country - running away wasn't going to fix anything.  Now, I'm halfway seriously considering it myself, because I don't think things can be fixed anymore.
Of course, that's become much more difficult for those of low income levels, because the State Department greatly increased the cost of renouncing US citizenship shortly after Trump's election. Funny that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 22, 2018, 04:59:15 PM
Not that I can afford to pack up and leave the country anyway, not that any country would take a middle-aged disabled woman with two kids and no extraordinary skills.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on June 22, 2018, 05:53:09 PM
Yes yes. We're all planning on deserting our respective sinking ships. I've started French tuition for just that purpose.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on June 22, 2018, 07:39:13 PM
Well, if any of you are thinking of moving to the UK, that may not be a great choice, as we're heading in pretty much the same direction (perhaps just not as rapidly).

In fact the rise of nationalism, attacks on immigration, and general dislike or distrust of anything "different" seems to be happening in just about every country at the moment.  I sometimes despair at humanity, having moved so far towards something approaching worldwide fairness, acceptance and inclusion, we're now turning back and throwing it all away  >:(
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 23, 2018, 11:57:47 AM
Heh, spare a thought for us in Australia...

I'm currently reading "Silent Invasion" by Clive Hamilton. It's about how China has been systematically infiltrating Australia's political and social structures for two decades, with the aim of splitting Australia from its American alliance (and who knows what else after that). In the meantime, the Australian government has been passing beefed up legislation relating to the espionage threat the Chinese pose, and splashing out some extra aid money among Pacific island nations in the hope of slowing the spread of Chinese influence in the region. *

And as I read the book, I'm coming to the conclusion that China is a bigger threat to the USA than the Soviet Union ever was: the Soviet era Russians were hamstrung by their ideology; by contrast the Chinese are ruthless, pragmatic and, above all, patient. David Wingrove's novels may turn out to be close to the mark.

Of course, on top of that, the USA is facing an increasing threat from a Russia whose leader looks to be out for revenge for defeat in the Cold War. I've just been watching parts of an Australian ABC report about Russian meddling in the USA: look for Trump/Russia at http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/ and if you can't watch the videos for whatever reason, the web pages for each of the shows include transcripts.

Grim reading...

* Back in 2000 I attended an Australian Skeptics conference in Sydney, which doubled as an international Skeptics conference. One of the speakers (with an interpreter) was Chinese skeptic Sima Nan. He described his efforts in trying to stamp out superstitious beliefs in China and the dangers he'd faced from outraged charlatans and their hired thugs. He also spoke about the wacky beliefs of followers of Falun Gong (which at the time was gaining popularity in Australia), and the absurd claims of its leader, Li Hongzhi. After the talk I was able to get his autograph (which I still have somewhere among my Skeptics papers), for which I was able to thank him with about the only Chinese I know.

These days, however, I see that Sima Nan is now a loyal advocate for the Chinese government and noisy critic of everything Western or Liberal or American (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Nan). I have to say it's a strange feeling to dislike a fellow atheist skeptic because he in turn dislikes the intellectual tradition which gave birth to Western liberalism and skepticism.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on June 23, 2018, 02:05:07 PM
I've said it before, Trump isn't the problem, he's a symptom of the problem.

I agree, and I think that cancer is spreading north.

Here in Ontario we just elected Doug Ford to be our next Premier (you might remember his late brother Rob, the former mayor of Toronto... think of Chris Farley with a Canadian accent). There are a lot of rumours surrounding Doug's past, like that he was a drug dealer back in the 1980s. He comes from a wealthy family and has publicly supported Donald Trump in the past. His diehard supporters ("Ford Nation") barely hide their racism. There is nothing at all likeable about him, but for some reason enough people voted for him. It's probably because he claimed to be fighting for "the little guy", despite the fact that he's going to cancel the planned minimum wage increase from the previous government. One of his few campaign promises was to bring back "$1 beer", and you just know that was enough to swing some votes his way.

He hasn't even been sworn in yet, but he has already promised to scrap a program that gives people a rebate when they make "green" home renovations and upgrades. He is going to also scrap the carbon cap & trade system. But hey... at least we'll have $1 dollar beer to drown our sorrows in while the environment turns to shit.  ::)

Quote
If the Democrats fail to flip either the House or the Senate this fall (which is likely, because Democrats don't vote in the midterms), hang on to your socks.  We may be seeing reruns of 1968-level domestic violence. 

I think you'll see that happen even if the Democrats do win in November because Trump supporters aren't going to just sit back and do nothing if they move to impeach him, or block any of his policies
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nweber on June 24, 2018, 04:38:11 AM
I'm coming to the conclusion that China is a bigger threat to the USA

I realise the US is a country that's been crapping its pants for close to twenty years because less than 0.1% of the murders there were committed by Muslims, but it's going to be a long long time before China poses anything like the threat to the US that the US currently poses to China.

How exactly is China a threat to the US?

by contrast the Chinese are ruthless, pragmatic and, above all, patient

Yes, the Americans only have the first one of those.

Of course, on top of that, the USA is facing an increasing threat from a Russia

Again, I recognise the extreme paranoia that exists in the US, but what is the threat from Russia?  Russia isn't even much of a threat to the rest of Europe, a region which has several times its population and about ten times its economy, and which could easily defend itself against any potential threat from Russia, if they didn't prefer to freeload off the Americans.

whose leader looks to be out for revenge for defeat in the Cold War

They tried an American puppet for a while, it didn't work very well.

I've just been watching parts of an Australian ABC report about Russian meddling in the USA

It would be interesting to see whether they have a report on US meddling in Russia, which kept Boris Yeltsin in power.  A few decades earlier, the US helped bring a puppet to power in Iran; that one bit them in the arses badly twenty six years later.  The lesson appears not to have been learned.

These days, however, I see that Sima Nan is now a loyal advocate for the Chinese government and noisy critic of everything Western or Liberal or American (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sima_Nan). I have to say it's a strange feeling to dislike a fellow atheist skeptic because he in turn dislikes the intellectual tradition which gave birth to Western liberalism and skepticism.

You probably won't like me very much either then.  I'm not an advocate for the Chinese government, and I'm not even Chinese, but there's no way I'm going to be an advocate for the American government.  The gravest threat to the US is the American people, who are militantly rejecting the western liberal tradition referenced above.  If the US becomes some ultra-****y authoritarian hellhole, my money is on it having nothing to do with Russia or China, except for their use as scapegoats.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on June 24, 2018, 05:18:22 PM
There are a couple of states that split their electoral college votes by congressional district with the remaining two being state wide. Why don't all states do this?

I know this is tangential but I am curious.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 25, 2018, 01:29:03 PM
There are a couple of states that split their electoral college votes by congressional district with the remaining two being state wide. Why don't all states do this?

I know this is tangential but I am curious.

In theory, keeping all your state's votes together gives your state more influence, instead of the people.  There are several states who have now passed laws saying that the winner of the popular vote will get their EC votes.  The original purpose of the Electoral College was to give smaller states more influence in the grand state of things; it benefited New Hampshire and Delaware at the expense of Pennsylvania and Virginia.  I actually used to have a defense for it, but after having two elections go against the popular vote in my voting lifetime (and I've only been voting about half my life at this point), I'm done with it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on June 25, 2018, 05:08:09 PM
I'm with Peter B on this one: the PRC is the biggest regional threat Australia faces (but not necessarily the US). The PRC government DOES play the long game. They are a threat to the US as influence will spread throughout the Asia-Pacific region and the US will find itself shut out of ports, bases, access, etc.

PRC moves regarding various disputed islands in the South China Sea (e.g. Spratlys) are an example. They disregard international rulings and unilaterally decide to claim islands. They claim no military intent but meantime islands are being upgraded to support military operations: runways, ports, air defence systems. They are even now making moves to find reason why international freedom of navigation rules can be ignored and exclusion zones established.

This is a dangerous time. We have a corrupt clown as the US President; the PRC has a leader who is trying to establish himself as 'president for life' 9and by all accounts succeeding); the PRC heavily influences the DPRK - who itself is run by a ruling dynasty - and is quite adept at playing the bait & switch game regarding nuclear capability and intent; a Russian leader with frightening criminal connections who has also managed to become 'dictator for life' and wants to re-establish Russia as a superpower; the PRC is making massive loans to small nations throughout the Asia-Pacific region who will not be able to repay them and that come with strings attached; and the PRC itself faces a looming financial crisis with growth slowing markedly.

There are so many destabilising influences.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on July 01, 2018, 06:19:56 PM
The fact that he thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize is ridiculous.

That prize was completely discredited, if it hadn't been already, when it was given to Barack Obama, who had done nothing to earn it at the time (his own words), and subsequently became quite expert at extrajudicial assassination.

Ahem.

HENRY.  FREAKING. KISSINGER.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on July 02, 2018, 10:05:48 AM
Having spent the past week with friends on a lake in Quebec with no signal, I am simultaneously happier and more depressed.  Just getting away from Twitter and Facebook and, oh yes, actual news helped a lot - letting yourself marinate in insanity is a good way to go insane yourself.  Spending a week on a lake with a cheese-addicted snapping turtle helps realign things.

But, some primary results in New York are not encouraging, and if the Democrats really are going to base their fall campaign around abolishing ICE, well...

Fortunately Obama told a bunch of Democrats at a fundraiser to basically get the eff over themselves and start doing things that will make a difference (vote, get other people registered and voting, support good candidates, etc.).  We should have stopped the damned navel-gazing on 1 Feb 2017 and started work right then on getting people elected. 

Yeah, gerrymandering and voter suppression are a thing.  Get people registered and voting anyway, as many as possible, in as many places as possible, and get them voting as early as possible.  Politics is a numbers game, and when you're playing from a negative position as Democrats are right now, you have to throw everything you have into it and then some.  Ending voter suppression means winning state houses, so don't skimp on that effort. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on July 02, 2018, 12:58:39 PM
Do you know what percentage of Americans support abolishing ICE?  It's a lot.  It turns out that they're ineffective and inefficient as well as cruel--they don't provide the services they're supposed to as well or as cost-effectively as the organizations from which they took over the job, and they only came to exist in the shadow of 9/11.  There are some places it's not going to play, but none of the friends I have who've been picketing or otherwise protesting were organized there by the party.  Many of them are deeply distrustful of the party, and one or two of them are even former Bernie delegates.  The Democrats as a party have to latch onto the handful of issues that are charging the base if they're going to win; it's what the Republicans have been doing for decades.  So women's rights, union rights, the Supreme Court, gay rights--and immigrants' rights.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nickrulercreator on July 10, 2018, 08:07:02 PM
How's everyone feeling about this SCOTUS nominee?

IMHO it could've been worse, but of course it's still awful. Dude doesn't believe a sitting president can be indicted, and we're not really sure what he'll due to R.v.W. yet. He's also a 2A enthusiast.

Luckily for R.v.W, he believes precedent holds, so maybe he won't overturn it.

Maybe.

Dems need to fight like hell to oppose this nominee.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on July 11, 2018, 12:12:23 PM
How's everyone feeling about this SCOTUS nominee?

IMHO it could've been worse, but of course it's still awful. Dude doesn't believe a sitting president can be indicted, and we're not really sure what he'll due to R.v.W. yet. He's also a 2A enthusiast.

Luckily for R.v.W, he believes precedent holds, so maybe he won't overturn it.

Maybe.

Dems need to fight like hell to oppose this nominee.

It could be worse - it could be Harriet Miers again. 

Being recommended by the Federalist Society means that he's not a total spaz as a jurist, but it also means I know that some of his positions will be deeply worrying. 

Honestly, though, Democrats need to focus on midterms and winning as many seats as possible.  Which means GOTV efforts need to be ramping up into high gear now.  Winning the majority means controlling the House and/or Senate judiciary committees.  Since we currently don't control either house, we can't pull a Mitch and just put off the vote until after the election. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on July 11, 2018, 12:17:29 PM
I've seen a lot of posts from my friends about being sure you're registered to vote in time for our primary next month.  Though my friends for the most part already were, I'm sure!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on July 11, 2018, 02:47:22 PM
I've seen a lot of posts from my friends about being sure you're registered to vote in time for our primary next month.  Though my friends for the most part already were, I'm sure!

Our primary (TX) came and went back in March, and turnout was, once again, disappointing.  Beto O'Rourke has it nailed - we're not a red state as much as we are a non-voting state.  Texas "has been on the verge of turning blue" for well over a decade, but we never do, because Texas Democrats can't be bothered to show up when it matters. 

Sure, after the election they're all over the place.  After the election they're out front whining and bitching.  But, you know, they couldn't actually be bothered to vote because their particular unicorn wasn't running.  Got forbid they vote for someone who's not perfect.  Better to just stay home. 

Although, my favorite excuse came from some Democrats who couldn't vote for Sanders in 2016 because they didn't know he was running until a week before the primary, and by then it was too late to register (which was unfair and suppressive). 

My somewhat intemperate response was how could you not know who was running for President?  How is this is a surprise for you?  What are you doing to actively avoid any news source, be it MSM or social media or the Weekly World News, so as to not know who was actually running for President?  It happens every four years like clockwork, it's all over the news...how can this be a surprise

This is what we're fighting - not just apathy, but willful ignorance.  And short of slapping these idiots with a tire iron, I'm not sure what the solution is. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on July 11, 2018, 05:26:19 PM
...Texas "has been on the verge of turning blue" for well over a decade, but we never do, because Texas Democrats can't be bothered to show up when it matters...

Pretty simple, isn't it? Decisions are made by people who show up.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nickrulercreator on July 11, 2018, 05:30:01 PM
I made a mistake. It’s pretty bad. Apparently things are looking worse for R.v.W.

I wish I was 18. I’m so mad.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on July 12, 2018, 11:42:55 AM
Both the Democrats and Republicans have food stands at Olympia's annual carnival.  I wish the fact that the Democrats usually have longer lines at theirs meant anything!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on July 12, 2018, 05:30:26 PM
Yes, I really do hope the Democrats realise what a disaster to the US he is, and actually do something about it!

More on the Australian perspective:

Quote
But Trump is unpicking America's position in Asia. And there's not much that Mattis or the remaining "adults in the room" can do about it. So far this year the President has imposed punitive tariffs on Asian allies and partners, legitimised Kim Jong-un's despotic regime without securing any denuclearisation goals, failed to consult allies before cancelling joint military exercises in north-east Asia, and started a trade war that will harm the entire region.

This assault on America's leadership role in the Indo-Pacific couldn't come at a worse time for Australia and its regional partners. As power is shifting from the US to China, Canberra's preferred mode for regional order – the maintenance of an American "security umbrella" – is no longer realistic.

Middle powers like Australia and Japan are thus struggling to advance an Indo-Pacific strategy in which like-minded nations take on greater responsibilities for helping the US maintain a "balance of power" vis-a-vis China. But while America's national security establishment is on board with this strategy, Trump's wrecking ball approach to the region is making an Indo-Pacific balance harder to achieve.

https://afr.com/news/policy/foreign-affairs/trumps-pacific-wrecking-ball-20180712-h12ktp


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on July 18, 2018, 10:50:26 AM
OK. We now have the spectacle of the most powerful man in the world saying "Oops! In my official press conference, when I said I DIDN'T think there was a chance Russia meddled in the election, I meant to say I DID. Just a pesky typo. My bad."

Also EXTREMELY interesting that in the shot of his notes, he'd crossed out by hand the bit about bringing those responsible to justice.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on July 18, 2018, 05:18:45 PM
Is America really facing the nightmare scenario, a president beholden to a foreign power, and acting in the best interests of that foreign power?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/maddow-time-for-americans-to-face-worst-case-scenario-on-trump-1278891587866 (http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/maddow-time-for-americans-to-face-worst-case-scenario-on-trump-1278891587866)

Could Putin really have some dirt on Trump, sufficient to to effectively make Trump his bitch!

Now, I am aware that Rachel Maddow is biased and very Liberal leaning news presenter. However, I am also aware that she was delivering EXACTLY what is in that indictment, quoted word for word. I know this because I have read the entire thing. You can read all 29 pages of the indictment here.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17568806/mueller-russia-intelligence-indictment-full-text (https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17568806/mueller-russia-intelligence-indictment-full-text)

or download it from here...

https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download (https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download)

There is no other word for it but staggering. In these circumstances, I doesn't matter what the presenter's bias is, the wording of the indictment doesn't change and is there for all to see. The degree of detail is astonishing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on July 18, 2018, 06:07:03 PM
Is America really facing the nightmare scenario, a president who beholden to a foreign power, and is acting in the best interests of that foreign power?

Not just the President.  Based on their behavior, a good chunk of GOP Congressmen and Senators are on the take as well. 

Things are getting scary.  Apparently Putin has asked Trump to provide former diplomats Michael McFaul and Bill Browder for "questioning".  The right answer to that is "not NO but HELL NO and piss off for even asking the question", but apparently Trump's answer was, "we'll think about it and get back to you." 

At Helsinki, Trump, the big, strong, manly daddy figure of the big hands and large dingus to the white trash in America's heartland, rolled over like a puppy for Putin to scratch his belly.  I've been reluctant to use the "T" word before now out of fear of sounding hyperbolic.  No more.

This President and his inner circle personally benefited from a years-long psyop campaign waged by a long-time geopolitical adversary, and is now returning the favor by undoing decades of American leadership and foreign policy, at the expense of longtime allies and American citizens alike.  This President is apparently willing (or, not immediately discounting the request as ridiculous) to turn American citizens over to this same longtime adversary because they asked nicely

Honest-to-God spies (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44865626) have wormed their way in to the personal and professional lives of policy makers and lobbyists.  This is Joe McCarthy's nightmare scenario writ large, and the Republicans are up to their goddamned eyeballs in it.  The reason congressional Republicans have been reluctant to protect Mueller?  They know that if this investigation goes on long enough, they'll start appearing in the indictments themselves. 

GEORGE FREAKING WILL is telling everyone to vote Democrat in November.  Even if that Democrat is the most horrible person you can imagine.  The House and Senate must be turned over completely. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on July 19, 2018, 02:43:34 AM

There is no other word for it but staggering. In these circumstances, I doesn't matter what the presenter's bias is, the wording of the indictment doesn't change and is there for all to see. The degree of detail is astonishing.

Indeed. Mueller seems to be a worthy adversary with an eye for the detail. His investigation so far appears to be incredibly thorough.
At this stage I cannot see how there can be any confusion over Russian interference. Couple that to Trump publicly calling for them to hack the DNC and it being hacked within 24 hours, along with Guccifer2.0 being in active discussions with Trump's advisers then the case for collusion becomes stronger.

Roger Stone...You're next to be indicted.

This is worth a read. If even half of it is true then there's suspicion to believe that Trump may have been under Russian influence for decades. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html
Regardless of where you stand on Putin, I think that it's fair to say that he is playing an absolute blinder. He has absolute control over his country. He can invade other countries with impunity. Through a many-years long campaign he has massively de-stabilised the Western world, driven a wedge into the EU by influencing Brexit and the far right in former USSR countries. All he's missing is a lair under a volcano and a white cat.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on July 19, 2018, 05:52:17 PM
All he's missing is a lair under a volcano and a white cat.

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/tzr52ub2xc9y6dj/Putin-Blofeld.jpg?raw=1)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on July 20, 2018, 11:29:24 AM
I personally don't think there's any question (and before Trump I would have considered myself the "don't ascribe to malice what can be accounted for by stupidity" type of non-conspiracist).

But Trump was apparently officially told about the Russian attacks two weeks before the inauguration. Since then, he has repeatedly attacked investigations into them as "witch hunts." I do not believe any person who loves their country would behave in this manner.

If I wanted to get into more speculative territory, it appears that after Trump was informed of incontrovertible evidence, including e-mails and texts from high government sources, Putin purged a number of high officials who might have been in a position to leak such things to the US. If connected, that could mean that Trump informed Putin of US assets, possibly leading to their arrest and/or execution. That, to my mind, would be undeniable treason.

Furthermore, his behaviour with regards to Helsinki seems to indicate that he has no regard for even the appearance of impropriety. His consideration of turning Browder and especially McFaul over for Russian interrogation should have been enough to have him impeached immediately in normal times.

As it is, his supporters have started to shift from "there's not evidence of collusion" to "well, if Russia affected the election, hey, they were just helping Make America Great Again, so yay Russia!"

I suspect that if one of the Trump children is indicted, things will explode. How, I'm not sure, but Trump is already showing signs of not coping with the stress.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on July 20, 2018, 01:11:36 PM
I genuinely don't believe he loves his country.  I don't believe he loves anything other than himself.  He thinks he can use his country, and if the Russians helped him with that, what's wrong with that?  They were helping him, which means they're less important than he is.  As is everyone.  He still thinks he's gotten the best of the deal, and he doesn't believe in a deal where both people win.  He certainly doesn't see how much he's lost in this one.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on July 20, 2018, 07:04:51 PM
On top of all those things, there are a great number of indicators that trump is quite simply, way out of his depth in this job. Among those are

- He was told by Attorney General Sally Yates that his National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn was a security risk because he had been compromised by Russia and had been having secret talks with them. Instead of firing him immediately (or at least suspending him), Trump waited two and a half weeks (during which time Flynn still had access to top security information) before he did anything about him. For a man who had previously acted decisively with regard to executive orders and knee-jerk tweeting, he sure dropped the ball on this one, big time.

- He then fired said Attorney General, presumably because he didn't like the advice she gave him and didn't like being forced to fire his appointee. He actually has routinely fired anyone who doesn't tell him what he wants to hear.

- He makes policy on the hoof. Yesterday, he announced that his new buddy, Vlad, is going to visit The White House in the fall. The first that the US Chief of Intelligence, Dan Coats, knew about it was when he was told during a live interview at a security conference. I mean what the actual f**k!!? Coats should have been the FIRST person to know about that, not the last!

- He has called the news media "enemies of the people". This is a very bad mistake. Its the sort of thing that brutal dictators have done; Stalin, Khrushchev, Mao Zedong. Here's CNN's Chris Cuomo's take, which pretty much aligns with my own.

https://youtu.be/srV2IHAZg5I (http://)

- He has crapped all over his allies, while cuddling up to his new best buddy, a criminal & brutal dictator

Trump is a liability to the US, and IMO, a danger to everyone on the planet, both within and outwith the USA
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on July 20, 2018, 08:51:03 PM
Have a read of this list....

1. Superiority and entitlement. Tells everyone how good they are. Be the best, the most right, and the most competent; do everything their way; own everything; and control everyone.

2. Exaggerated need for attention and validation. Has to be at the centre of everything that is going one

3. Need to control. A sense of entitlement makes it seem logical to them that they should be in control....  of everything.

4. Lack of responsibility, blaming others and deflecting criticism. Never accept responsibility for the results of their action. Generalising blame; all police, all bosses, all teachers, all Democrats etc.

5. Lack of boundaries. Like 2-year-olds, believe that everything belongs to them and that no-one can refuse their demands.

6. Lack of empathy. Inability to empathise with the suffering of others. Selfish and self-involved and are usually unable to understand what other people are feeling.

7. Highly attuned to perceived threats and anger from others. Nearly blind to the feelings of the people around them. May even misperceive comments as an attack. Likely to misinterpret sarcasm as actual agreement, and misinterpret joking from others as personal criticism.

8. Emotional reasoning. Make most of their decisions based on how they feel about something. Always expecting everyone to go along with their “solutions,” and react with irritation and resentment if they don’t.

9. No shame
Feels no guilt because they think they are always right.

10. An inability to communicate effectively or work as part of a team.
Dismissive of the opinions of others who don't agree with him. If in a position to do so, will get rid of these people and draw in people who will.

Any of this look at all familiar. Well, they are good fit for Trump's behaviour.... they are also some of the key symptoms of NPD - Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

(PS: I'm sorry if these observations offends those who don't like us discussing mental health here, but I'm simply reporting what I have observed)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on July 21, 2018, 12:01:08 PM
It's always all about him. Not America, not world relations, just him. Even if he has to bullshit everyone around to make himself look more important. His recent UK visit is just a great example. He claims the Queen inspected the honour guard just for him, for the first time in 70 years. So blatantly untrue it's hard to know where to begin, but lets just mention that a) she hasn't been Queen for 70 years (although she is our longest-reigning monarch ever), and b) she inspects the guard several times a year and it's often part of the deal when other heads of state visit. And let's not even go into the way he walked in front of her. Royal protocol aside (one does not walk ahead of the monarch when accompanying her, even her husband is always a few paces behind her), he's on a visit with a 92-year-old lady and he just strides in front and makes it all about him. And of course he whined about the baby balloon protest, thus reinforcing the reason it was put up in the first place.

He's elbowed other people out of the way to be in front (despite being taller than all of them so therefore easily visible wherever he stands), constantly overstated his importance, and generally just acted like a bully on the world stage. He's been criticised for failing to obtain any agreements from Kim Jong-Un during the summit meeting, but that assumes he was actually interested in doing anything but making history as the first US President to meet the head of the North Korean state.

The most frustrating part of this whole deal is that he is actually making good on a lot of his election promises. It's just a shame that a lot of what he promised to do is such a bad idea from so many perspectives.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nweber on July 22, 2018, 03:50:18 AM
Yesterday, he announced that his new buddy, Vlad, is going to visit The White House in the fall.

"Vlad" is short for "Vladislav".
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on July 22, 2018, 07:00:38 AM

He's elbowed other people out of the way to be in front (despite being taller than all of them so therefore easily visible wherever he stands),

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DiA9dzhX0AE7TYz.jpg:large)

Witness this picture. Trump, with his usual shit-eating grin, has been positioned in front of the Queen with his wife even further back. No doubt this was to make him appear physically larger.
His narcissistic ego is soooooo frail.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on July 22, 2018, 07:01:39 AM
I loved these little details, which are waaaay too subtle for Trumplethinskin to work out.
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/19/17586942/queen-elizabeth-brooch-warfare-trump-obama-code
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on July 22, 2018, 12:04:14 PM
I loved these little details, which are waaaay too subtle for Trumplethinskin to work out.
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/19/17586942/queen-elizabeth-brooch-warfare-trump-obama-code
Sometimes a broach is just a broach, to paraphrase, but, on the other hand, I would not put it past her.
She's a smart old biddy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on July 22, 2018, 04:34:29 PM
Pretty damned hard hitting

http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/trump-biographer-tony-schwartz-trump-lies-1282979907553
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on July 31, 2018, 02:08:55 PM
Oh boo hoo.

Here's a real political problem and it involves maths.

What do you get when you take 52% of voters in an advisory referendum who voted to leave the European Union, then you take maybe about 80% of those voters who voted that way to control immigration, then you take maybe 60% of those who want to do so at any cost?

a) About a quarter of all voters.
b) The Will of the People.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on July 31, 2018, 02:59:40 PM
Things seem to be getting more <redacted> up as we go along.  . . :o
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on August 02, 2018, 12:12:11 PM
Mencken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken) had our number 90 years ago:

Quote
Democracy gives [the beatification of mediocrity] a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world—that he is genuinely running things. Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power—which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters—which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy.

Quote
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on August 02, 2018, 05:23:12 PM
Mencken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken) had our number 90 years ago:

Quote
Democracy gives [the beatification of mediocrity] a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world—that he is genuinely running things. Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power—which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters—which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy.

Quote
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

He had some abhorrent views in many areas, but by gosh he sure nailed it with those two statements!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on August 02, 2018, 06:04:58 PM
Mencken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken) had our number 90 years ago:

Quote
Democracy gives [the beatification of mediocrity] a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world—that he is genuinely running things. Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power—which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters—which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy.

Quote
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

I've pinched that last quote to make it my temporary sig. at ISF.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on October 20, 2018, 12:36:44 PM
So Trump believes that Khashoggi was killed in a fight now while all the world stands laughing at the Saudi story  :D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on October 21, 2018, 06:18:33 AM
And now he changes his mind after he saw the pressure from everyone
Apart from that,what a coward crime indeed.. and what a pathetic explanation from KSA. The Saudi regime should be punished, also the Syrian regime who has killed thousands like Khashoggi, but there is no one to pressure them as should
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 21, 2018, 07:46:37 AM
And now he changes his mind after he saw the pressure from everyone
Apart from that,what a coward crime indeed.. and what a pathetic explanation from KSA. The Saudi regime should be punished, also the Syrian regime who has killed thousands like Khashoggi, but there is no one to pressure them as should

Their not getting punished for killing hundreds of thousands in Yemen. Why should one more make a difference?
I paraphrase Stalin- A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on October 21, 2018, 07:53:08 AM
And now he changes his mind after he saw the pressure from everyone
Apart from that,what a coward crime indeed.. and what a pathetic explanation from KSA. The Saudi regime should be punished, also the Syrian regime who has killed thousands like Khashoggi, but there is no one to pressure them as should

Their not getting punished for killing hundreds of thousands in Yemen. Why should one more make a difference?
I paraphrase Stalin- A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

Well, if they get severely punished for this one it will do justice for the rest..of course considering that the premise for the punishment is that killing one is like killing millions.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 21, 2018, 12:08:15 PM
Trump believes what is convenient to Trump.  He'll pretend to believe what he thinks other people want him to if he thinks that'll get him what he wants from them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 22, 2018, 06:31:26 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/us/politics/trump-transgender-health-care.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/us/politics/trump-transgender-health-care.html)
To paraphrase Pink Floyd, all in all its another kick in the balls. I would not be surprised if they start denying changes to ID for folks like me after this if this goes through.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 23, 2018, 02:28:51 AM
America takes another step into the Puritanical dark ages.
At this stage it appears that one of the most toxic things on Earth is the over-60 white Republican.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nweber on October 23, 2018, 09:17:43 AM
So Trump believes that Khashoggi was killed in a fight now while all the world stands laughing at the Saudi story  :D

Perhaps he accidentally stabbed himself in the stomach while shaving.

But, maybe he is still alive, he was videotaped walking out the back door, wearing different shoes, and with considerably more hair on his head than when he went it.  If you are looking at a hair transplant, and want quick results, the Saudi consulate seems like the place to go.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nweber on October 23, 2018, 09:21:57 AM
Their not getting punished for killing hundreds of thousands in Yemen. Why should one more make a difference?

Yes, but those victims are Yemenis.

Which was the greater tragedy, fewer than three thousand killed in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, or several hundred thousand killed in Iraq?  The answer is obvious, unless you take the absurd position that Iraqis are actually people.

This chap was a refugee, a resident of the US, who might have been applying for a green card, and with three children who were US citizens.  So he's got to be worth at least as much as a few million Yemenis.  Unless he did something the US doesn't like (looks like he won't have the opportunity now), in which case he might have been executed by the US instead.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 23, 2018, 11:00:45 AM
Yesterday, the kids and I walked ballots over to the courthouse (our state is vote-by-mail).  There are several initiatives on our ballot that are going to make the Republican leadership very unhappy if/when they pass.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on October 23, 2018, 09:53:02 PM
Talking about 1631, 1634 and 1639?

I like voting by mail.  Haven't stepped in a polling place since 1982.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 24, 2018, 12:41:49 AM
Talking about 1631, 1634 and 1639?

I like voting by mail.  Haven't stepped in a polling place since 1982.

Ooh, got to say I like voting at a polling place, you know.

Here in Australia most polling places are primary schools, and most schools take advantage of election day to have a fund-raising sausage sizzle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_sausage).

One interesting little tweak is that for Territory elections, party touts are banned from handing out How-To-Vote cards, while for Federal elections they're allowed. This means that you have to run the gauntlet of the touts in order to enter the polling place, and end up with half a dozen How-To-Vote cards. The funny thing at the last Federal election was that when I went to vote in the morning the touts were all stiffly polite with each other, but by the afternoon when I went to help with the sausage sizzle they were all chatting like old friends, presumably having been lubricated by rounds of coffee in the meantime.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 24, 2018, 11:20:26 AM
Talking about 1631, 1634 and 1639?

Oh, yes.  There are signs up all over telling us to vote no on 1639, saying it "criminalizes self-defense."  Because it includes a provision that you have to properly store your assault rifle, should you have one, and that you are liable for the commission of a crime with it.  Not at the same charge, but you are still guilty of not properly securing your weapon.  And clearly that means you can't Protect Your Family.

Apparently our cops also strongly oppose 940, which would do things like mandate deescalation and mental health training and change the standard for use of lethal force; our laws on that latter are the most police-friendly in the country and make it almost impossible to prosecute.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on October 25, 2018, 11:57:10 AM
And now he changes his mind after he saw the pressure from everyone
Apart from that,what a coward crime indeed.. and what a pathetic explanation from KSA. The Saudi regime should be punished, also the Syrian regime who has killed thousands like Khashoggi, but there is no one to pressure them as should

Their not getting punished for killing hundreds of thousands in Yemen. Why should one more make a difference?
I paraphrase Stalin- A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

That was the Saudi mistake, forgetting this psychological truth. People blip over the war in Yemen as "too big for us to contemplate." It's a statistic, as the saying goes. But one guy pulled into an embassy and cut up alive? People can put themselves into his shoes. They visualize the saw. They hear the screams. They say, "that could have been me."

If you're going to kill large groups of people, it's bad strategy to let the outside world focus on one. It turns personal.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 25, 2018, 02:44:23 PM
And some further acts by an administration with a severe hate-on for trans* and intersex folks. They want to erase folks like me, pretend we don't exist, pretend we don't matter.
https://thinkprogress.org/health-department-removes-gender-from-its-civil-rights-page-d60f33814b8e/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on October 26, 2018, 12:47:26 PM
Oh, yes.  There are signs up all over telling us to vote no on 1639, saying it "criminalizes self-defense." 
Yeah, that's why it's a good thing to actually read about the initiative.  Not just reading the summary included in the voter guide which can be incomplete.  This year the initiative summaries are greatly improved.

Quote
Because it includes a provision that you have to properly store your assault rifle, should you have one, and that you are liable for the commission of a crime with it. 
I know that some gun owners were especially put off by the provision that all semi-auto rifles would be defined as assault rifles.  It was part of the slippery slope.  Later on "they" will say they only want to ban assault rifles.  That is when you find out grandpa's hunting rifle is actually a weapon of terror and not a family heirloom.  :)

I used to be able to speak with the WAGR, but they're rather xenophobic.  I was promised answers to my questions for a long time before I finally gave up.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 27, 2018, 11:22:58 AM
Someone local has been putting up hand-made signs claiming that it's a billionaires' ploy to make you provide a life-long medical privacy waiver, and I have no idea what that's all about.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on October 27, 2018, 05:53:21 PM
Several billionaires have donated money to support the initiative.  https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/see-whos-donating-to-washingtons-big-initiatives/281-608186618
Quote
Top Donors supporting I-139:
Paul Allen: $1,226,036
Nicolas Hanauer: $713,018
Leslie Hanauer: $713,018
Connie Ballmer: $600,000
Steven Ballmer: $500,000
The $5 billion donated by supporters is much greater than the $600K donated by the NRA and others who oppose I-1639

It will also amend RCW 9.41.094 which now reads;
Quote
Waiver of confidentiality.
A signed application to purchase a pistol shall constitute a waiver of confidentiality and written request that the health care authority, mental health institutions, and other health care facilities release, to an inquiring court or law enforcement agency, information relevant to the applicant's eligibility to purchase a pistol to an inquiring court or law enforcement agency.
Semiautomatic assault rifles will be included along with pistols where the waiver is concerned.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 28, 2018, 11:03:32 AM
So basically, your mental health history would be considered relevant in your permit request?  Meaning the NRA push poll I got on our last initiative for gun control, that it would be better to keep guns out of the hands of "dangerous mentally ill people," might actually happen?  And I say this as a mentally ill person who doesn't believe she should have a gun--because suicide is a thing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on October 28, 2018, 12:39:05 PM
So basically, your mental health history would be considered relevant in your permit request?
Yes.

Quote
Meaning the NRA push poll I got on our last initiative for gun control, that it would be better to keep guns out of the hands of "dangerous mentally ill people," might actually happen?
It is supposed to be happening now with pistol purchases from FFL's.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 30, 2018, 07:29:44 AM
(http://i68.tinypic.com/3096geg.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 30, 2018, 11:01:47 AM
Ooof, yes.   Someone a friend was arguing with suggested that we couldn't know those were the bomber's stickers; he could've bought the car that way!  I suggested that of course everyone knows you can't take stickers off a used car, and one of my other friends made the joke that it was load-bearing racism.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 30, 2018, 03:28:13 PM
I don't care if the stickers come off easily, I wouldn't buy a car from someone that would put them on it in the first place.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 30, 2018, 11:37:27 PM
And now he's saying he can change the US Constitution with an Executive Order,  and is planning  to. If he pulls that off,  the US is effectively a dictatorship,  since it means the US Constitution  can be changed at the whims of one person.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 31, 2018, 08:11:17 AM
And now he's saying he can change the US Constitution with an Executive Order,  and is planning  to. If he pulls that off,  the US is effectively a dictatorship,  since it means the US Constitution  can be changed at the whims of one person.

Is this seriously an issue? I mean, in the article in which I read about Trump's thought bubble, it also mentioned that Paul Ryan had already dismissed it on the grounds that this wasn't how you lot change your Constitution.

But in reading it, and the reaction to this matter and the heap of others in the recent months and years, some thoughts began to crystalise in my thinking.

Even across the Pacific Ocean I worry about what Trump says and does as much as most of you on this forum. But I also worry that people are falling into a reflexive pattern of behaviour - Trump says something stupid, the progressive side of the Internet lights up, and Trump supporters point and laugh...wash, rinse, repeat.

There's another thread I think on this forum (golly, it may even be somewhere in this thread) where someone said that the 9/11 attacks on the USA produced a massive anaphylactic reaction from the American people. I wonder now that progressive Americans are reacting to Trump exactly the same way - he says his next stupid thing, and like clockwork comes the outraged response. Sure it's easy to Like a clever meme or even to create one yourself, but no amount of Likes counts for even one vote.

So perhaps it's time to tune out of listening to what he says and turn instead to the hard, unglamorous and slow work of building the Democratic Party from the grassroots up - getting people to volunteer, finding good candidates, encouraging people to register to vote and then actually vote - in other words, rebuild the people's direct involvement in democracy.

And when I say good candidates, I don't mean people who will as an equally predictable response crank up the outrage in Congress and do whatever they can to block the latest Republican or Trumpian agenda. Instead, I mean people who are willing to sigh and wave it through, and show to the American people that at least the Democratic Party is trying to get the Congress working again. At the moment, from what little I see of how things are going in Congress, Democratic leaders seem to think a series of minor tactical successes in blocking confirmations or legislation represents a coherent strategy, without considering how that makes them look to the American people.

The other thing to keep in mind is that tens of millions of people voted for Trump and Republican candidates. They're not traitors and they're not idiots; many have said they held their noses when they voted for Trump, many said they felt he had the better policies, and others said they thought long and hard about which candidate to vote for. But in general they're just as patriotic as you are.

Also consider there are still many millions of Americans who sit in the political centre; and unless you're rather more politically blinkered than I think most of you are, you don't actually oppose every policy move Trump makes, any more than those who voted for him support every policy move he makes, which makes most Americans centrists to at least some extent. There are also many millions of people who are currently turned off by the outrage (on both sides, sure) who could be engaged in politics if they were just given a good enough reason to vote. Why not give them every reason to vote Democratic?

But patriotism is the key thing here. People like Trump come and go, but (IMO) the USA is facing two external threats which are far more serious than him and which will continue as threats long after he's gone, and the current deep divisions in American society and insularity will only weaken any attempts to respond to them. Russia is led by a man who's never got over America's victory in the Cold War, and he's doing his best to bring the USA undone; the troll farms and their fake news are classic Russian maskirovka, and it's working a treat. And China is playing a very long game (described as a "hundred-year marathon") to displace the USA as the major power in the world, and they're pretty much committing their entire economy to the task; I recommend you read Clive Hamilton's "Silent Invasion", which, although it looks at the issue from an Australian point of view, has lessons relevant to the USA.

We Australians love to make fun of Americans, as do many people around the world. But, warts and all, I'd prefer living in the USA to just about any other country in the world (apart from Australia: we're pretty much perfect!); your democracy and the rights you have as citizens are a beacon of hope to people everywhere. Please don't get so caught up in the latest Trump dumbness that you forget that. It would be a tragedy if people around the world looked at the USA and decided they preferred the authoritarianism of China or Russia - I don't want to live in the world of David Wingrove's "Chung Kuo" novels.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 31, 2018, 12:12:21 PM
I honestly have yet to see a policy move Trump has made that I support.  I could be missing one, but I don't think so.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 31, 2018, 03:15:18 PM
Peter B,  I am not American. Like you,  I am an outsider looking at this from the outside. I also never said folks who voted for Trump were stupid. The man was and is a demagogue. He promised things folks could reasonably want while blaming those already hiring for why they don't have them. Since  been elected I have seen repeated and persistent efforts to roll back and remove human rights for minorities. I have seen him fanning the flames of hate. I have seen him lie through his teeth and have it called simply another kind of truth.And now he wants to make it so one man can change the rules for the rules. How can it be a democracy after that?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on November 01, 2018, 04:03:19 PM
The above hiring is meant to be hurting.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on November 01, 2018, 04:26:23 PM
People assume that there's some sort of iron gate that would stop Trump from doing things that up till now we've assumed can't be done. But all this stopping has to be done by people. And if all the people are in Trump's control, he could actually shoot someone in broad daylight, as he boasted, and get away with it, if no police will arrest him, and no judges will rule against him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 07, 2018, 12:10:28 AM
I'm keeping the Republicans and blue-dog democrat in District 35 as well as the Democrats in Congress. 

I-1639 is passing 60/40 like I-594 did a few years ago.  This means I have to pay for a training class to buy any semi-auto rifle.  Being a range safety officer, trained military and a certified shooting coach does not count.  This initiative will probably cause a run on semi-auto rifles until July 2019.

I-1634 is passing to prohibit new local taxes on food/beverages.  Increasing those taxes was just going to be another way to make the WA tax scheme less progressive.   I'd like to see a state income tax replace some of the other taxes in WA.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 07, 2018, 09:40:20 AM
Oh, I've been stumping for a state income tax for years.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 08, 2018, 09:02:46 AM
I think WA will start taxing income someday.  Do you think it will replace other taxes or just get tacked on?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 08, 2018, 09:06:11 AM
I would like to hope it'll replace at least our sales tax, because sales tax is the single most regressive form of tax.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 08, 2018, 02:30:48 PM
And now he's saying he can change the US Constitution with an Executive Order,  and is planning  to. If he pulls that off,  the US is effectively a dictatorship,  since it means the US Constitution  can be changed at the whims of one person.

No.  He can't.  Amending the US Constitution is hard.  You need approval by two thirds of Congress (both houses) or two thirds of all state legislatures just to propose an amendment, and ratification requires 3/4 of all state legislatures.  Granted, given the political balance among the states right now, that's not outside the realm of possibility, but it's not something I'd lose sleep over. 

Trump is an idiot, he's surrounded himself with idiots, and that's the only reason he hasn't done any more harm than he has up until now.  Problem is the Senate will approve any goddamned appointment and stupid idea of his because the Republican leadership, while not composed exclusively of idiots, is stunningly corrupt, amoral, and likely compromised out the wazoo by the Russians.

At least with a Democratic House, there will be some pushback.  The problem is that Democrats are like cats, impossible to organize and get going in the same direction.  They'll start 20 different investigations, each geared more for publicity than actual oversight, and they'll all step on each other's and the Special Counsel's work.  It's gonna be a shitshow for the ages.

But, we have a divided government now, which will put the brakes on some of the worst nonsense. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 08, 2018, 06:45:18 PM
Seriously - the White House releases 'fake news'! They blatantly lie... and yet a considerable portion of US voters support this administration?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-09/sarah-sanders-accused-of-sharing-doctored-jim-acosta-video/10480486

They vote in a dead man?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-08/dead-pimp-dennis-hof-wins-seat-in-nevadas-state-parliament/10475946

And he's bankrupting the country, just like he has done with all his business ventures:

https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/trump-s-2-1-trillion-deal-with-the-devil-has-failed-20181108-p50eom.html

Seriously, what is going on with US voters?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 08, 2018, 11:15:21 PM
Seriously, what is going on with US voters?

The way I see it, there are two types of Republican voters: 1) the ones who just aren't smart enough to know better, 2) the ones who do know better, but think "winning" is more important than doing what is best for the country.

I can forgive people who voted for Trump in 2016 because they gave him the benefit of the doubt. But now they have no excuse for continuing to support him. He is obviously corrupt and I can't wait to see him removed from office. I just hope Mueller's investigation (and the evidence he has collected) can be protected long enough for that to happen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 09, 2018, 09:55:17 AM
To be fair, the Democrats once voted in a dead man, back in 2000.  The person running against I believe it was Ashcroft died during the election.  However, everyone knew that they were actually voting for his widow, who would take the seat.  Also, they didn't want Ashcroft.  I don't know what the situation is here.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 09, 2018, 11:34:15 AM
Voting for dead people isn't common, but it isn't unheard of.  There's significant lead time between getting your name on the ballot and the election, and sometimes candidates die during that period.  Most of the time, people voting for the dead guy are just really voting against his opponent, understanding that the seat will either be filled by appointment or by a special election (depends on the office). 

Most of the time.

Sometimes, the voter may not be aware that the candidate is dead (not every voter is terribly well-informed).  Sometimes, the voter is ... well, crazy, and doesn't think that death is a barrier to serving in office. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 09, 2018, 01:49:10 PM
Seriously, what is going on with US voters?

The way I see it, there are two types of Republican voters: 1) the ones who just aren't smart enough to know better, 2) the ones who do know better, but think "winning" is more important than doing what is best for the country.

I can forgive people who voted for Trump in 2016 because they gave him the benefit of the doubt. But now they have no excuse for continuing to support him. He is obviously corrupt and I can't wait to see him removed from office. I just hope Mueller's investigation (and the evidence he has collected) can be protected long enough for that to happen.

Do not underestimate the strong undercurrents of fascism in the US.  It's always been there (Henry Ford thought Hitler was a swell guy), but it's been steadily growing over the decades as more and more people realize that being white, Christian, and male is no longer sufficient for being the guy in charge.  Mediocre white men have been losing positions of power and economic superiority to women and minorities, and that's Just Not Right

Then you have the crime-has-never-been-higher, brown-people-are-coming-to-murder-us-in-our-sleep bedwetters, who are the kind of people whom Ben Franklin was talking about when he said, "those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."  These are the people who are just fine with the kind of wanton brutality Joe Arpaio and David Clarke subjected their inmates to. 

Way too many Americans want a strong daddy figure to make all the scary monsters go away, and for some incomprehensible reason they have decided that's Trump.  He's a poor man's idea of a rich man, a stupid man's idea of a smart man, and a weak man's idea of a strong man. 

A divided government will slow him down, but he still has the Senate to approve his appointments and any further SCOTUS nominees (pray to whatever gods you believe in that RBG doesn't kick before 2020).  The last few months have shown us that there aren't that many built-in legal protections against a President going apeshit (yes, there's the 25th amendment, but that requires the VP and a majority of the Cabinet to sign off, and if they're all loyalists, they won't).  The only thing that stopped previous Presidents from wrecking the whole system was a sense of shame
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on November 09, 2018, 04:18:48 PM
To be fair, the Democrats once voted in a dead man, back in 2000.
Dead Man Running was a plot in The West Wing.

He's a poor man's idea of a rich man, a stupid man's idea of a smart man, and a weak man's idea of a strong man. 
He's the anti-Bartlet.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 09, 2018, 04:32:19 PM
The fact that some people not just voted for this man but actually support him makes me want some type of entrance exam for voting.

"I'm sorry Sir but you are too stupid to vote".
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 10, 2018, 04:45:44 AM

Do not underestimate the strong undercurrents of fascism in the US.  It's always been there (Henry Ford thought Hitler was a swell guy), but it's been steadily growing over the decades as more and more people realize that being white, Christian, and male is no longer sufficient for being the guy in charge.  Mediocre white men have been losing positions of power and economic superiority to women and minorities, and that's Just Not Right

Then you have the crime-has-never-been-higher, brown-people-are-coming-to-murder-us-in-our-sleep bedwetters, who are the kind of people whom Ben Franklin was talking about when he said, "those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."  These are the people who are just fine with the kind of wanton brutality Joe Arpaio and David Clarke subjected their inmates to. 

Way too many Americans want a strong daddy figure to make all the scary monsters go away, and for some incomprehensible reason they have decided that's Trump.  He's a poor man's idea of a rich man, a stupid man's idea of a smart man, and a weak man's idea of a strong man. 

A divided government will slow him down, but he still has the Senate to approve his appointments and any further SCOTUS nominees (pray to whatever gods you believe in that RBG doesn't kick before 2020).  The last few months have shown us that there aren't that many built-in legal protections against a President going apeshit (yes, there's the 25th amendment, but that requires the VP and a majority of the Cabinet to sign off, and if they're all loyalists, they won't).  The only thing that stopped previous Presidents from wrecking the whole system was a sense of shame.

This is simultaneously the most comprehensively sensible and terrifying piece that I have read on the current state of affairs in a long time.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 10, 2018, 11:04:14 AM
The fact that some people not just voted for this man but actually support him makes me want some type of entrance exam for voting.

"I'm sorry Sir but you are too stupid to vote".

The problem with that is that it is all too often used as a way to prevent minorities from voting.  Now, a test for candidates, I can support!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 10, 2018, 05:12:10 PM
The fact that some people not just voted for this man but actually support him makes me want some type of entrance exam for voting.

"I'm sorry Sir but you are too stupid to vote".

The problem with that is that it is all too often used as a way to prevent minorities from voting.  Now, a test for candidates, I can support!

Yeah i know. Even the best of intentions will (not can) be corrupted and used to unfairly discriminate against some group or another.

It was just a small Utopia moment for me.....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 10, 2018, 06:10:12 PM
I was saddened, although not too surprised, to read that Trump decided not to go to the Armistice Remembrance at the main US War Grave site in France, because it was raining, and sent his deputies instead.  He seems totally disconnected from reality, and completely lacking in any understanding of the historical context or importance of the occasion.

He also tweeted that he was "...getting ready to celebrate the end of World War One.".  "Celebrate"?!?!  Words fail me...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 13, 2018, 09:54:40 AM
I was saddened, although not too surprised, to read that Trump decided not to go to the Armistice Remembrance at the main US War Grave site in France, because it was raining, and sent his deputies instead.  He seems totally disconnected from reality, and completely lacking in any understanding of the historical context or importance of the occasion.

He also tweeted that he was "...getting ready to celebrate the end of World War One.".  "Celebrate"?!?!  Words fail me...

It's not that he's disconnected from anything - he just doesn't care.  Seriously.  Trump being disconnected from reality would be an improvement on the current state of affairs. 

Everybody needs to remember, he wasn't supposed to win.  He was supposed to lose ungraciously and continually question the legitimacy of a Clinton presidency. 

And everybody also needs to remember he's not the problem, he's merely a symptom of the problem.  The problem is that we Americans are a bunch of infantile whiny crybabies who expect things to always go our way because we say so, and when they don't we can pitch a blue-lipped fit to rival any two-year-old.  Trump is the American id made real. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on November 15, 2018, 08:02:34 AM
Not only do Americans sometimes elect dead candidates, they also elect ones already indicted for felonies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_D._Hunter

All he had to do was to label his opponent (who had a conveniently foreign-sounding name) as a terrorist...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on November 16, 2018, 06:03:08 AM
Wasn't Jack Swigert a case of dead man elected?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 16, 2018, 09:45:50 AM
He died after the election but before being sworn in. Whether or not the voters knew he was dying at the time of the election, I don't know.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on January 12, 2019, 02:13:44 PM
(http://i67.tinypic.com/66kqxu.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 18, 2019, 02:15:24 PM
We may be reaching an endgame here.

Between the Buzzfeed report (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation?ref=bfnsplash) that Trump personally directed Cohen to lie to Congress in his testimony about the Moscow Tower project and the news that that White House leaked travel plans (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/us/politics/pelosi-donald-trump-cancel-travel.html) for a Congressional delegation to Afghanistan, we're reaching a point where the House pretty much has to start impeachment proceedings.  Suborning perjury is part of what got Nixon, and leaking sensitive data (which can get people killed) as a spite move should instantly disqualify anyone from holding an office that has anything to do with security. 

I'm sure Pelosi et al. would prefer to wait until Mueller releases his report, but we've reached a point where they shouldn't need it to justify starting the process.  Granted, the Senate would never vote to remove him from office; too many Republicans are either similarly compromised (along with at least a couple of Democrats) or willing to put party unity ahead of literally everything else. But that shouldn't prevent the House from laying out the case. 

We've known he was unfit for office from day 1.  We've always suspected he was a security risk, and that case has been getting stronger with each new revelation.  The emoluments case is also bubbling in the background, so we may hit the trifecta of Treason, Bribery, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on January 18, 2019, 05:03:56 PM
Not that Trump won't get impeached over this or something else.  But is one of those things that may not make the grade.  Trump says so many offhand comments that no serious person takes seriously, it is still a stretch to me that this rises to the level of suborning to perjury. We'll have to see what this really is beyond two anonymous "federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter," on a less that scrupulous new site.

However it plays into a mosaic of misconduct theory that might be enough for the Democrats to start impeachment process.  It's anyone's guess if it will be enough for the Senate to find him guilty. 

I used to think that we'd be better off let Trump run out his four years. I thought that the cult of personality surrounding him would be best left without a martyr or cause to rally around. But now I'm not sure it would be.  It would really be great if he would just do us all a favor and keel over.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 18, 2019, 07:58:24 PM
I used to think that we'd be better off let Trump run out his four years. I thought that the cult of personality surrounding him would be best left without a martyr or cause to rally around. But now I'm not sure it would be.  It would really be great if he would just do us all a favor and keel over.
Pence may not be quite as embarrassing in a very easily mockable way,  but his religious conservatism, in my opinion, is no doubt behind many of Trump's more outright bigoted moves. I'd rather not see him as President. VP is bad enough!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 19, 2019, 03:20:39 AM
Personally I think attempting to impeach Trump any time in the foreseeable future would be a bad idea, for at least three reasons:

1. He's still extremely popular with voters across large sections of the USA. The swing against Trump and the Republicans in the mid-term elections was modest, and there are still plenty who buy into his version of populism. Any attempt to remove him would mobilise supporters across the country as he goes on a Twitter bender.

2. There's no realistic prospect that two-thirds of the Senate would vote to get rid of him. Republican Senators would only need to see how much voter support Trump has to know that voting him out of office would see the end of their own careers, and the Tea Party pretty much take over the Republican Party.

3. Removing Trump would make Pence the President. On the grounds that it's better to be led by a scoundrel than a fanatic, I think a lot of Democrats might look back fondly on a Trump Presidency in comparison with Pence. Based on an article I've read in the "New Yorker" magazine, Pence is a dangerously ambitious Christian extremist who is pretty much in the pocket of the Koch brothers.

The article suggested that research funded by the Koch brothers confirmed that populist anger with the wealthy elite of the USA (of which the Koch brothers are notable examples) is a major force on both sides of American politics, but the intriguing part of the article was the suggestion that the Koch brothers were attempting to co-opt that populism for their own ends. Thus, the ironic situation that Republican populists voting for Trump are effectively supporting a shadowy political movement controlled by the very people they despise, and which is determined to act for the benefit of that elite, not the populists who voted for them.

In this regard I can see some similarities between Trump and, of all people, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela: Chavez gained power because of his ability to mobilise the masses with promises of improving their circumstances, but was maintained in power by a rich elite who had no intention of giving up their wealth to help the poor, and when the poor complained about Chavez's failure to deliver on his promises he simply blamed the middle class (and the USA). Likewise, sadly, I can see people continuing to vote for Trump even as his administration makes life tougher for them while the elite get richer, and Trump will get away with it by blaming Democrats and the Chinese.

What's the solution? I don't know. Maybe the Democrats need to embrace Bernie Sanders's style of Democrat populism.

But in the meantime, let Mueller get on with his work and concentrate on creating an optimistic alternative to Trump.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 19, 2019, 03:41:42 AM
I remember asking my American friends why they were voting for Trump; the general answer was:

"They are both shitty candidates but we'll recover from Trump quicker."

I can't help but look back at them and shake my head.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2019, 07:47:40 AM
I used to think that we'd be better off let Trump run out his four years. I thought that the cult of personality surrounding him would be best left without a martyr or cause to rally around. But now I'm not sure it would be.  It would really be great if he would just do us all a favor and keel over.
Pence may not be quite as embarrassing in a very easily mockable way,  but his religious conservatism, in my opinion, is no doubt behind many of Trump's more outright bigoted moves. I'd rather not see him as President. VP is bad enough!

I agree to some point. My main concern is that Trump is moving toward his own power mad extremism. His call for "emergency" confiscation of private property along the border is really over the top for me.  He will get a lot of resistance for that here in Texas.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2019, 08:05:20 AM
Based on an article I've read in the "New Yorker" magazine, Pence is a dangerously ambitious Christian extremist who is pretty much in the pocket of the Koch brothers.


When the New Yorker starts talking about the Koch Brothers, run for cover.  The magazine and the left in general use them as their version of an existential threat to some undefined "democracy." The Nancy MacLean Democracy in Chains conspiracy theory rant of a book is an example of where this all leads.

The Kochs were early and large opponents of Trump and have never cared for institutionalized big government/religion types like Pence.  They are not obviously religions. 


In this regard I can see some similarities between Trump and, of all people, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela:

No doubt. Populist demagogues all basically run on the same script of developing an existential threat out of problem and use it to maintain their own popularity. Well all politicians do this, some are more willing than others to take it to extremes and at carry campaign rhetoric into governance. Trump and Chavez are notable examples. 

I had a discussion with a long time friend of mine the other night who is a big supporter of the border wall.  The number of obvious factual errors he said were stunning. Including things like illegal immigrants don't pay taxes so their children shouldn't be in schools. Texas doesn't have an income tax, but collects sales and property taxes, which are paid by everyone that  buys anything or lives somewhere. So in fact, they support the Texas tax base just like citizens do.

Trump's border wall is just despicable.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 19, 2019, 11:50:02 AM
I think Pence will be hamstrung by the whole thing--for one thing, he'll be battling a Democratic House the whole way.  I would also, to be honest, be quite surprised if there isn't enough evidence to get him, too.  I also think this shutdown is helping to fracture Trump's base in a way nothing else would.  The military isn't getting paid.  I'm deeply concerned about getting my Social Security check next month and was frankly shocked to get it this month.  (I don't make enough on my Patreon to cover more than about a single meal a month.)  Any economic growth that was happening is getting destroyed by the number of people affected by the shutdown.  The quote that I think sums up what's damaging his support is the guy who said it was "hurting the wrong people."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: nomuse on January 19, 2019, 01:53:27 PM
Apparently the Brits are seriously looking into rumors that some of the same skullduggery that aided the Hamberdler was also behind Brexit. Not that the Orangeman (as my Irish-leaning dad calls him) needed outside help. I'm unhappily willing to believe my countrymen are just that destructive.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 19, 2019, 07:47:33 PM
Based on an article I've read in the "New Yorker" magazine, Pence is a dangerously ambitious Christian extremist who is pretty much in the pocket of the Koch brothers.


When the New Yorker starts talking about the Koch Brothers, run for cover.  The magazine and the left in general use them as their version of an existential threat to some undefined "democracy." The Nancy MacLean Democracy in Chains conspiracy theory rant of a book is an example of where this all leads.

Point taken. Though the article had sources for every statement they made. And I still think my reasons for not wanting to impeach Trump still stand - for political and pragmatic reasons I think it's a bad idea, at least at the moment.

Quote
The Kochs were early and large opponents of Trump and have never cared for institutionalized big government/religion types like Pence.  They are not obviously religions. 

Again, I take your point. But isn't it practical to use the tools which are available? Compromise happens all the time in politics - in theory it lies at the heart of the American system. If Pence is ambitious and needs funds, and if the Kochs have money and need a candidate, then it makes sense that they bond over what they have in common and quietly ignore what they don't.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 19, 2019, 08:09:44 PM
I think Pence will be hamstrung by the whole thing--for one thing, he'll be battling a Democratic House the whole way.  I would also, to be honest, be quite surprised if there isn't enough evidence to get him, too.

In a way I think this might even be worse, depending on the order events take place. American democracy just about survived the departure of Agnew followed by Nixon, largely because Gerald Ford was widely respected. If Trump had to replace Pence I doubt his ability to make as good a selection.

Quote
I also think this shutdown is helping to fracture Trump's base in a way nothing else would.  The military isn't getting paid.  I'm deeply concerned about getting my Social Security check next month and was frankly shocked to get it this month.  (I don't make enough on my Patreon to cover more than about a single meal a month.)  Any economic growth that was happening is getting destroyed by the number of people affected by the shutdown.  The quote that I think sums up what's damaging his support is the guy who said it was "hurting the wrong people."

I hope you're right. Because Trump's ability to rouse his base with Twitter despite whatever pain they're experiencing seems pretty impressive from this side of the Pacific.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2019, 08:23:09 PM
And I still think my reasons for not wanting to impeach Trump still stand

Absolutely.  It has been also mine opinion until lately when Trump has made me more worried. It is a judgement with no right answer. 

Though the article had sources for every statement they made.

So did Nancy Maclean.  It is just that her sources didn't say what she said they did.  I haven't read the article in question so I can't address that in specific though.  It is just that there is so much propaganda about the Kochs from the left that it takes a lot to get me interesting in reading anything. Bashing the Kochs is a major fundraising tool for them.

if the Kochs have money and need a candidate

Need a candidate?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on January 19, 2019, 09:41:34 PM
I also think this shutdown is helping to fracture Trump's base in a way nothing else would.

It has started to in Texas, where it would have the greatest impact. Most of the Texas border is private property.  Ranchers rely on the Rio Grande for watering cattle.  There is one National Park and one National Recreation Area that make use of the Rio Grande.  Several State Parks and wildlife management areas are also on the border.  I'd certainly like to see the environmental impact report on this. Border city mayors are opposed, though they are largely Democrats.

We all have to live with this and it seems that as Trump gets more and more hell bent on this, some people, other than maybe my bigoted friend, are starting to take a closer look. I think if Trump tries his emergency power strategy, it will further fracture his coalition in Texas, I hope.   


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Al Johnston on January 20, 2019, 11:12:50 AM
.. largely because Gerald Ford was widely respected.

As evidenced by "... played too much football with his helmet off" and "... can't walk and chew gum at the same time" :D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 20, 2019, 12:20:25 PM
Hey, Gerald Ford had the best attendance record on the Warren Commission!

I've read that not one Representative from a district along the border supports the wall.  That includes Texas Republicans.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 21, 2019, 07:14:53 AM
Seems that here and there a basic tenet of negotiation has been missed. 'I won't negotiate unless you give me this thing I want up front' rather undermines the point of negotiations in the first place. Here we have the opposition leader insisting he won't work on negotiating a deal until he has a guarantee that there will be a deal (yes, really!). Over there somehow things have gone from 'we will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it' to 'we won't pay our own people unless they agree to hand over the money to build that wall'.

Congratulations to all for doing more damage and potential damage to their countries than the thing the supposedly damaging thing they are trying to prevent ever would....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on January 21, 2019, 11:28:13 AM
So, I'm spending today cancelling arrangements I'd made for an industry meeting in DC. Turns out they can't get regulators to speak due to the shutdown, and the organizing group was worried about air travel into the capital. That's a pretty sad state of affairs, when it's not safe to travel by air in the US.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 21, 2019, 11:56:30 AM
I have a friend whose husband is an air traffic controller.  He's missed two paychecks now, and they're worried about making their mortgage.  But, yes, he's expected to work every day anyway.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 21, 2019, 07:06:22 PM
I have a friend whose husband is an air traffic controller.  He's missed two paychecks now, and they're worried about making their mortgage.  But, yes, he's expected to work every day anyway.

Once the shutdown finishes would he get back-pay for the time he's been working without pay?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on January 21, 2019, 11:00:59 PM
I have a friend whose husband is an air traffic controller.  He's missed two paychecks now, and they're worried about making their mortgage.  But, yes, he's expected to work every day anyway.

Once the shutdown finishes would he get back-pay for the time he's been working without pay?



This has happened during past shutdowns. But is not guaranteed.

I was surprised the FAA is skipping paychecks.  It is my understanding that ATC is funded with user fees not appropriations.  It's becoming more of  a problem. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on January 21, 2019, 11:08:12 PM
Hey, Gerald Ford had the best attendance record on the Warren Commission!

I've read that not one Representative from a district along the border supports the wall.  That includes Texas Republicans.
There are four Congressional Districts along the Rio Grande in Texas. The three Democrats can naturally be expected to be in opposition.  The one Republican, whose huge and mostly rural district covers the longest stretch of the Rio Grande of all four districts, is adamantly opposed. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 22, 2019, 12:40:15 PM
I have a friend whose husband is an air traffic controller.  He's missed two paychecks now, and they're worried about making their mortgage.  But, yes, he's expected to work every day anyway.

Once the shutdown finishes would he get back-pay for the time he's been working without pay?

Some people probably will.  Some people probably won't.  Government employees are supposed to get their back pay.  Government contractors are not.  But if they stop going to work, they'll lose their jobs. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 22, 2019, 01:09:52 PM
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/supreme-court-lets-trump-s-transgender-military-ban-take-effect
"Imperative public importance" my fat tuckus.  I have no desire to serve in any military, but this is ridiculous on so many levels.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 09, 2019, 06:13:58 PM
Apparently the Brits are seriously looking into rumors that some of the same skullduggery that aided the Hamberdler was also behind Brexit. Not that the Orangeman (as my Irish-leaning dad calls him) needed outside help. I'm unhappily willing to believe my countrymen are just that destructive.
Is that intentionally an Irish sectarian reference?

I have a friend whose husband is an air traffic controller.  He's missed two paychecks now, and they're worried about making their mortgage.  But, yes, he's expected to work every day anyway.

Once the shutdown finishes would he get back-pay for the time he's been working without pay?



This has happened during past shutdowns. But is not guaranteed.

I was surprised the FAA is skipping paychecks.  It is my understanding that ATC is funded with user fees not appropriations.  It's becoming more of  a problem.
Good thing our air traffic control is privitised.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on February 10, 2019, 12:16:13 AM
Trump recently voiced an opinion on his lack of concern about due process regarding civil rights.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4716589/trump-take-guns-first-due-process-second

It's about protection orders; people can obtain a court order to have guns taken away from those who may be a threat to themselves or others.  Several states have them on the books already. 

Trump wants to rush things by taking the guns before any due process.  I'm not sure how the police would sort out the genuine threats from the mere disputes.  Since Trump was talking about curtailing the rights of gun owners, most people don't really have any opinion on the matter.

I did find out that calling Trump a gun grabber has shown me who my true "friends" are on facebook though.  :)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on February 10, 2019, 02:13:23 PM
Good thing our air traffic control is privitised.

It seems painfully apparent to me that ATC should not be a government function.  But there is a large contingent in the USA which holds that things run better under government ownership. When it is transparency and accountability that typically make services run smoother.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 10, 2019, 03:46:19 PM
Funnily enough, transparency and accountability are higher under government control than corporate control.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on February 10, 2019, 10:37:26 PM
Funnily enough, transparency and accountability are higher under government control than corporate control.
There is certainly situation where a profit motive creates better results, but a matter of public safety like that? I don't see it. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 11, 2019, 12:30:29 PM
I mean, we just found out that Johnson & Johnson had been lying for years about the presence of asbestos in baby powder!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on February 11, 2019, 01:02:29 PM
Funnily enough, transparency and accountability are higher under government control than corporate control.

Not necessarily so.

Quote
I mean, we just found out that Johnson & Johnson had been lying for years about the presence of asbestos in baby powder!

How much impropriety in government atomic energy research has been hidden?  Medical experiments? Drone wars?  Etc. Neither form of ownership by itself provides of a guarantee of transparency.  Private ownership has the advantage of having the regulated and the regulator not being controlled by the same entity. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 12, 2019, 05:37:43 AM
Funnily enough, transparency and accountability are higher under government control than corporate control.

Not necessarily so.

Quote
I mean, we just found out that Johnson & Johnson had been lying for years about the presence of asbestos in baby powder!

How much impropriety in government atomic energy research has been hidden?  Medical experiments? Drone wars?  Etc. Neither form of ownership by itself provides of a guarantee of transparency.  Private ownership has the advantage of having the regulated and the regulator not being controlled by the same entity.
That's an important and often overlooked point.

One point from the Cullen Report into the Piper Alpha disaster was that the Department of Energy was responsible for both encouraging exploitation of the North Sea as well as regulation of safety of the industry. Clearly this was a conflict of interest that led to a lax attitude to safety.

An outcome was that these functions were split up with the HSE taking responsibility for regulating safety and a separate ministerial department, which changes its identity once a fortnight, responsible for exploitation.

The thing is that the main drivers that cause the private sector to he reckless with safety also applies to the public sector. The public sector may not have profits to worry about, but it does have budgets.

What's more the complacency of believing you'll be able to get away with it anyway can be even stronger in the public sector where there are no consequences to getting it wrong. I'm always befuddled when I hear NHS trusts have been fined for failures. What good is that going to do? Shareholders at least notice fines if they're strong enough.

But my original point was that NATS don't operate at Her Majesty's Pleasure so an impasse on supply won't affect them (well not as fundamentally anyway).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 12, 2019, 10:52:08 AM
Do you know how many US companies have been hit with fines for improper behaviour that are so small they shrug them off and keep doing the wrong thing?  Because it's a lot.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on February 12, 2019, 09:24:58 PM

But my original point was that NATS don't operate at Her Majesty's Pleasure so an impasse on supply won't affect them (well not as fundamentally anyway).

ATC in the US should really be moved to a non-profit with directors appointed by industry and government with funding coming from user fees. It would make capital budgeting much easier. The financial reporting could then be published according to the same GAAP used for other businesses. And it wouldn't be subject to His Orange's pleasure.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 13, 2019, 05:11:20 AM
Good thing our air traffic control is privitised.

Ever listened to David Gunson's hilarious after dinner speech?

"Air Traffic Controllers work for the government, therefore we are Civil Servants. The government leases the controllers to the airfield and the oddity is that I work at West Midlands airport, which is owned by the taxpayers. I pay my rates to the West Midlands Authorities, and therefore I own the airfield... And therefore I am a self-employed Civil Servant. There aren't many of us around, but those who are have got their pensions stitched up a treat, I can assure you."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on March 01, 2019, 08:55:46 PM
Has anything changed for the better in the four months since the following opinion-piece was written?

Please limit your reply to fewer than 2,000 words.  ;)

Quote
Manawatu Standard,  Tuesday 30 October 2018, page 12
Reality always has last word

Leonard Pitts Jr, The Miami Herald
     "If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell – I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.’’ – Donald Trump, February 1, 2016
     ‘‘I’d like to punch him in the face.’’ – Donald Trump, February 22, 2016
     ‘‘You know, part of the problem... is nobody wants to hurt each other any more, right?’’ – Donald Trump, March 11, 2016
     ‘‘Any guy that can do a body slam... He’s my guy.’’ – Donald Trump, October 18, 2018, praising Republican representative Greg Gianforte, who was convicted of assaulting a reporter.
     ‘‘We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that threats or acts of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.’’ – Donald Trump, October 24, 2018

     Lord, this guy...
     He just can’t help himself, can he? Seems like every time he opens his mouth, out falls the bovine excreta, great lumps of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance.
     He was at it again last Wednesday. The mind reeled as Trump, arguably America’s most enthusiastic proponent of political violence, made a statement deploring political violence. This, as investigators sought the person who sent explosive devices to CNN as well as to Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Maxine Waters, Eric Holder and other prominent critics of Trump’s chaos presidency.
     No, Trump isn’t the first president to say something at sharp variance with what he said before. Obama once claimed he never said: ‘‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.’’ George W Bush once claimed his administration never advocated ‘‘stay the course’’ in Iraq.
     But this guy, Lord, this guy, with him, it’s not a sometime thing. Rather, it is every day, all the time, as if in his world, words have no fixed meaning and people, no memory.
     So that what he said with seeming sincerity on Tuesday can be demolished by what he says with seeming sincerity on Wednesday and he doesn’t care – indeed, he marvels that anyone does – because, hey, Tuesday’s gone. And Thursday’s coming.
     This ongoing insult of reality, this daily denigration of truth, is epidemic among Trump’s people. Unable to face what is, they live in a kingdom of lies, seek sanctuary down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Indeed, Trump cultists – Lou Dobbs, James Woods, Rush Limbaugh, Candace Owens and more – suggested the bombs were part of a Democratic plot to sway the coming election.
     Meantime, this guy, this morally deformed 72-year-old brat, had a theory of his own. After bombs were sent to people he has spent years insulting – ‘‘low IQ’’, ‘‘crooked’’, ‘‘ignorant’’ – and to a network he has spent years condemning – ‘‘enemies of the people’’ – Trump tweeted that the ‘‘anger’’ in our society is a result of media’s ‘‘false and inaccurate reporting’’.
     So in other words, if reporters would just stop challenging him, stop questioning him, stop behaving as if words have meaning and people, memories, all will be well. He probably even believes that.
     But the issue here is not news media. Nor is it civility or Republicans being yelled at in restaurants. No, the issue is reality and the fact that it becomes no less real because you don’t acknowledge it.
     That’s what the Trump cult has never figured out. Reality will always have the last word.
     And you may run from it, but you can never escape.
     Not even down a rabbit hole, not even in a kingdom of lies.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on March 02, 2019, 02:22:41 AM
Well, one thing has changed for the better since then. The Democrats took the House and now they have majorities on all the relevant investigative committees.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 02, 2019, 02:47:58 AM
Well, one thing has changed for the better since then. The Democrats took the House and now they have majorities on all the relevant investigative committees.

That may be so, but understand the possibility that Trump has so much poisoned the well when it comes to his rusted-on supporters that they'll simply reject any findings the committees make. We only need to look at how Republicans behaved on that committee that Michael Cohen gave evidence to: apparently rather than point out inconsistencies * in his evidence they just called him a liar - barely a step above sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "La-la-la, I can't hear you!".

And this is the problem with the editorial: continue on down this path and reality may come back to bite the USA in revenge, but the price could be catastrophically high for the USA, for liberal democracy everywhere, and potentially the world.

Having said that, it's fun to point out that Trump can be called a supporter of socialism: Venezuelan Juan Guaido's party apparently holds centrist social-democratic views...

* Inconsistencies: at one point Cohen said that Trump didn't intend to win the Presidency, merely gain some free publicity in the process; at another point he said that Trump was willing to do anything to win the election.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on March 03, 2019, 03:27:16 AM
I didn't see that as an inconsistency. It was perfectly possible that Trump would do anything to win and still didn't expect to win, but would at least garner some free publicity.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 03, 2019, 11:18:25 AM
Frankly, given his personality, the idea of not going all-out to win even if you don't want to seems unlikely to have occurred to him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Echnaton on March 05, 2019, 12:02:38 AM
* Inconsistencies: at one point Cohen said that Trump didn't intend to win the Presidency, merely gain some free publicity in the process; at another point he said that Trump was willing to do anything to win the election.

Trump wants attention more than anything else.  In some ways, he is like the hoax believers we get around here.  He and they are cranks the talk nonsense then complain about being mistreated.  It would be no surprise to me if he did it for a publicity stunt.  Kind of the counterpart to Robert Redford's  character in The Candidate.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on March 05, 2019, 09:54:51 AM
Frankly, given his personality, the idea of not going all-out to win even if you don't want to seems unlikely to have occurred to him.

Here's my own take on Trump pre-election. It wasn't his plan to win. At the beginning he didn't expect to win. The idea of running was originally to get lots of publicity, play the victim of "deep state" forces when he lost, and set up a media empire as "the guy who *really* knows what's going on," and build that Trump Tower Moscow he'd been dreaming of.

But then, as the months went by, he realized he had a legitimate chance. Russians were giving him the wink and the nod, "Any help you need, comrade? We can make it happen, no?" He realized he could win, crush his enemies and remake America in his own image. He certainly wasn't going to throw the chance away.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on May 07, 2019, 12:30:59 PM
Am I really reading this stupidity in US policy under Trump?

US objections to wording on climate change prevented Arctic nations signing a joint statement at a summit in Finland, delegates said.
It is the first time such a statement has been cancelled since the Arctic Council was set up in 1996.
A Finnish delegate, Timo Koivurova, said "the others felt they could not water down climate change sentences".
There is international concern that Arctic temperatures are rising twice as fast as in the rest of the world.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed the forum in Rovaniemi, northern Finland, with a speech welcoming the melting of Arctic sea ice, rather than expressing alarm about it.
"Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade," he said. "This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days."
"Arctic sea lanes could become the 21st-Century Suez and Panama Canals," Mr Pompeo said.
At short notice he cancelled talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Tuesday, in a surprise move.

“Opening new trade routes??” What an idiotic viewpoint.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on May 07, 2019, 01:53:47 PM
Who gives a damn about the future when there's a buck to be made today?


http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

The GOP really is toxic...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on August 23, 2019, 03:53:00 AM
Apparently, Trump is talking about removing birthright citizenship again. He backed off from it last time, but who knows if he will this time.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 23, 2019, 08:35:05 AM
I'm just wondering how many US allies he can piss off. God help the US if it faced something where it needed international support because right now, because most countries would dump the US.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on August 23, 2019, 07:39:50 PM
We can only hope that Western leaders will be mature enough to follow their strategic interests rather than react personally.

And, for me, this is problem with a lot of critics of Trump - the people who are so opposed to him that they oppose whatever he says, does or proposes, regardless of whether it's sensible or not. As they say in Australian Rules football, "Play the ball, not the man." In other words, respond to the statement or the policy, not to the fact that Trump said it, and give him credit when he says or does something good.

Hyper-partisanship isn't going to help the USA in the long term, which is why I think the best Democrat Party candidate for beating Trump is a moderate.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ka9q on August 24, 2019, 02:08:03 AM
Or, to quote the old saying, even a stopped clock can be right twice per day (or once per day, depending on the clock).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 24, 2019, 11:19:44 AM
What do you think he's done right?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on August 24, 2019, 01:26:09 PM
What do you think he's done right?
I was wondering the same thing. The only thing Trump could claim as a success was the economy... and even if you ignore the signs that point to an impending recession, I think it is safe to say that the economy was doing well despite Trump not because of him.

Sent from my SM-G975W using Tapatalk

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on August 24, 2019, 04:15:30 PM
We can only hope that Western leaders will be mature enough to follow their strategic interests rather than react personally.

And, for me, this is problem with a lot of critics of Trump - the people who are so opposed to him that they oppose whatever he says, does or proposes, regardless of whether it's sensible or not. As they say in Australian Rules football, "Play the ball, not the man." In other words, respond to the statement or the policy, not to the fact that Trump said it, and give him credit when he says or does something good.

Hyper-partisanship isn't going to help the USA in the long term, which is why I think the best Democrat Party candidate for beating Trump is a moderate.

Like what, for example?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 24, 2019, 06:08:19 PM
We can only hope that Western leaders will be mature enough to follow their strategic interests rather than react personally.

And, for me, this is problem with a lot of critics of Trump - the people who are so opposed to him that they oppose whatever he says, does or proposes, regardless of whether it's sensible or not. As they say in Australian Rules football, "Play the ball, not the man." In other words, respond to the statement or the policy, not to the fact that Trump said it, and give him credit when he says or does something good.

Hyper-partisanship isn't going to help the USA in the long term, which is why I think the best Democrat Party candidate for beating Trump is a moderate.

I know where you are coming from and normally it would make sense however we have some unique circumstances here.

In other times, you'd just ride out the rocky relationship, knowing it was only temporary. In this case though, not only does being passive reinforce President Trump's ego but it also presents a facade to his supporters (and possibly to the wider US voter community) that what he is doing is working; that his adversarial, volatile and juvenile behaviour is actually paying off.

The last thing in the world we want to do is validate his conduct, especially with voters!

Instead, the too-often parochial average voter must be made to question their President's actions, and see the harm it is doing to their country.

OH, and reference the economy: I am not sure about this but didn't the economy start to grow under the Obama administration? If I am right (and this is simply based on something I think I saw) President Trump is simply taking credit for the work done by previous administrations.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on August 24, 2019, 09:41:28 PM
OH, and reference the economy: I am not sure about this but didn't the economy start to grow under the Obama administration? If I am right (and this is simply based on something I think I saw) President Trump is simply taking credit for the work done by previous administrations.
That is my understanding as well. He's also laying the groundwork for not taking the blame if/when things go sour with his attacks on the Federal Reserve.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on August 24, 2019, 10:43:11 PM
What do you think he's done right?

Not many things, for sure, but some:

- Confronting China on trade, currency and intellectual property problems it's causing, and backing the Hong Kong protesters;

- Leaning on NATO partners to shoulder their burden of defence spending rather than having them sit back and rely on the USA;

- Making agreements with both parties in Congress over debt limits ('good' in the sense that it shows he's perfectly capable of making agreements with the Democrats and isn't always mindlessly criticising them);

- Confronting Russia and backing Russia's neighbours;

- Arguably, making a deal with Kim Jong-un (sure, the deal hasn't achieved much, but 'good' in the sense that it gave Kim Jong-un the publicity he wanted without giving too much away); and

- Arguably, pulling out of the Iran deal ('good' in the sense that I've heard credible commentators criticising the original deal as made).

Another thing to consider is that Trump has maintained his power-base even though it contains groups which theoretically have conflicting objectives (for example, the foreign policy hawks vs the isolationists, or the moral conservatives vs the libertarians). This isn't necessarily a good thing, but it's a thing to be aware of. People who've supported him or worked for him have later criticised him (Anthony Scaramucci, Ann Coulter and Chris Christie all come to mind) and yet it seems to have no major effect on his popularity. However, the more noise that's made about impeaching him, the more strongly his base supports him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on August 25, 2019, 08:43:02 AM
He's not real popular in Denmark right now, with him cancelling his visit, because our prime minister said she wouldn't consider selling Greenland.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on August 25, 2019, 09:57:28 AM
What do you think he's done right?

Not many things, for sure, but some:

- Confronting China on trade, currency and intellectual property problems it's causing

Confronting China on trade would be good if he was going about it properly. But imposing tariffs on imports from China hurts Americans far more than it hurts China. And it's hardly a good thing if Trump's trade wars lead to a recession.

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and backing the Hong Kong protesters;

He is only backing the protesters because they are opposing China and he wants to be seen as tough on China. He doesn't care WHY they are protesting, and if those types of protests happened in the US he would behave far more like China than a democratically elected leader should.

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- Leaning on NATO partners to shoulder their burden of defence spending rather than having them sit back and rely on the USA;

The spending levels that Trump is referring to (but doesn't understand) is not money that is paid into NATO. They aren't membership dues that go into NATO's bank account. They are defense spending goals. For example, Canada isn't meeting the goal of spending 2% of our GDP on our military. That is a goal that we agreed to meet as part of being a member of NATO... but that money isn't going to NATO.

And frankly, Canada does a lot to defend the United States. We often have to intercept Russian bombers that fly through our airspace. In a war those bombers would probably ignore Canadian targets because their goal would be to reach the US. So all of that spending we have done on air defenses and early warning radar installations in our far north has been to benefit the US.

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- Making agreements with both parties in Congress over debt limits ('good' in the sense that it shows he's perfectly capable of making agreements with the Democrats and isn't always mindlessly criticising them);

I'm not sure if this has actually happened. Trump's $1.5 trillion tax break to the wealthy makes me doubt he cares about debt limits.

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- Confronting Russia and backing Russia's neighbours;

Again, I don't think this has ever actually happened. If it has it has been more like "Hey Putin... don't attack your neighbours.  ;)  ;)  ;)"

Sanctions were imposed on some Russians after Trump took office, but he resisted doing so.

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- Arguably, making a deal with Kim Jong-un (sure, the deal hasn't achieved much, but 'good' in the sense that it gave Kim Jong-un the publicity he wanted without giving too much away);

This is another one of those things that I agree would be great if it was actually working as intended. But so far all that Trump has accomplished is giving Kim Jong Un more legitimacy on the world stage. How does it look to have Kim Jong Un standing next to the President of the United States as an equal, and then ignoring demands to denuclearize?

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- Arguably, pulling out of the Iran deal ('good' in the sense that I've heard credible commentators criticising the original deal as made).

I don't see how a deal (any deal) is worse than no deal at all. A lot of the criticisms of the deal coming from the right are nonsense.

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Another thing to consider is that Trump has maintained his power-base even though it contains groups which theoretically have conflicting objectives (for example, the foreign policy hawks vs the isolationists, or the moral conservatives vs the libertarians). This isn't necessarily a good thing, but it's a thing to be aware of. People who've supported him or worked for him have later criticised him (Anthony Scaramucci, Ann Coulter and Chris Christie all come to mind) and yet it seems to have no major effect on his popularity. However, the more noise that's made about impeaching him, the more strongly his base supports him.

Yes, he has his base under some kind of magic spell. The racist man who has committed adultery on all 3 of his wives, slept with porn stars, sexually assaulted women (and possibly children), has never read the bible, never goes to church, and is frequently blasphemous has somehow convinced the evangelicals that he was chosen by God.

The fact that he has the magic ability to hold onto his base even though he is a walking example of every one of the 7 deadly sins, doesn't make him a good leader.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on August 25, 2019, 10:01:02 AM
He's not real popular in Denmark right now, with him cancelling his visit, because our prime minister said she wouldn't consider selling Greenland.

Your Member of Parliament Ida Auken is awesome. I just saw this tweet she made:

https://twitter.com/IdaAuken/status/1163873544658403329?s=20
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 25, 2019, 11:40:16 AM
Yeah, that's the thing--everything cited as something good he's done is missing a lot of context that shows that, no, it actually isn't.  For example, "making agreements with both parties" implies that he's been successful at it.  He hasn't.  Literally every agreement has been reached in spite of him, not because of him, because he insists that funding for his stupid, pointless wall be part of budget agreements.  And the Democrats won't agree to that, because it's stupid and pointless and the money would pretty much be better spent being set on fire to heat federal buildings.  And if he were really confronting Russia, mightn't he consider saying something about how they definitely interfered in the election?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on August 25, 2019, 03:36:24 PM
He's not real popular in Denmark right now, with him cancelling his visit, because our prime minister said she wouldn't consider selling Greenland.

I think that it's more to do with Obama announcing that he was visiting Denmark shortly after Trump's scheduled visit.
people want to buy tickets to hear Obama. In comparison, they are queuing up to protest at Trump.


https://theweek.com/speedreads/860160/coincidentally-obama-visiting-denmark-late-september

The orange shitgibbon's ego wouldn't be able to stand the comparisons.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on August 25, 2019, 06:04:46 PM
Ex-president Obama comes across as a decent human being. Somebody who you could talk to and who would understand your points - perhaps not agreeing, but listening anyway.

Trump doesn't.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: rocketman on August 27, 2019, 07:12:00 AM
Ex-president Obama comes across as a decent human being.

He probably committed a lot fewer murders than his predecessor.  I don't have statistics on Trump at-the-ready.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on August 28, 2019, 05:25:00 PM
I must apologise. I have previously had quite a condescending view of the American system. I was always thinking it was nowhere near as good as Americans like to think it is. Well, stones and glass houses. So far, it has kept a wannabe dictator at bay for nearly three years. Our system has crumbled in a month. We are now officially a dictatorship. So America wins (again).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 28, 2019, 06:08:09 PM
I must apologise. I have previously had quite a condescending view of the American system. I was always thinking it was nowhere near as good as Americans like to think it is. Well, stones and glass houses. So far, it has kept a wannabe dictator at bay for nearly three years. Our system has crumbled in a month. We are now officially a dictatorship. So America wins (again).
Do you think there will be a 'no-confidence' motion?

Do you think the general public will protest this action?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on August 28, 2019, 08:00:53 PM
I must apologise. I have previously had quite a condescending view of the American system. I was always thinking it was nowhere near as good as Americans like to think it is. Well, stones and glass houses. So far, it has kept a wannabe dictator at bay for nearly three years. Our system has crumbled in a month. We are now officially a dictatorship. So America wins (again).

The "system" hasn't done squat - our only saving grace is that Trump is an incompetent who's surrounded himself with incompetents ("A's hire B's, B's hire C's, Trump hires Omarosa").  If half of these people had half a clue of what they were doing we'd be in deep doo-doo. 

The only thing that's kept the Republic from crumbling to dust so far has been that previous generations of politicians had a sense of shame
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gwiz on August 29, 2019, 05:43:26 AM
Do you think there will be a 'no-confidence' motion?
Possibly, but that might just mean that parliament is dissolved and the election comes after the Brexit deadline.
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Do you think the general public will protest this action?
There were several thousand protesting in Westminster yesterday evening, plus spontaneous protests in other cities across the country.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 29, 2019, 05:15:53 PM
I'm actually surprised that the Queen agreed to this. I know the she is supposed to stay out of politics but.....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on August 29, 2019, 06:44:41 PM
The Danish Queen Margrethe? She's apolitical, but extends invitations to state visits on request. And an american president - no matter what or who - is a state visit.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on August 29, 2019, 07:02:18 PM
The Danish Queen Margrethe? She's apolitical, but extends invitations to state visits on request. And an american president - no matter what or who - is a state visit.
I think he's referring to Queen Elizabeth with respect to proroguing the UK Parliament.. Again, though, she's nominally apolitical, and the request to prorogue is (usually) just a formality.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 01, 2019, 04:29:28 AM
Yeah, that's the thing--everything cited as something good he's done is missing a lot of context that shows that, no, it actually isn't.  For example, "making agreements with both parties" implies that he's been successful at it.  He hasn't.  Literally every agreement has been reached in spite of him, not because of him, because he insists that funding for his stupid, pointless wall be part of budget agreements.  And the Democrats won't agree to that, because it's stupid and pointless and the money would pretty much be better spent being set on fire to heat federal buildings.  And if he were really confronting Russia, mightn't he consider saying something about how they definitely interfered in the election?

Perhaps another way of putting what I said earlier would be this: Could you say with a straight face that you disagree with literally every decision Trump has made since he became President?

If not, then there must be some decisions you agree with.

In that case, praise him for it in ways that Trump supporters hear you: it makes it a little harder for them to unthinkingly criticise you each time you say something.

Oh, and while I think about it, assuming Trump wins the next election (which I see no particular reason to doubt at the moment), what all Americans need to worry about is this: that he'll lean on the Republicans to nominate one of his kids to be candidate in 2024 (presumably Don Jr). The way I see it, there's a portion of the population (around 3-5% I think) who'd happily vote for any Trump family member, and I suspect the Republican Party leadership would accept Trump candidates for a while to come if that means they can lock in Republican control of the White House for two or three decades.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 01, 2019, 10:25:01 AM
Perhaps another way of putting what I said earlier would be this: Could you say with a straight face that you disagree with literally every decision Trump has made since he became President?

If not, then there must be some decisions you agree with.

I struggled to find one good decision that he has made. He seems to support NASA, I guess.

But I'm not going to ignore:

- the children in cages,
- the sexism, racism, and bigotry,
- the terrible environmental policies,
- the inaction when it comes to stopping gun violence,
- the corruption,
- the stacking of the courts with unqualified judges that will support him,
- the fascist tendencies,
- the cruelty and indifference towards the suffering of others,
- the narcissism,
- the arrogance,
- the lying,
- the phony religiousness,
- the propaganda and spreading of conspiracy theories,
- the attacks on the free press and justice system,
- the attacks on anyone (even other Republicans) who criticizes him,
- the incompetence,
- the bullying of US allies and trading partners,
- the coziness he has with some of the worst people in the world (Putin, Mohammad Bin Salman, Jeffrey Epstein)

I can't ignore all of that just because he might support one thing that I want, like returning humans to the Moon or going to Mars in my lifetime. I would rather the US had a President who is indifferent towards NASA but who at least believes climate change is real.

It's not like he has good intentions and I just don't like him because he is a Republican. He is a horrible person who is going to hurt a lot of people until he is out of office.

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In that case, praise him for it in ways that Trump supporters hear you: it makes it a little harder for them to unthinkingly criticise you each time you say something.

Many of his policies will have a negative effect on the US (and the world) for years after he is gone, so I'm not going to pretend he has good qualities just to appease his supporters.

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Oh, and while I think about it, assuming Trump wins the next election (which I see no particular reason to doubt at the moment),

Considering his poor approval ratings I think there is plenty of reason to doubt his re-election. People just need to get off their butt and vote.

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what all Americans need to worry about is this: that he'll lean on the Republicans to nominate one of his kids to be candidate in 2024 (presumably Don Jr).

If that happens then Republicans might as well just call it a day because I don't believe Americans would support that. But if more Trumps get elected the US might as well call it a day. Game over.

Sent from my SM-G975W using Tapatalk
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on September 01, 2019, 10:37:42 AM
He hasn't started a war (yet).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 01, 2019, 10:39:27 AM
No, I literally cannot think of a single Trump decision that I agree with.  If he's made any, I can't think of any, because it's too overwhelmed with the evil and incompetent things he's done.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on September 01, 2019, 07:14:22 PM
Yeah, that's the thing--everything cited as something good he's done is missing a lot of context that shows that, no, it actually isn't.  For example, "making agreements with both parties" implies that he's been successful at it.  He hasn't.  Literally every agreement has been reached in spite of him, not because of him, because he insists that funding for his stupid, pointless wall be part of budget agreements.  And the Democrats won't agree to that, because it's stupid and pointless and the money would pretty much be better spent being set on fire to heat federal buildings.  And if he were really confronting Russia, mightn't he consider saying something about how they definitely interfered in the election?

Perhaps another way of putting what I said earlier would be this: Could you say with a straight face that you disagree with literally every decision Trump has made since he became President?

If not, then there must be some decisions you agree with.

Whether there are any or not, it doesn’t really matter.  The man is a menace to national security (tweeting classified imagery that tells our adversaries exactly what our surveillance capabilities are), an embarrassment on the international stage (legitimizing Kim, carrying Russia’s water at the G7, effing Greenland), a danger to US citizens (normalizing white supremacy and nationalism, giving aid and comfort to mass murderers), an economic disaster (“trade wars are good and easy to win”), and a straight up criminal (fraud, tax evasion, sexual assault, etc.). 

We both dig taco bowls.  So bloody what?  It doesn’t begin to make up for the other crap.

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In that case, praise him for it in ways that Trump supporters hear you: it makes it a little harder for them to unthinkingly criticise you each time you say something.

Trump supporters are a cult (or part of the con).  Evangelicals see him as a sign of an impending Rapture, so naturally they want to keep him around.  Literally nothing you say to them will make a damned bit of difference, and trying to reach them at this point is worse than a waste of time.  Better to motivate Democrats and independents to get off their asses this time around and vote. 

Trump’s floor is 35%, but at best his ceiling is just over 50%.  He only wins if people don’t show up. 

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Oh, and while I think about it, assuming Trump wins the next election (which I see no particular reason to doubt at the moment), what all Americans need to worry about is this: that he'll lean on the Republicans to nominate one of his kids to be candidate in 2024 (presumably Don Jr). The way I see it, there's a portion of the population (around 3-5% I think) who'd happily vote for any Trump family member, and I suspect the Republican Party leadership would accept Trump candidates for a while to come if that means they can lock in Republican control of the White House for two or three decades.

I really want a Constitutional amendment that forbids immediate family members of past Presidents to run for office themselves.  No sibs, no spouses, no sprog. 

Beyond that, the Republican party is gone.  Dead.  Kaput.  They have abandoned every principle they ever claimed to have.  Their entire worldview can be summed up as follows:

There is an out-group that the law binds but does not protect, and an in-group that the law protects but does not bind.

Everything beyond that is theater.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on September 07, 2019, 04:11:22 PM
Something I read today has me a bit puzzled :

Four automakers bucked Trump policy on emissions. Now they are under antitrust investigation (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/06/business/automakers-antitrust-investigation/index.html)

Quote
The Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into four major automakers who have rejected the Trump administration's relaxed air pollution and mileage regulations.

The four automakers — Ford (F), Honda (HMC), Volkswagen and BMW — agreed in July to meet the tougher standards set by the California Air Resources Board rather than the Trump administration's rules, which would roll back standards put in place under former President Barack Obama.

Although the California rules would require automakers to build more costly cars, they gave the companies an advantage: The automakers would have to meet only one national standard, rather than one weaker standard for most of the country and one tougher standard for California and 13 other states that follow its rules. Those 14 states account for about 40% of the US population.

Surely the new regulations specify the minimum required level of pollution and mileage, and any vehicle exceeding those is acceptable.  OK, it may mean the cars cost more to buy (but perhaps not to run), but then consumers always have the choice to go with a different, cheaper brand.  It may even be that by not having to make two different engine types for the two different state-based requirements, the cost wouldn't actually be higher.

Perhaps because my understanding of US anti-trust laws is lacking, but I'm surprised they're being prosecuted for this.

(I'm also baffled by Trump's claims that more pollution and less efficiency makes cars safer, but that's another discussion...)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 08, 2019, 11:38:17 AM
There's a long difference between "investigated" and "prosecuted."  Nixon liked having people "investigated" when he was mad at them, too.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on September 08, 2019, 12:57:06 PM
There's a long difference between "investigated" and "prosecuted."  Nixon liked having people "investigated" when he was mad at them, too.
Ah, indeed.  I should have read more carefully.  It seems that our leaders on both sides of the Atlantic are thrashing about and creating a lot of distractions from their failings at the moment.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on September 08, 2019, 07:49:34 PM
Up north of  the Yanks, I really hope  Andrew Scheer doesn't win. He'd been recorded as saying he doesn't think gay marriages are valid, and he seems intent on slashing societal infrastructure, much like Canada's Trump, Premier Doug Ford.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 08, 2019, 08:17:54 PM
Up north of  the Yanks, I really hope  Andrew Scheer doesn't win. He'd been recorded as saying he doesn't think gay marriages are valid, and he seems intent on slashing societal infrastructure, much like Canada's Trump, Premier Doug Ford.
Same here. I feel like I live in some kind of Twilight Zone episode where people think bad is good and good is bad.

The Conservatives have been using the same tactics that Republicans used against President Obama for 8 years... I'm surprised they haven't said Justin Trudeau was born in Kenya. I guess the closest we got to that was when they claimed he was actually fathered by Fidel Castro.

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Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on September 09, 2019, 04:59:02 PM
Let me just say on that how good the new House of Commons chamber looks. Shame it'll be junked in 10 years. It really sets the standard for Parliamentary relocations. I doubt we will achieve anything like that.

Also, looking from the bank of the Ottawa to the West, Parliament looks like Hogwarts.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 10, 2019, 05:57:48 PM
Trump is now on record as defending a diplomat's wife who fled the UK after killing a British Citizen when she drove on the wrong side of the road. He's also abandoned former allies, the Kurds, who fought against ISIS.

Copied from Steve Hedley:

I would like to congratulate President Trump in reaching a new previously undreamed of plateau of ridiculousness and inanity. His justification for abandoning the Kurds “because they didn’t fight with us in Normandy” (world war 2), not only sums up his own imbecility perfectly but also exposes beyond repair the rapacious capitalist imperialism that he represents. Unlike Obama who attempted to put glitter on the turd that is capitalism, Trump is its unvarnished embodiment discarding previous allies as dispensable unashamedly in public and orchestrating their massacre. Obama gave liberals an excuse to see something progressive in the USA, Trump has destroyed any such illusions.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on October 10, 2019, 06:39:24 PM
Trump is now on record as defending a diplomat's wife who fled the UK after killing a British Citizen when she drove on the wrong side of the road. He's also abandoned former allies, the Kurds, who fought against ISIS.

Copied from Steve Hedley:

I would like to congratulate President Trump in reaching a new previously undreamed of plateau of ridiculousness and inanity. His justification for abandoning the Kurds “because they didn’t fight with us in Normandy” (world war 2), not only sums up his own imbecility perfectly but also exposes beyond repair the rapacious capitalist imperialism that he represents. Unlike Obama who attempted to put glitter on the turd that is capitalism, Trump is its unvarnished embodiment discarding previous allies as dispensable unashamedly in public and orchestrating their massacre. Obama gave liberals an excuse to see something progressive in the USA, Trump has destroyed any such illusions.

Unsurprising from someone who thinks there were airports during the American Revolutionary War!

Trump is utterly clueless about international politics. Any grade school history student could have predicted what would happen once American troops pulled out of Northern Syria. There is now going to a period of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Kurds that will make what the Serbs did in Bosnia look like a summer picnic...and Trump will be directly responsible for it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 11, 2019, 10:55:04 AM
Trump is now on record as defending a diplomat's wife who fled the UK after killing a British Citizen when she drove on the wrong side of the road. He's also abandoned former allies, the Kurds, who fought against ISIS.

Copied from Steve Hedley:

I would like to congratulate President Trump in reaching a new previously undreamed of plateau of ridiculousness and inanity. His justification for abandoning the Kurds “because they didn’t fight with us in Normandy” (world war 2), not only sums up his own imbecility perfectly but also exposes beyond repair the rapacious capitalist imperialism that he represents. Unlike Obama who attempted to put glitter on the turd that is capitalism, Trump is its unvarnished embodiment discarding previous allies as dispensable unashamedly in public and orchestrating their massacre. Obama gave liberals an excuse to see something progressive in the USA, Trump has destroyed any such illusions.

There is a growing "eat the rich" sentiment in the US, which the national media is desperately trying to pretend isn't there or is only on the fringes.  I've been wanting to scream at everyone bitching about "wealth redistribution" or "class warfare" that wealth redistribution and class warfare have been ongoing for decades now - wealth is being redistributed into the hands of the wealthy few, and the rich have been beating up on the poor.  Every year it gets less subtle and more overt, and now they're starting to say the quiet parts out loud.  We're getting damned close to pitchforks and torches time. 

Trump himself is an Adderall-addled Tony Soprano wannabe, up to his eyeballs in debt to the Russians, aided and abetted by the larger GOP.  I've been seeing claims (unsubstantiated so far, but if true would explain so much) that the Russians have been laundering money through US congressional campaigns. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 11, 2019, 11:11:49 AM
But surely there must be some policies of his we agree with, right?  Like, uh . . . .
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 11, 2019, 11:34:32 AM
As a Canadian, I find it very reassuring that our alliance with the USA can instantly disappear if our enemy has more Trump properties than we do. [emoji849]

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Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 11, 2019, 01:35:52 PM
I couldn’t resist.



(https://i.ibb.co/pX47QDS/88-B068-E1-4221-49-DD-B1-A3-3-FEFA8-DF415-A.jpg) (https://ibb.co/h826c5S)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on October 11, 2019, 05:31:51 PM
He hasn't started a war (yet).

Well, he has just invited attacks on the US from disaffected Kurds et al.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 11, 2019, 05:40:27 PM
Remember when Trump 'proudly' held a LGBTQ+ pride flag? Yeah, to almost no ones  surprise, the Trump administration sent a amicus curiae in support of discrimination in the case before the US supreme court of whether the Civil Rights act applies to trans* and homosexual folk. I wonder how those gay Republicans who came out in support of Trump feel about that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on January 03, 2020, 05:06:40 AM
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50979463

Wow, this could cause a serious escalation in the region and encourage a new wave of terrorism.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on January 03, 2020, 05:53:51 AM
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50979463

Wow, this could cause a serious escalation in the region and encourage a new wave of terrorism.

Indeed. I am particularly wary that Hizbollah in Lebanon will  do some retaliation acts,which can reflect back on us. A pretty bad start for the year!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 03, 2020, 12:23:29 PM
Hey, everyone, remember how Hillary Clinton was a hawk who'd get us into wars?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on January 03, 2020, 05:27:53 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/b1OXr21.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 03, 2020, 05:58:11 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/b1OXr21.jpg)

I bet those aren't the sons of Donald Trump or his donors.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 04, 2020, 03:53:03 AM
Just want to point out that despite having only bothered to read the first couple of pages of posts written in this discussion topic, I find it appalling to find so many, who supposedly promote critical thinking, facts, truth, and accountability, getting emotionally invested and forgetting everything they have chastised the conspiracy theorists about. 

First of all, I want you to know that I do not like Trump as our President, particularly regarding his disregard of competent science, and did not vote for him, but I also did not vote Democratic, as they are just as flawed in their own fashion.  However, during the course of his presidency I have noted a constant concerted effort to find flaws in everything he does, manufacture them where they don't exist, shout it all out to the world, and, if not outright defiant in the face of facts, remain utterly silent when such claims come up empty or are proven false.  That said, I won't defend his many faults, but I still feel it is important to maintain the standards we want in our Apollo discussions, by NOT using out-of-context evidence, false narratives and hearsay in lieu of facts and reason.

So, to provide an example of what I am talking about, I want to ask Lunar Orbiter a question (or two) regarding his very FIRST post in this topic of discussion.

Lunar Orbiter, You stated:

(quote) Trump's behaviour is not an act, and he has shown that those "checks and balances" are working for him, not for the American public.

An independent ethics body has been gutted by Republicans, without debate or warning. This is not something you would do if your goal was to "drain the swamp", it's something you would do if you wanted to do unethical things without consequences. (unquote)

As previously mentioned, I have not read through the bulk of the posts, but I ask you - do you still stand by that post?  And if not, have you retracted it anywhere?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 04, 2020, 11:58:10 AM
Lunar Orbiter, You stated:

Quote
Trump's behaviour is not an act, and he has shown that those "checks and balances" are working for him, not for the American public.

An independent ethics body has been gutted by Republicans, without debate or warning. This is not something you would do if your goal was to "drain the swamp", it's something you would do if you wanted to do unethical things without consequences.

As previously mentioned, I have not read through the bulk of the posts, but I ask you - do you still stand by that post?  And if not, have you retracted it anywhere?

I stand by what I said 100%. Why would I retract it?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/outcry-after-republicans-vote-to-dismantle-independent-ethics-body (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/outcry-after-republicans-vote-to-dismantle-independent-ethics-body)

He has ignored Congressional subpoenas, called the House's constitutional power of impeachment unconstitutional, and the Republicans in the House and Senate have made it clear that the "checks and balances" are failing.

And now Trump is in the process of starting a war with Iran without Congressional approval.

So where am I wrong?

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Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 04, 2020, 12:09:37 PM


However, during the course of his presidency I have noted a constant concerted effort to find flaws in everything he does, manufacture them where they don't exist...

Please give an example of "manufactured flaws".

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Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 04, 2020, 12:37:17 PM
I'd also like it demonstrated that the Democrats are this flawed.  Flawed, yes, but this?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 04, 2020, 03:21:08 PM
I stand by what I said 100%. Why would I retract it?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/outcry-after-republicans-vote-to-dismantle-independent-ethics-body (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/outcry-after-republicans-vote-to-dismantle-independent-ethics-body)
Are you claiming a good president SHOULDN'T allow that to happen?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 04, 2020, 03:50:31 PM
I stand by what I said 100%. Why would I retract it?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/outcry-after-republicans-vote-to-dismantle-independent-ethics-body (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/outcry-after-republicans-vote-to-dismantle-independent-ethics-body)
Are you claiming a good president SHOULDN'T allow that to happen?
Yes, that should be obvious. And I'm sure your next post will be about how Trump reversed the decision to dismantle the Office of Congressional Ethics... "See, Trump isn't bad, he cares about ethics!"

But the thing is, he only reversed the decision after there were people marching in the streets over it. Republicans voted in the middle of the night to gut an ethics watchdog, people noticed, and then Trump pretended he was against it all along to save face.

He doesn't get credit for putting out a fire that he created.

If Trump cared about ethics he would not have ripped off people who performed work for him before he became President. He wouldn't have operated a fraudulent "university", or stolen money from his fake charity. He wouldn't use the Presidency to enrich himself or his businesses. He would pay his taxes.

People who know Trump warned voters that he was corrupt before the election. People have been aware of it for years. We didn't need to manufacture any flaws, he wears them with pride (ie. evading taxes makes him smart).

Why would anyone believe that someone who was so blatantly corrupt years ago would suddenly be so squeaky clean that they were handpicked by God to be President now?

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Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 04, 2020, 04:20:51 PM
No matter how you spin it, he still made what you think is the right call.  Despite direct evidence otherwise, you are now following the illogical path of every conspiracy theorists by claiming to know what others are thinking, and denying that direct evidence (i,e,. "He doesn't get credit for putting out a fire that he created") with unsubstantiated conjecture.  You are chasing your prey down the rabbit hole, because of your own prejudicial binders.  Just like the last 3 years of supposed Russian interference.  You have already decided innocence and/or guilt, so, like a CT,, you rationalize the irrational.  THAT is my point, and if you can't see it, then you may as well claim we never landed on the Moon.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 04, 2020, 04:24:28 PM
I'd also like it demonstrated that the Democrats are this flawed.  Flawed, yes, but this?
"Flawed" is undoubtedly a projection of our own criteria.  The major ones for me is the constant name-calling, redefinition of terms to fit an agenda, and slander of those with opposing opinions.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 04, 2020, 05:55:13 PM
No matter how you spin it, he still made what you think is the right call.

He made the right call after they were caught and it became an embarrassment. Would he have made that same call if the vote to dismantle the Office of Congressional Ethics had gone unnoticed by the public? What reason is there to believe he would have, based on all of his past corrupt behaviour?

Quote
Despite direct evidence otherwise, you are now following the illogical path of every conspiracy theorists by claiming to know what others are thinking,

It is not illogical to believe that his past corruption would follow him to the White House where he would have a lot of power, and have almost complete immunity while in office. It would be illogical to believe that someone who had been unethical his entire adult life would suddenly care about ethics now.

Is it illogical to believe that an alcoholic can't be trusted with the key to your liquor cabinet? Or to believe that a pyromaniac can't be trusted with a box of matches? Trump has a long, well documented, history of corrupt behaviour. He has gone to court over his fake university and charity, and lost both times. Every time he visits one of his properties his bank account benefits at the taxpayers expense... some would call that embezzlement. So it's unbelievable that you are still expecting people to give him the benefit of the doubt after 3 years of this. We know who he is, and anyone that continues to believe that he is the second coming of Christ is deluding themselves.

Quote
and denying that direct evidence (i,e,. "He doesn't get credit for putting out a fire that he created") with unsubstantiated conjecture.

Even IF Trump didn't specifically ask for the ethics office to be dismantled, do you really think the Republicans would have done so if they didn't believe he would support it? They saw the opportunity to do something that would only benefit unethical people, and they took it. Believe me, I am by no means saying that Trump is the only corrupt Republican, so I'm not hanging this all on him.

Quote
You are chasing your prey down the rabbit hole, because of your own prejudicial binders.

And you're burying your head in the sand. The difference between you and me is that if I'm wrong, I've only encouraged ethical behaviour. If you're wrong, you've stood by while Trump and the other Republicans tried to dismantle every form of ethical oversight they could get their hands on. I'm concerned about protecting ethics in government, and you're on the side of letting Republicans get away with murder.

Quote
Just like the last 3 years of supposed Russian interference.

There is nothing "supposed" about it. It was verified by 17 US Intelligence agencies. It was admitted to by Facebook, who I believe was (at best) an unwitting accomplice. Denying it at this point would be ridiculous.

Quote
You have already decided innocence and/or guilt, so, like a CT,, you rationalize the irrational.  THAT is my point, and if you can't see it, then you may as well claim we never landed on the Moon.

I'm siding with the verified facts, just like I do when I defend Apollo. I'm siding with protecting your country (which is not even my own country), just like I do when I protect it from the misinformation spread by Apollo conspiracy theorists. Trump and many of his friends are conspiracy theorists. So I don't get your comparing me to a conspiracy theorist.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 04, 2020, 11:49:04 PM
Lunar Orbiter, I am sorry, but if you would take the time to replace the subject of the president with any CT, you just MIGHT be able to see what I am talking about.  Right now, you ARE as lost as they are with your prejudice.

Example:  Slight edit from your last post with the method I described above (edits in bold) -

"It is not illogical to believe that Braun's past corruption would follow him to the NASA where he would have a lot of power, and have almost complete immunity while in his position. It would be illogical to believe that someone who had been unethical his entire Nazi career would suddenly care about ethics now."

Also, your comment "Is it illogical to believe that an alcoholic can't be trusted with the key to your liquor cabinet?" is easily answered with you have just asked the wrong question to logically compare the situations.  What YOU have done in the first post on this subject thread is come home to find the cabinet empty, but have deemed the alcoholic guilty with nothing for proof but knowledge of his past.  THAT is not logical.  Nothing you have claimed has any solid proof, rather relies on your own conjecture or hearsay. 

I could go on, but I feel I am beating a dead horse here.  Again, I am not here to defend him, but to point out the parallels in your (and others') rhetoric on this subject as a cautionary tale.  Your blanket refusal to honestly consider that (to this point) is a little disturbing to me.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 05, 2020, 06:35:26 AM
Lunar Orbiter, I am sorry, but if you would take the time to replace the subject of the president with any CT, you just MIGHT be able to see what I am talking about.  Right now, you ARE as lost as they are with your prejudice.

Example:  Slight edit from your last post with the method I described above (edits in bold) -

"It is not illogical to believe that Braun's past corruption would follow him to the NASA where he would have a lot of power, and have almost complete immunity while in his position. It would be illogical to believe that someone who had been unethical his entire Nazi career would suddenly care about ethics now."

Bad example, for a number of reasons, not the least being the von Braun's membership of the Nazi party was always a matter of necessity rather than shared sympathy with the movement.

Quote
Also, your comment "Is it illogical to believe that an alcoholic can't be trusted with the key to your liquor cabinet?" is easily answered with you have just asked the wrong question to logically compare the situations.  What YOU have done in the first post on this subject thread is come home to find the cabinet empty, but have deemed the alcoholic guilty with nothing for proof but knowledge of his past.  THAT is not logical.

Nor is it the logical conclusion from the statement. All Lunar Orbit's example proposes is that a) if I had to surrender the keys to the liquor cabinet to someone, an alcoholic would not be top of my list, and b) if I came home and found it empty having done so, I would consider the alcoholic the prime suspect unless he has a good explanation for how someone else got the keys or otherwise gained access. Both of these are reasonable based on the evidence. What would be unreasonable would be convicting him in the face of evidence that he actually didn't go into the cabinet and someone else took the keys and stole my liquor.

Quote
Nothing you have claimed has any solid proof, rather relies on your own conjecture or hearsay.

It is not hearsay to say that Trump has boasted about his evasion of taxes or how bypassing the rules makes him smart. It is not hearsay to point out that he has been taken to court over his financial affairs. It is not hearsay to point out the huge number of lies and the vast amount of hypocrisy he displays. It is not hearsay to point out that he has declared thigs that are actually written in the consititution as phony or unconstitutional. He is open about it.

He and his allies are working very hard to build a narrative whereby the trust in everything but them is eroded. They are trying to create a place where it is somehow reaosnable to consider people summoned under the rules of the constitution to testify under oath are liars and frauds, while those who refuse to testify and defy court orders to produce documents are somehow above suspicion. If he actually had nothing to hide, why hide it? If his records prove him to be squeaky clean, why refuse to release them and end the 'harrassment' once and for all?

Trump is fundamentally unfit for office, has demonstrated time and again a willingness to not give a toss about anyone else but him and his cronies, constantly claims himself an expert on anything and everything (despite clearly being anything but), will deny having done things that are a matter of record (even his own record, denying saying things that are clearly written and preserved on his Twitter feed), and has a very obviously demonstrated pathological inability to admit any kind of mistake or culpability. If it's good he will take credit even if it wasn't his to take, and if it is bad it is always someone else's fault. This is not speculation or hearsay, this is his own behaviour, demonstrated by his words and his social media presence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 05, 2020, 01:02:09 PM
The reversal of policies toward trans people in particular is literally killing people.  The policies cutting food stamps will literally kill people.  The changes to the level of emissions cars are allowed to produce will literally kill people.  I can point to any number of lethal policies from the current administration.  But "they said bad things about people" is apparently just as bad.  Good to know.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 05, 2020, 01:05:16 PM
Also, it is not slander to say that people who side with Trump are siding with literal Nazis and the KKK.  Because people who call themselves Nazis are proud, passionate supporters of the current administration, and the KKK endorsed him in 2016.  So what slander are we talking, here?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 05, 2020, 01:50:15 PM
Bad example, for a number of reasons, not the least being the von Braun's membership of the Nazi party was always a matter of necessity rather than shared sympathy with the movement.

That can be argued to be as much conjecture as the original anti-Trump quote is, and therefor remains a prime example of the continued use of CT tactics by some of the posts written here.


Nor is it the logical conclusion from the statement. All Lunar Orbit's example proposes is that a) if I had to surrender the keys to the liquor cabinet to someone, an alcoholic would not be top of my list, and b) if I came home and found it empty having done so, I would consider the alcoholic the prime suspect unless he has a good explanation for how someone else got the keys or otherwise gained access. Both of these are reasonable based on the evidence. What would be unreasonable would be convicting him in the face of evidence that he actually didn't go into the cabinet and someone else took the keys and stole my liquor.

a) is out-of-context with the OP I used as an example, just as CT use out-of-context methods.
b) considering someone a suspect does not make them automatically guilty, as was the OP's logically fallacious conclusion.  You have just confirmed your unrecognized (by you) agreement with me on this point.

Quote
Nothing you have claimed has any solid proof, rather relies on your own conjecture or hearsay.


It is not hearsay to say...


Things that were not brought up in the OP.  Okay.  Maybe, unlike CT tactics to veer off, stay on topic?


He and his allies are...


All bad with ill-intentions towards the rule of law.  I get it, but that is still conjecture.  No matter how many people agree with you, even if i did,  claiming to know their actual intent is fundamentally untrue.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 05, 2020, 02:03:11 PM
Also, it is not slander to say that people who side with Trump are siding with literal Nazis and the KKK.  Because people who call themselves Nazis are proud, passionate supporters of the current administration, and the KKK endorsed him in 2016.  So what slander are we talking, here?

Actually, it is.  If YOU support a candidate, cause, etc., you have no control over who else does, including reprehensible people.  When someone then claims you and such reprehensible people have forged a bond because of such an association, they have slandered you by making a false analogy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Apollo 957 on January 05, 2020, 02:43:36 PM
I've seen interviews with the child cast of Young Sheldon.

Even they show better decorum and public speaking skills than this President ...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 05, 2020, 03:26:43 PM
Bad example, for a number of reasons, not the least being the von Braun's membership of the Nazi party was always a matter of necessity rather than shared sympathy with the movement.

That can be argued to be as much conjecture as the original anti-Trump quote is, and therefor remains a prime example of the continued use of CT tactics by some of the posts written here.

No, that's a conclusion drawn by people who knew him, his own words, the content of a biography or two, and the conclusions drawn by the US intelligence agencies who interviewed him extensively after Operation Paperclip and put him and his colleagues to work on US military projects.

Quote

Nor is it the logical conclusion from the statement. All Lunar Orbit's example proposes is that a) if I had to surrender the keys to the liquor cabinet to someone, an alcoholic would not be top of my list, and b) if I came home and found it empty having done so, I would consider the alcoholic the prime suspect unless he has a good explanation for how someone else got the keys or otherwise gained access. Both of these are reasonable based on the evidence. What would be unreasonable would be convicting him in the face of evidence that he actually didn't go into the cabinet and someone else took the keys and stole my liquor.

a) is out-of-context with the OP I used as an example, just as CT use out-of-context methods.
b) considering someone a suspect does not make them automatically guilty, as was the OP's logically fallacious conclusion.  You have just confirmed your unrecognized (by you) agreement with me on this point.

The OP did not conclude guilt. Actual words used were is "Is it illogical to believe that an alcoholic can't be trusted with the key to your liquor cabinet?" There is nothing in there about concluding guilt, only in lacking trust, which is reasonable.

Quote
Nothing you have claimed has any solid proof, rather relies on your own conjecture or hearsay.


It is not hearsay to say...


Things that were not brought up in the OP.  Okay.  Maybe, unlike CT tactics to veer off, stay on topic?

That is on topic. Very much so. Trump's behaviour is literally the entire topic. Just because I added a few other examples to the original doesn't make it 'off-topic'. I shall conclude from your attempt to suggest otherwise that you have no actual comeback to those points and you concur that he does indeed behave in those ways.

Quote

He and his allies are...


All bad with ill-intentions towards the rule of law.  I get it, but that is still conjecture.  No matter how many people agree with you, even if i did,  claiming to know their actual intent is fundamentally untrue.

So, what conclusion should I draw from their actions? They are smearing their opponents, portraying themselves as the victims of something 'unconsitutional' which is in fact following the letter and spirit of the constitution. Trump's attorney has literally claimed he can get away with cold blooded murder as long as he is President. Even if I don't know their intent for sure (frankly Trump's irrationality makes me wonder if there is actually any intent at all beyond paranoid crybaby whining about unfair treatment), there's not much wiggle room in the interpretation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 05, 2020, 03:33:54 PM
Lunar Orbiter, I am sorry, but if you would take the time to replace the subject of the president with any CT, you just MIGHT be able to see what I am talking about.  Right now, you ARE as lost as they are with your prejudice.

Example:  Slight edit from your last post with the method I described above (edits in bold) -

"It is not illogical to believe that Braun's past corruption would follow him to the NASA where he would have a lot of power, and have almost complete immunity while in his position. It would be illogical to believe that someone who had been unethical his entire Nazi career would suddenly care about ethics now."

Also, your comment "Is it illogical to believe that an alcoholic can't be trusted with the key to your liquor cabinet?" is easily answered with you have just asked the wrong question to logically compare the situations.  What YOU have done in the first post on this subject thread is come home to find the cabinet empty, but have deemed the alcoholic guilty with nothing for proof but knowledge of his past.  THAT is not logical.  Nothing you have claimed has any solid proof, rather relies on your own conjecture or hearsay. 

I could go on, but I feel I am beating a dead horse here.  Again, I am not here to defend him, but to point out the parallels in your (and others') rhetoric on this subject as a cautionary tale.  Your blanket refusal to honestly consider that (to this point) is a little disturbing to me.


I wasn't alive at the time, but I think it would have been perfectly reasonable to not trust Werner von Braun, and I'm sure it took years for him to earn whatever amount of trustworthiness that he had. He most likely had people watching him closely until the day he died.

Donald Trump has done nothing to earn our trust, instead he has only confirmed that he is dishonest, rude, impulsive, reckless, self-centered, thin-skinned, weak, narcissistic, and unethical. This isn't speculation or "manufactured flaws", it's all observed behaviour. I really don't understand why you are defending him.

Using your logic, even the worst criminal should be trusted and their past ignored... because hey, today is a new day, and the past doesn't matter. Donald Trump might have lied a thousand times yesterday, but you can trust him today. That is exactly what con men like Trump want from people like you... gullibility.

I have no loyalty to the Democratic or Republican party because I am Canadian. I speak out against Donald Trump because he is dangerous, not just to the United States but to the entire planet. If you can't see it then you either aren't paying close enough attention, or you are blinded by loyalty.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 05, 2020, 04:00:27 PM
Nor is it the logical conclusion from the statement. All Lunar Orbit's example proposes is that a) if I had to surrender the keys to the liquor cabinet to someone, an alcoholic would not be top of my list

a) is out-of-context with the OP I used as an example, just as CT use out-of-context methods.

How is it out of context? When you elect the President of the United States, do you not take into consideration how much you trust them? I would not give an alcoholic the keys to a liquor cabinet, and I would not give Donald Trump the keys to the nuclear codes... because I can't trust either of them to act responsibly.

Quote
b) considering someone a suspect does not make them automatically guilty

It's not about being able to accuse them after the fact. It's about preventing something bad from happening before accusations of guilt are even necessary. Like I said, it's a matter of trust. Donald Trump has proved to me that he can't be trusted.

Quote
Things that were not brought up in the OP.  Okay.  Maybe, unlike CT tactics to veer off, stay on topic?

How about you leave the moderation to me.

Quote
All bad with ill-intentions towards the rule of law.  I get it, but that is still conjecture.  No matter how many people agree with you, even if i did,  claiming to know their actual intent is fundamentally untrue.

I'll say it again. It's about trust. Trust isn't automatic, it has to be earned. And if someone has given you countless reasons to NOT trust them, you don't give them a clean slate every morning.

I was willing to cut the people who voted for him in 2016 some slack because they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it is unbelievable to me that people still trust him after 3 years in office. It's like the old Peanuts cartoon where Lucy pulls the football away right before Charlie Brown kicks it... every time... and he never learns. At some point you have to stop trusting habitual liars.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 05, 2020, 08:47:30 PM
Also, it is not slander to say that people who side with Trump are siding with literal Nazis and the KKK.  Because people who call themselves Nazis are proud, passionate supporters of the current administration, and the KKK endorsed him in 2016.  So what slander are we talking, here?

Actually, it is.  If YOU support a candidate, cause, etc., you have no control over who else does, including reprehensible people.  When someone then claims you and such reprehensible people have forged a bond because of such an association, they have slandered you by making a false analogy.


No.  No, that's wrong.  If you support him, you are supporting someone also supported by the KKK and Nazis.  That's not saying you yourself are either, it's just saying that you are willing to side with them.  And if you are . . . .
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 06, 2020, 02:10:28 PM
Wow.  This has been a VERY enlightening window into the human psyche.  Not totally unexpected at face value, rather I am a little surprised by the EXTENT to which you will argue regardless of the hypocrisy inherent in your methods vs your disdain for CT methods, which mirror your own in some ways.

I understand there has not been a lot of time since her posts. but I also notice no one else is calling gillianren out on her logical fallacy.  Latest example:


No.  No, that's wrong.  If you support him, you are supporting someone also supported by the KKK and Nazis.  That's not saying you yourself are either, it's just saying that you are willing to side with them.  And if you are . . . .

Does ANYONE else see the OBVIOUS false analogy AND contradictory message here?  From all your posts in the CT forum, you darn well should.

Regardless, as I mentioned before, I am not here to defend Trump, which most replies have ignored, rather to point out SOME similarities in your posts with CTs' tactics.  My point has been made to anyone with non-prejudiced critical thinking skills, and I am not here to argue incessantly with those who refuse, or are unable, to acknowledge my observation as described.

That said, I am willing to elaborate further on ONE point of contention, of your choice, should you so desire, or I can just drop out of this discussion altogether.  It really doesn't matter to me.  But, to be clear, I ask for only ONE (at a time, at least) point, to prevent shotgunning, and to bring some sort of closure to an item prior to moving on (if we do, indeed, move on).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 06, 2020, 02:52:53 PM
I am a little surprised by the EXTENT to which you will argue regardless of the hypocrisy inherent in your methods vs your disdain for CT methods, which mirror your own in some ways.

I think I'll just sit back and enjoy the irony inherent in the amount of 'hits' in the apollohoax bingo card that follow this statement....
Quote
Does ANYONE else see the OBVIOUS false analogy AND contradictory message here?

Saying 'it's obvious' and using caps. That's two.

Quote
My point has been made to anyone with non-prejudiced critical thinking skills,

That's another.

Quote
and I am not here to argue incessantly with those who refuse, or are unable, to acknowledge my observation as described.

Refuse to engage. That's four...

Quote
That said, I am willing to elaborate further on ONE point of contention, of your choice, should you so desire,

Attempting to dictate how the discussion may continue. That's five...

And overall, failure to grasp how conclusion and argument can be diferent in different circumstances also noted. Continuing refusal to engage in points already raised (like the fact that Trump and von braun are not comparable for many reasons, not the least being that von Braun's Nazi past was a very specific and very short part of his life overall, while Trump's behaviour and attitude is an ongoing and consistent phenomenon) also noted. The score is pretty high. not sure if I've got a bingo yet...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 06, 2020, 03:45:01 PM
Wow.  This has been a VERY enlightening window into the human psyche.  Not totally unexpected at face value, rather I am a little surprised by the EXTENT to which you will argue regardless of the hypocrisy inherent in your methods vs your disdain for CT methods, which mirror your own in some ways.

Your issue with my original post seems to be that I never actually heard Trump ask for the Office of Congressional Ethics to be dismantled, so I'm just speculating. Therefore, I'm acting like a conspiracy theorist.

You're right, I wasn't in the private meetings held between Trump and the other Republicans prior to that shady vote. But I don't need to personally witness these discussions to know that the Republicans would not have made such a controversial move if they thought the President wouldn't support it. But sure... since that is all I had to go on, it only proves that everyone in the Republican party is corrupt except Trump.

But we knew he was corrupt before he ever ran for President. People and small businesses that did work for the Trump Organization were stiffed, and some went bankrupt. We knew he ran a phony university that scammed poor people who were desperate to turn their lives around. We knew he stole from a charity. None of those things were speculation leading up to the election. We knew who he was, and still is, and yet some people are okay with electing a crook.

I don't know about you, but I need to be able to trust the people I vote for. Trump has repeatedly proved that he can't be trusted.

Quote
I understand there has not been a lot of time since her posts. but I also notice no one else is calling gillianren out on her logical fallacy.
  Latest example:


No.  No, that's wrong.  If you support him, you are supporting someone also supported by the KKK and Nazis.  That's not saying you yourself are either, it's just saying that you are willing to side with them.  And if you are . . . .

Does ANYONE else see the OBVIOUS false analogy AND contradictory message here?  From all your posts in the CT forum, you darn well should.

Going back to before the election, Trump was asked to disavow the endorsement of David Duke and groups like the KKK. It should be pretty easy to do for anyone who is not a racist, but Trump would not do it. Why? Was winning the election so important to him that he was not willing to lose the votes of racists? Or is he racist too? Is there are difference?

Will Trump condemn white supremacists? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft9zgLT6Nss)

To paraphrase Andrew Gillum... Trump might not be a racist, but the racists think he's a racist.

If you are willing to overlook all of Trump's corrupt behaviour just because you like one or two of the good things that he has done (or taken credit for) then I think it says something about you. You might not be a racist, but it certainly doesn't look good when you support a man who is.

There are other people who can do the job just as good or better than Trump without all of the negatives that come with him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 06, 2020, 06:05:05 PM
Lunar Orbiter, You stated:

Quote
Trump's behaviour is not an act, and he has shown that those "checks and balances" are working for him, not for the American public.

An independent ethics body has been gutted by Republicans, without debate or warning. This is not something you would do if your goal was to "drain the swamp", it's something you would do if you wanted to do unethical things without consequences.

As previously mentioned, I have not read through the bulk of the posts, but I ask you - do you still stand by that post?  And if not, have you retracted it anywhere?


Wait a second. I just went back and re-read my original post in this thread. Here is the FULL quote of what I said:

I'm starting a new thread to chronicle the corruption and bad decisions made by Trump and the Republican controlled Congress.

For starters: remember when Trump (and the Republican party) ran on the promise to "drain the swamp"? Remember when I expressed concern about Trump's behaviour and was told that "he didn't really mean the things he was saying", and even if he did there are "checks and balances" in place to prevent it? Well, ha ha, funny story...

With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office - NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/with-no-warning-house-republicans-vote-to-hobble-independent-ethics-office.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0)

Quote
"Republicans claim they want to 'drain the swamp,' but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House G.O.P. has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions. Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress."

- Nancy Pelosi

Trump's behaviour is not an act, and he has shown that those "checks and balances" are working for him, not for the American public.

An independent ethics body has been gutted by Republicans, without debate or warning. This is not something you would do if your goal was to "drain the swamp", it's something you would do if you wanted to do unethical things without consequences.

I think you're being dishonest, MBDK (a trait of conspiracy theorists). I never even blamed the vote to gut the OCE on Trump. I said it was done by the Republicans. And that is 100% true, regardless of whether or not Trump directed them to do it. And it doesn't matter if the decision was reversed, they still wanted to do it, and that should tell you all you need to know about their corrupt intentions.

I also started the thread by saying "I'm starting a new thread to chronicle the corruption and bad decisions made by Trump and the Republican controlled Congress."

So tell me again... what exactly do I need to retract?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 07, 2020, 02:26:51 AM

Wait a second. I just went back and re-read my original post in this thread.

I'm starting a new thread to chronicle the corruption and bad decisions made by Trump and the Republican controlled Congress.

For starters: remember when Trump (and the Republican party) ran on the promise to "drain the swamp"? Remember when I expressed concern about Trump's behaviour and was told that "he didn't really mean the things he was saying", and even if he did there are "checks and balances" in place to prevent it? Well, ha ha, funny story...

With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office - NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/with-no-warning-house-republicans-vote-to-hobble-independent-ethics-office.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0)

Quote
"Republicans claim they want to 'drain the swamp,' but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House G.O.P. has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions. Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress."

- Nancy Pelosi

Trump's behaviour is not an act, and he has shown that those "checks and balances" are working for him, not for the American public.

An independent ethics body has been gutted by Republicans, without debate or warning. This is not something you would do if your goal was to "drain the swamp", it's something you would do if you wanted to do unethical things without consequences.

I think you're being dishonest, MBDK (a trait of conspiracy theorists). I never even blamed the vote to gut the OCE on Trump. I said it was done by the Republicans. And that is 100% true, regardless of whether or not Trump directed them to do it. And it doesn't matter if the decision was reversed, they still wanted to do it, and that should tell you all you need to know about their corrupt intentions.

I also started the thread by saying "I'm starting a new thread to chronicle the corruption and bad decisions made by Trump and the Republican controlled Congress."

So tell me again... what exactly do I need to retract?

*sheepishly looks down at feet and toes the ground*
Nothing...

Somehow I missed your reply #10, where you admitted the independent ethics body had NOT been eviscerated and acknowledged that Trump had intervened.  So, upon my re-read of that post, I retract my questions (listed: do you still stand by that post?  And if not, have you retracted it anywhere?), as that was the crux of my original (mis)observation. 

*straightens up, thumbing suspenders to exaggerate a puffed out chest*
However, I do stand by my other criticisms to the responses I have received, and as an inconsequential side note - Congress is not controlled by the Republicans, as they only control the Senate.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 07, 2020, 04:30:09 AM
as an inconsequential side note - Congress is not controlled by the Republicans, as they only control the Senate.

Oh, really... and who controlled congress on January 03, 2017 when the words you are quoting were written?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 07, 2020, 11:07:07 AM
Okay, here's a point I'd like.  If the Democrats are "just as bad," name one thing--one thing--that's as bad as assassinating an important member of a foreign government without Congressional approval or even notification, and then claiming that posting about it on Twitter is the same as following the legal standard.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 07, 2020, 11:40:51 AM
Example:  Slight edit from your last post with the method I described above (edits in bold) -

"It is not illogical to believe that Braun's past corruption would follow him to the NASA where he would have a lot of power, and have almost complete immunity while in his position. It would be illogical to believe that someone who had been unethical his entire Nazi career would suddenly care about ethics now."

Since you mention it - yes, Braun's former Nazi membership would have absolutely disqualified him from public office in my opinion as a voter. That doesn't automatically make either Braun or Trump guilty of any specific crime/conspiracy theory, it just means that they are unfit to be president.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 07, 2020, 01:27:46 PM
Oh, really... and who controlled congress on January 03, 2017 when the words you are quoting were written?
No one.
https://www.mic.com/articles/161913/who-controls-the-house-of-representatives-here-s-what-house-will-look-like-in-2017

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 07, 2020, 01:35:29 PM
Okay, here's a point I'd like.  If the Democrats are "just as bad," name one thing--one thing--that's as bad as assassinating an important member of a foreign government without Congressional approval or even notification, and then claiming that posting about it on Twitter is the same as following the legal standard.
I can do you one better.  It is far worse to let this dedicated killer of Americans to continue because you want to control everything.  I consider eradicating terrorists, bent on continuing their murderous war crimes, as quickly and efficiently as possible to be a good thing.  Putting a political spin on it is childish and unproductive, in my opinion. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 07, 2020, 01:37:49 PM
Since you mention it - yes, Braun's former Nazi membership would have absolutely disqualified him from public office in my opinion as a voter. That doesn't automatically make either Braun or Trump guilty of any specific crime/conspiracy theory, it just means that they are unfit to be president.
Not sure what you are trying to say by including Trump in this particular way.  Since he has never been a Nazi, how does this relate?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 07, 2020, 01:42:51 PM
Oh, really... and who controlled congress on January 03, 2017 when the words you are quoting were written?
No one.
https://www.mic.com/articles/161913/who-controls-the-house-of-representatives-here-s-what-house-will-look-like-in-2017

What are you talking about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/115th_United_States_Congress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/115th_United_States_Congress)

Quote
The One Hundred Fifteenth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from January 3, 2017, to January 3, 2019, during the final weeks of Barack Obama's presidency and the first two years of Donald Trump's presidency.

House Majority: Republican
Senate Majority: Republican
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 07, 2020, 01:53:19 PM
Okay, here's a point I'd like.  If the Democrats are "just as bad," name one thing--one thing--that's as bad as assassinating an important member of a foreign government without Congressional approval or even notification, and then claiming that posting about it on Twitter is the same as following the legal standard.
I can do you one better.  It is far worse to let this dedicated killer of Americans to continue because you want to control everything.  I consider eradicating terrorists, bent on continuing their murderous war crimes, as quickly and efficiently as possible to be a good thing.  Putting a political spin on it is childish and unproductive, in my opinion. 

People aren't objecting to the assassination of a General in Iran's military because it was ordered by a Republican President and the Democrats are just contradicting whatever he does for political reasons. They object to it because we haven't even wrapped up the last 19 years of costly (in money and blood) war, and now Trump is going to start another endless war. It was a shortsighted and reckless decision that is going to have terrible consequences.

Trump and his team of idiots have been pushing for a war since before the election. Iran was moving towards peace before he came along and made a mess of it.

I'll ask you the same thing I have been asking other Trump supporters: are you going to go fight in the Iran war? Will you send your children to enlist in the military? Or do you just want other people to sacrifice their lives on your behalf? It's easy to support a war when it poses no risk to you or your family.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 07, 2020, 02:03:34 PM
What are you talking about?
Some alternate universe, apparently.  Somehow I got 2017 and 2019 mixed up.  I am not going to claim this as an excuse, but I think it is in my (and clarity's) best interest to refrain from further discussion until I have conquered this cold I am fighting, get off the associated meds, and catch up on my sleep.  My apologies for the mistake, and inconvenience. 

Oh, and thank you for the much needed corrections.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 07, 2020, 03:03:37 PM
Not sure what you are trying to say by including Trump in this particular way.  Since he has never been a Nazi, how does this relate?

I was modifying your analogy to be accurate. To recap, the associations are:

Braun: former Nazi.
Trump: misogynist narcissist swindling boor.

You correctly noted that the CT hypothesis of Braun, former Nazi then NASA career something something HOAX!!!, is inaccurate. I agree that:

a. Trump's documented pre-politics behavior does not make him automatically guilty of any specific malfeasance in office, just like Braun didn't automatically fake the moon landings because he once was a Nazi.

But no one is claiming that it does, so (a) is a straw man. I then modified the analogy to make it germane:

b. Trump's documented pre-politics behavior precludes him from being fit for elected public office (in my opinion as a voter), just as Braun's pre-NASA behavior would have precluded him from being fit for elected public office (in my opinion as a voter).

I am not going to claim this as an excuse, but I think it is in my (and clarity's) best interest to refrain from further discussion until I have conquered this cold I am fighting, get off the associated meds, and catch up on my sleep.  My apologies for the mistake, and inconvenience. 

I hope you feel better. Once you are back to 100% and reading this, can I suggest that maybe you could have jumped to some other conclusions prematurely in this thread, along with the ones we've already highlighted?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 07, 2020, 03:47:58 PM
Okay, here's a point I'd like.  If the Democrats are "just as bad," name one thing--one thing--that's as bad as assassinating an important member of a foreign government without Congressional approval or even notification, and then claiming that posting about it on Twitter is the same as following the legal standard.
I can do you one better.  It is far worse to let this dedicated killer of Americans to continue because you want to control everything.  I consider eradicating terrorists, bent on continuing their murderous war crimes, as quickly and efficiently as possible to be a good thing.  Putting a political spin on it is childish and unproductive, in my opinion. 

So if another country had considered our leadership guilty of war crimes for what we have done--"enhanced interrogation," etc.--would they be justified in assassinating our leaders?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 07, 2020, 03:48:23 PM
I can do you one better.  It is far worse to let this dedicated killer of Americans to continue because you want to control everything.  I consider eradicating terrorists, bent on continuing their murderous war crimes, as quickly and efficiently as possible to be a good thing.  Putting a political spin on it is childish and unproductive, in my opinion.
You say you are no fan of Trump, but you sure do spout the party line predictably.

Soleimani was commander of the Quds force. As such he was not a friend of the United States, but that doesn't make him a "dedicated killer of Americans". He (more specifically, the force he commanded) trained Shia militias in Syria and Iraq, some of which have subsequently attacked Americans. Those same militias also fought in coordination with the Americans (or more specifically, American air power) against ISIS. The various situations in the Middle East are complex and dangerous.

Historically, assassinating commanders of irregular forces hasn't been an effective strategy: it turns the leaders into martyrs, while there are always more personnel available to take on the leadership role. Assassinating a general of organized special forces doesn't seem to be likely to be any more effective, and has far more significant strategic and grand strategic drawbacks (ie, the loss of the Iraqi government as a regional ally). So Trump gets criticized for the apparently unnecessarily inflammatory and destabilizing action.

As we are not at war with Iran, it is illegal under US and international law to assassinate its military leadership with one key exception - if done in self defense against an imminent attack. The Republicans have vaguely alluded to an imminent attack, but haven't provided details publicly. All indications are that they haven't provided an imminent justification to Congress internally, either. So, Trump gets criticized for the apparently illegal action.

The timing of the attack, the day after the release of devastating (and previously redacted with no legal basis) emails regarding Trump and Ukraine, also stinks.

So no, I don't think that in this example the Democrats are just as bad.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 07, 2020, 04:49:56 PM
I can do you one better.  It is far worse to let this dedicated killer of Americans to continue because you want to control everything.  I consider eradicating terrorists, bent on continuing their murderous war crimes, as quickly and efficiently as possible to be a good thing.  Putting a political spin on it is childish and unproductive, in my opinion.

Whether you consider it a good thing or not is largely irrelevant, since the point is that the way it was done was illegal, and that Trump flat out stated the US would merrily commit war crimes in retaliation. 'They can kill our people but we can't touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way', he said. Well actually it does work that way, as explicitly stated in UN agreements on the rules of military conflicts that were drawn up precisely because previously that was just the kind of thing that people did, and just the kind of thing ISIS were doing and being condemned for not so long ago.

A recurring pattern of this last three years has been Trump saying he will do something, a whole bunch of his officials pointing out that actually they can't do that thing, and him repeating the statement that they will do it.

Personally I consider killing leading figures pointless, because it's a classic trope from fiction that doesn't hold in reality. If the organisation exists and the means for it to carry on doing what it does exist, it will carry on because someone else will fill the gap. Tell me you've eradicated a threat by wiping out weapons caches, training facilities, military establishments, fine. Tell me it's a big victory because you killed one person and I'll wonder which boy's own comic you've been reading instead of getting sound military advice. Would killing Trump eredicate the republican party? No, of course not. So why should killing this one general end a supposed threat? All it's done is make a martyr and further piss off Iran. How is that a good thing?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 07, 2020, 04:58:51 PM
a. Trump's documented pre-politics behavior does not make him automatically guilty of any specific malfeasance in office, just like Braun didn't automatically fake the moon landings because he once was a Nazi.

I still stand by my point when comparing these two men that von Braun's controversial past was a short chapter in his life that was well and truly over by the time he rose to prominence as the man who helped put humankind on the Moon, while Trump's pattern of behaviour has been ongoing hsi entire life. Let's say hypothetically that von Braun were running for office at the same age as Trump was when he ran. While I would consider both of them unfit for office, I'd be far more willing to let a man who had a short period of his life in the Nazi party but had subsequently built a history showing no sympathy with their policies and become a respected member of his community and widely liiked around the world take office than someone with a long, uninterrupted, consistent pattern of behaviour showing him to have no real interest in anything except personal achievement and fame, a clearly racist, misogynistic and bigoted attitude to all and sundry, and a total disdain for anyone less well off than himself. A man who has done something to advance humanity's achievements versus someone only interested in his own.

My biggest issue with the whole business of Trump as President is that his attitude and behaviour were clear to everyone, and so naturally we get more of the same while he is in office, now made worse by his belief that he is unassailable in his position and can do what the hell he wants. Does that make him incapable of making 'good' choices and doing good deeds with his positon? Not at all. It does make it surprising, however.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 08, 2020, 11:01:57 AM
He once took out a full-page ad advocating for killing children who had not yet been convicted of a crime--and now that the evidence has become quite clear that they were railroaded because of their age and ethnicity . . . he's doubled down and insisted they weren't actually innocent.  He was convicted, twice, in a court of law of not renting to black people.  Gosh, why do racists like him?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 11, 2020, 12:48:08 PM
Okay, I am much better, health-wise, except for a few infrequent times when I cough like a bad engine.  So, to elaborate somewhat on my point, which to be clear is: 
Posters in this discussion topic sometimes use untrue, illogical and/or exaggerated claims, as well as other tactics often used by CTs, and should be mindful of such actions.

A couple of recent examples:
But I don't need to personally witness these discussions to know that the Republicans would not have made such a controversial move if they thought the President wouldn't support it. But sure... since that is all I had to go on, it only proves that everyone in the Republican party is corrupt except Trump.
Claiming to "know" something that differs from actual evidence is a prime illustration of my point.  This is even clearer when your "insight" into what really went on differs 180 degrees from this article by what can be considered a political ally of yours, one of the left-leaning news outlets -
https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/02/politics/office-of-congressional-ethics-oversight-of-ethics-committee-amendment/index.html

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 11, 2020, 12:54:50 PM
He was convicted, twice, in a court of law of not renting to black people.
His company SETTLED twice, with no admission of guilt.  That is not a conviction, nor does it necessarily indicate his personal view(s).

Making what I assume to be an honest mistake, yet still an untrue statement only shows how facts can get twisted inside our heads.  Happened to me a couple of times in this discussion. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 11, 2020, 12:57:47 PM
You correctly noted that the CT hypothesis of Braun, former Nazi then NASA career something something HOAX!!!, is inaccurate. I agree that:

a. Trump's documented pre-politics behavior does not make him automatically guilty of any specific malfeasance in office, just like Braun didn't automatically fake the moon landings because he once was a Nazi.

But no one is claiming that it does, so (a) is a straw man.
Which is my point.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 11, 2020, 01:10:27 PM
He was convicted, twice, in a court of law of not renting to black people.
His company SETTLED twice, with no admission of guilt.  That is not a conviction, nor does it necessarily indicate his personal view(s).

His company settled after a countersuit was thrown out. Now why settle out of court if there is no case to answer?

When you reach a certain level of wealth, legal fines and penalties just become fees. Who gives a toss about a fifty grand lawsuit when one has billions in the bank? Trump is one of a small group of people in this world with enough money to buy his way out of legal issues, and has demonstrated time and time again that admission of guilt is something he is simply incapable of doing even if it is blatantly obvious he is guilty. He won't even admit a simple mistake, much less cuplability in any criminal or civil proceeding.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 11, 2020, 01:20:50 PM
Okay, now I am sorry if I have hurt anyone's feelings, but I was just pointing out my observations.  I had similar discussions with all the Obama-haters in his time (birthers being some of the biggest fools out there).  Though I wasn't an Obama fan, either, I still called out the BS that was said about him during his presidency (and, as you know, there was PLENTY).  From my experience, BOTH parties have relatively equal amounts of blame when political chicanery is at play.  I just think it would make more constructive discourse to double check ourselves when making claims, especially when we let emotions enter and leap to promote speculation as fact.

As for Trump, I agree with many of the sentiments expressed here, but not always to the extent they have been taken.  He is not a very likable person, has many faults and this country deserves better leadership.  Still, In my opinion, he is not the demon leftists make him out to be, either.  His major tactic is a salesman's one I mentioned to my friends prior to taking office.  Ask for the sea, when all you really want is a drop - anything more is a win (to the salesman).

So, as  I have no real interest in discussing a lot of things at length, I am going to withdraw from this topic, unless there is something of particular importance you feel should be mentioned.  Thank you.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: rocketman on January 12, 2020, 09:41:59 AM

No.  No, that's wrong.  If you support him, you are supporting someone also supported by the KKK and Nazis.  That's not saying you yourself are either, it's just saying that you are willing to side with them.  And if you are . . . .

Does ANYONE else see the OBVIOUS false analogy AND contradictory message here?

I'm not sure what the contradictory message is here, but the "logic" used is discussed here,

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

under "Guilt by association as an ad hominem fallacy".

I found some statements by Gillianren that are rather complimentary of Hillary Clinton.  If we assume that she voted for Clinton, then she is "willing to side with them", "them" being the other 65,841,141 Clinton voters.  But Gillianren is not responsible for the beliefs and actions of those 65,841,141 people; she is responsible for her own.  Similarly, a Trump voter is not responsible for what the 62,976,216 other Trump voters believe or do; s/he is responsible for his/her own beliefs and actions.

If supporting Trump (or Clinton, or anyone else for that matter) is objectively a bad thing, then one should be able to show that without examining the moral qualities of other people who support Trump (or Clinton or whomever).

For what it's worth, I'm going to make myself really popular by quoting one of your earlier statements, that seems to have kicked off this whole flurry:

Quote
However, during the course of his presidency I have noted a constant concerted effort to find flaws in everything he does, manufacture them where they don't exist, shout it all out to the world, and, if not outright defiant in the face of facts, remain utterly silent when such claims come up empty or are proven false.

I happen to agree with that, although I find it quite unremarkable; it is true of every US president (and major party presidential candidate) for as long as I can remember.  I've seen criticisms of Trump (and Obama, and Bush Jr, and W Clinton, etc.) that are just plain goofy.  I've seen supporters (and opponents) of each of these presidents act in a highly hypocritical fashion, shrieking with outrage when X does something, but becoming strangely quiet when Y does the same thing.  Etc.

Why anyone would find your observation in the least bit objectionable is beyond me.  The sentiment "I don't like Trump" (substitute anyone else you like) does not require one to reach the conclusion "every criticism of Trump is a valid one", or "no critic of Trump is ever hypocritical".  Furthermore, arguing that some criticisms of Trump are invalid, or that some critics of Trump are hypocritical, does not make one a Trump supporter.  And yet internet logic frequently comes up short of real logic :(


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 12, 2020, 10:00:26 AM
Which is my point.

Your point is that you agree no one is making the claim you are debunking?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 12, 2020, 12:20:52 PM
Hillary Clinton never said there were "good people on both sides" when one side was actively saying they were Nazis.  In fact, one of the things she got in the most trouble for during the campaign was pointing out that there were people supporting Trump who were awful--and somehow, all his supporters thought she was talking about them.  Hillary Clinton would've had the good sense to flatly say, "I do not accept his endorsement" if David Duke had come out supporting her.  Donald Trump did not.

And why assume his stated preference for not renting to black people was an honest mistake?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 12, 2020, 12:46:23 PM
Okay, I am much better, health-wise, except for a few infrequent times when I cough like a bad engine.  So, to elaborate somewhat on my point, which to be clear is:
Posters in this discussion topic sometimes use untrue, illogical and/or exaggerated claims, as well as other tactics often used by CTs, and should be mindful of such actions.

A couple of recent examples:

But I don't need to personally witness these discussions to know that the Republicans would not have made such a controversial move if they thought the President wouldn't support it. But sure... since that is all I had to go on, it only proves that everyone in the Republican party is corrupt except Trump.
Claiming to "know" something that differs from actual evidence is a prime illustration of my point.  This is even clearer when your "insight" into what really went on differs 180 degrees from this article by what can be considered a political ally of yours, one of the left-leaning news outlets -
https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/02/politics/office-of-congressional-ethics-oversight-of-ethics-committee-amendment/index.html

Which, again, he only did after there was a public outcry. So his actions after getting caught don't necessarily reflect his true beliefs.

The President has to sign any bill put forward by Congress before it can become law. So like I said, the Republicans wouldn't have made a move like that if they thought Donald Trump wouldn't support it. Is that speculation? Sure... but to say it is illogical is a stretch. Why would Congress put forward any laws that they didn't expect the President to support, especially when both the majority of Congress and the President are from the same party? It seems to me that it is your argument that is illogical.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 12, 2020, 02:17:10 PM
I found some statements by Gillianren that are rather complimentary of Hillary Clinton.  If we assume that she voted for Clinton, then she is "willing to side with them", "them" being the other 65,841,141 Clinton voters.  But Gillianren is not responsible for the beliefs and actions of those 65,841,141 people; she is responsible for her own.  Similarly, a Trump voter is not responsible for what the 62,976,216 other Trump voters believe or do; s/he is responsible for his/her own beliefs and actions.

I don't want to speak for Gillianren, but I think you're misunderstanding her. She isn't saying "Joe the Trump Voter" is responsible for the behaviour of other Trump voters. He might have voted for Trump for a variety of perfectly normal reasons, such as the economy or loyalty to the Republican party. But if a large group of racists endorse Donald Trump and he refuses to disavow them it makes it appear that he agrees with their racist beliefs, which if true, would make him a racist. At that point "Joe the Trump Voter" is now supporting a racist President, even if that's not why he supports him.

If you are willing to ignore that the President is racist when you vote for him... well, I guess it means you don't consider Trump being a racist to be a deal breaker.

There are other Republicans who can do the job without bringing racism to the table. You don't need to vote for Donald Trump just to give the Republican party the win.

Quote
If supporting Trump (or Clinton, or anyone else for that matter) is objectively a bad thing, then one should be able to show that without examining the moral qualities of other people who support Trump (or Clinton or whomever).

If Trump had explicitly disavowed the endorsement of the KKK, and had not called the Nazis marching the streets of Charlottesville "fine people", then I would agree that it would be unfair to associate him with those racists. And I would agree that it would be unfair to associate the non-racist Republicans with the racist ones. But as I explained above, if Trump supports racists and you support Trump, it means you're supporting a racist.

Quote
For what it's worth, I'm going to make myself really popular by quoting one of your earlier statements, that seems to have kicked off this whole flurry:

Quote
However, during the course of his presidency I have noted a constant concerted effort to find flaws in everything he does, manufacture them where they don't exist, shout it all out to the world, and, if not outright defiant in the face of facts, remain utterly silent when such claims come up empty or are proven false.

This "whole flurry" was kicked off by MBDK taking what I said out of context. I stated in my original post that I wanted this thread to chronicle the corruption and bad decisions of Trump and the Republican controlled Congress. I gave as an example a vote held by Republicans just hours earlier that aimed to dismantle an independent ethics office. I posted about it before the vote was eventually reversed, but regardless, I still think it says a lot about Republicans that that was their first action upon being sworn in. But MBDK wants you to believe I was unfairly pinning this on Donald Trump, that it was all unfair speculation that was not based on fact... like a conspiracy theorist.

The FACT that the Republicans voted to gut the OCE is undeniable. It is perfectly logical to believe the Republicans would have only done it if they though the President would support it since the President must sign bills before they can become law. It would be illogical to believe that they would try something like that if they had known Trump would reject it.

Since MBDK has failed to explain why I need to retract my original post, maybe you would like to take a crack at it.

Quote
Quote
However, during the course of his presidency I have noted a constant concerted effort to find flaws in everything he does, manufacture them where they don't exist, shout it all out to the world, and, if not outright defiant in the face of facts, remain utterly silent when such claims come up empty or are proven false.
I happen to agree with that, although I find it quite unremarkable; it is true of every US president (and major party presidential candidate) for as long as I can remember.  I've seen criticisms of Trump (and Obama, and Bush Jr, and W Clinton, etc.) that are just plain goofy.  I've seen supporters (and opponents) of each of these presidents act in a highly hypocritical fashion, shrieking with outrage when X does something, but becoming strangely quiet when Y does the same thing.  Etc.

I think you're trying very hard to equate what Republicans are doing now to what Democrats have done in the past. As an outsider looking in, I can only say that I see no equivalence between the two parties.

Republicans have been trying for decades to smear the reputation of the Clintons, Obamas, and other Democrats. There have been countless investigations into the Clintons, and the latest one just quietly wrapped up without finding anything. The best the Republicans ever came up with was Bill's adultery. Republicans have even sunk so low as to spread fake rumours about Hillary running a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant that doesn't have a basement. Republicans flock to people like Alex Jones who spread garbage like the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory. They perpetuate birtherism and other racist conspiracy theories about the Obamas. They even made a big deal out of President Obama wearing a tan suit for some reason.

Meanwhile, all the Democrats have done is investigate the mere possibility that Trump is (either wittingly or unwittingly) working to benefit the Russians. It is not unreasonable to want to protect your country from foreign influence, and whether you believe it or not, Trump has given plenty of reasons why he can't be trusted. It is clear that he is, at the very least, vulnerable to being coerced by foreign agents due to his financial debts and personal lifestyle. He has already had a lot of secrets come out (ie. Stormy Daniels, the Access Hollywood tape, etc.) so it's not difficult to believe he has more secrets that the Russians could use against him. He has also had business dealings in Russia that make him susceptible to their influence. These are perfectly reasonable things to be concerned about, and he even feeds those concerns by being more friendly to dictators than he is to the democratically elected leaders of your closest allies. He will gladly insult Justin Trudeau or Angela Merkel, but has nothing but praise for Vladimir Putin.

So I honestly don't get the whole "both the parties are equally as bad" argument.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 12, 2020, 03:11:49 PM
I'm not sure what the contradictory message is here, but the "logic" used is discussed here,

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

under "Guilt by association as an ad hominem fallacy".
Her contradictory message is the thinly veiled:
I'm not saying you're a _____, but you're a ______.

Although, by her latest post, she still doesn't seem to get it (the association fallacy).  Perhaps she hasn't had time to review your link?

Regardless, I thank you for showing understanding of what I was getting at, and want to re-emphasize that I have been and can be as guilty as anyone of doing the very things I mentioned.  I just think being aware of, and on guard for, such unintentional (I assume) logical lapses can make us all better thinkers, writers and doers.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 12, 2020, 06:11:56 PM
Which, again, he only did after there was a public outcry. So his actions after getting caught don't necessarily reflect his true beliefs.
Except when you want them to.  Still, conjecture by you.  Even liberal CNN had a different opinion, as stated in the link I previously provided. At least be honest enough to admit it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 12, 2020, 06:46:48 PM
If Trump had explicitly disavowed the endorsement of the KKK, and had not called the Nazis marching the streets of Charlottesville "fine people"
Which he has, but since you are now so invested in your position, why would YOU bother to honestly check the facts?  Took me less than 5 seconds for video of KKK position.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?
The Nazi thing is also entirely out-of-context and untrue.  But, it is so ingrained in the media, I had to spend 10 whole seconds to find his actual words. 
From - (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/21/trump_didnt_call_neo-nazis_fine_people_heres_proof_139815.html)
(quote)
Here are the unambiguous actual words of President Trump:

“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group.  But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.  You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did.  You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

After another question at that press conference, Trump became even more explicit:

“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”
(unquote)
then I would agree that it would be unfair to associate him with those racists
Well?
it was all unfair speculation that was not based on fact... like a conspiracy theorist.
I only used the term "speculation".  Unless you are talking pure fantasy, ALL speculation involves some facts...JUST like a CT's argument.
Since MBDK has failed to explain why I need to retract my original post, maybe you would like to take a crack at it.
Did you forget, or not even read Reply#636?  My response to your question regarding retraction(s) from your OP?  In case you missed it, here is the relevant portion of my concession:
Somehow I missed your reply #10, where you admitted the independent ethics body had NOT been eviscerated and acknowledged that Trump had intervened.  So, upon my re-read of that post, I retract my questions (listed: do you still stand by that post?  And if not, have you retracted it anywhere?), as that was the crux of my original (mis)observation.

*straightens up, thumbing suspenders to exaggerate a puffed out chest*
However, I do stand by my other criticisms to the responses I have received
So I honestly don't get the whole "both the parties are equally as bad" argument.
That is your prerogative, but I think evidence (as previously listed) does indicate some significant prejudice on your part.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: rocketman on January 12, 2020, 08:43:21 PM
I found some statements by Gillianren that are rather complimentary of Hillary Clinton.  If we assume that she voted for Clinton, then she is "willing to side with them", "them" being the other 65,841,141 Clinton voters.  But Gillianren is not responsible for the beliefs and actions of those 65,841,141 people; she is responsible for her own.  Similarly, a Trump voter is not responsible for what the 62,976,216 other Trump voters believe or do; s/he is responsible for his/her own beliefs and actions.

I don't want to speak for Gillianren, but I think you're misunderstanding her. She isn't saying "Joe the Trump Voter" is responsible for the behaviour of other Trump voters. He might have voted for Trump for a variety of perfectly normal reasons, such as the economy or loyalty to the Republican party. But if a large group of racists endorse Donald Trump and he refuses to disavow them it makes it appear that he agrees with their racist beliefs, which if true, would make him a racist. At that point "Joe the Trump Voter" is now supporting a racist President, even if that's not why he supports him.

These things are quite simple.

Either Trump is a racist, or he isn't.  How do we know whether he is a racist or not?  We can examine his public statements, his policies, his private actions, etc., for evidence of racism, however we choose to define it.

If one concludes that he is not racist, or that he is racist but it is OK to vote for him for other reasons, or that he is racist but being racist is perfectly OK for presidential candidates, or whatever other reason, then what difference does it make who the KKK or the Nazis do or do not support?  If David Duke runs for the presidency and the KKK and the Nazis support him instead, is it suddenly more palatable to vote for Trump, because look at me, there aren't as many racists standing next to me!  If there are non-racist Trump supporters, should the KKK and the Nazis take pride in the way they are standing with non-racists?

If Trump had explicitly disavowed the endorsement of the KKK, and had not called the Nazis marching the streets of Charlottesville "fine people", then I would agree that it would be unfair to associate him with those racists.

Trump calling Nazis marching in the streets "fine people" is not an example of Nazis supporting Trump; it is an example of Trump supporting Nazis.  Here is what Gillianren said:

Quote
No.  No, that's wrong.  If you support him, you are supporting someone also supported by the KKK and Nazis.  That's not saying you yourself are either, it's just saying that you are willing to side with them.  And if you are . . . .

If you change "also supported by . . . Nazis" to "who supports Nazis", the logical fallacy disappears.  If you want to argue that Trump is a racist, that seems a much more palatable solution to me than attempting to defend the logical fallacy.

Regarding the first one, I can speculate that the reason Trump doesn't condemn KKK supporters is because he supports them.  I could also speculate that he doesn't condemn them is because he wants to win an election, and has concluded condemning them harms his chances.  (Also note that the two explanations are not exclusive.)  Perhaps there are other explanations as well.

Oddly enough, it seems Trump has common cause with Muslims here, who are routinely accused of supporting terrorism whenever there is a terrorist attack perpetrated by Muslims, and they fail to condemn it with sufficient vigour.  (And sometimes even when they do condemn the attack.)

Personally, I feel there is so much direct, unambiguous evidence on this point, I'm astounded that anyone would feel they have to resort to a logical fallacy to try to make the case.

This "whole flurry" was kicked off by MBDK taking what I said out of context. I stated in my original post that I wanted this thread to chronicle the corruption and bad decisions of Trump and the Republican controlled Congress. I gave as an example a vote held by Republicans just hours earlier that aimed to dismantle an independent ethics office. I posted about it before the vote was eventually reversed, but regardless, I still think it says a lot about Republicans that that was their first action upon being sworn in. But MBDK wants you to believe I was unfairly pinning this on Donald Trump, that it was all unfair speculation that was not based on fact... like a conspiracy theorist.

Fair enough, if the statement was made in a specific context, then perhaps it is incorrect.

If it's a general statement, then I happen to agree with it.

I think you're trying very hard to equate what Republicans are doing now to what Democrats have done in the past.

Perhaps it would be better to focus on what I said, rather than what you suspect my motives might be.

Here's what I actually said.

Quote
I happen to agree with that, although I find it quite unremarkable; it is true of every US president (and major party presidential candidate) for as long as I can remember.  I've seen criticisms of Trump (and Obama, and Bush Jr, and W Clinton, etc.) that are just plain goofy.  I've seen supporters (and opponents) of each of these presidents act in a highly hypocritical fashion, shrieking with outrage when X does something, but becoming strangely quiet when Y does the same thing.  Etc.

I've read it again, and I stand by every part of that statement.  Do you have any objection to what I actually said?

So I honestly don't get the whole "both the parties are equally as bad" argument.

Have a read about another type of logical fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 12, 2020, 09:00:42 PM
Which, again, he only did after there was a public outcry. So his actions after getting caught don't necessarily reflect his true beliefs.
Except when you want them to.  Still, conjecture by you.  Even liberal CNN had a different opinion, as stated in the link I previously provided. At least be honest enough to admit it.


I have said multiple times already that my belief that Trump supported the vote to gut the OCE was based on conjecture. But I also said in my original post (the one that triggered you) that the purpose of this topic is to chronicle corruption and bad decisions by the President AND the Republicans in Congress. Gutting an independent ethics body is the act of someone who wants to commit corrupt acts without oversight. So I really don't see the problem with what I said.

If you believe that people should always be trusted despite their past corrupt behaviour, then good for you. Most people would not forgive repeat offenders as easily as you do.

Not trusting politicians (especially the ones that have given us multiple reasons to not be trusted) is hardly a trait unique to conspiracy theorists. If I had said "Trump has a secret room full of Illuminati and Free Mason artifacts" I could understand your accusations that I was acting like a conspiracy theorist. But my distrust of Trump is grounded in reality, and based on verifiable and observed behaviour on his part. I'm not making anything up, I'm responding to his public actions (or inaction) and words (or silence when words should flow easily), and the fact that he has been taken to court on multiple occasions for his corrupt behaviour.

Do you know what IS a trait of a conspiracy theorist? Ignoring overwhelming evidence that conflicts with a preconceived belief. There is a mountain of evidence that Donald Trump is corrupt and can't be trusted, but you are ignoring it because of some kind of loyalty.

If Trump had explicitly disavowed the endorsement of the KKK, and had not called the Nazis marching the streets of Charlottesville "fine people"
Which he has, but since you are now so invested in your position, why would YOU bother to honestly check the facts?  Took me less than 5 seconds for video of KKK position.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?

Your link doesn't work. I'll assuming it's a video of Trump disavowing racists groups, or a racist group expressing disapproval of something Trump did.

I already linked to a CNN interview with Trump in which he refused to disavow David Duke's endorsement prior to the 2016 election. I'm sure he has learned since then that that is a bad look for him, so he probably won't make the same mistake twice. But I think anyone ought to know who the KKK is at this point, so his pretending to not be aware of them was pretty ridiculous. And how hard is it to just say "I don't support what they stand for, and I disavow their endorsement."?

Quote
The Nazi thing is also entirely out-of-context and untrue.  But, it is so ingrained in the media, I had to spend 10 whole seconds to find his actual words. 
From - (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/21/trump_didnt_call_neo-nazis_fine_people_heres_proof_139815.html)

Quote
Here are the unambiguous actual words of President Trump:

“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group.  But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.  You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did.  You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

After another question at that press conference, Trump became even more explicit:

“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

Oh, so he suddenly knows who Nazis and white supremacists are now? Why did he pretend to not know anything about them when Jake Tapper asked him to disavow their endorsement?
 
I would be more willing to believe Trump misspoke or was misunderstood if it was the only example of him being racist. But since his immigration policies have been extremely harsh for anyone that isn't white, I'll lean towards believing he is. He could also make it easier to believe he isn't a racist if he fired Stephen Miller, who unquestionably IS a racist.

Quote
So I honestly don't get the whole "both the parties are equally as bad" argument.
That is your prerogative, but I think evidence (as previously listed) does indicate some significant prejudice on your part.

All of my reasons for distrusting Trump come from his known behaviour, and the fact that he has been taken to court multiple times for it. What I don't get is how anyone can see how he has behaved in the past and still trust him enough to manage a paper route, nevermind the country.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 12, 2020, 09:35:51 PM
I think you're trying very hard to equate what Republicans are doing now to what Democrats have done in the past.

Perhaps it would be better to focus on what I said, rather than what you suspect my motives might be.

Here's what I actually said.

Quote
I happen to agree with that, although I find it quite unremarkable; it is true of every US president (and major party presidential candidate) for as long as I can remember.  I've seen criticisms of Trump (and Obama, and Bush Jr, and W Clinton, etc.) that are just plain goofy.  I've seen supporters (and opponents) of each of these presidents act in a highly hypocritical fashion, shrieking with outrage when X does something, but becoming strangely quiet when Y does the same thing.  Etc.

I've read it again, and I stand by every part of that statement.  Do you have any objection to what I actually said?

I'm objecting to the idea that anything the Democrats have ever done (at least in my lifetime) has even come close to the levels of blatant corruption exhibited by Republicans, especially the current Trump Republicans. This is specifically what I'm replying to:

Quote
I've seen supporters (and opponents) of each of these presidents act in a highly hypocritical fashion, shrieking with outrage when X does something, but becoming strangely quiet when Y does the same thing.

When did the Democrats block a Supreme Court nomination the way McConnell blocked Merrick Garland? When did a Democrat President make almost weekly visits to a golf club that they owned in order to enrich themselves at the taxpayers expense? When did a Democrat President ever permanently tarnish the reputations of the Department of Justice, FBI, and national intelligence agencies in order to cast doubt on their investigations into them? When did a Democrat President ever call into question the House's constitutional oversight duties or power to impeach? When has a Democrat President ever acted more friendly to a hostile dictator than they did to an ally?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 13, 2020, 11:13:50 AM
Yeah, the thing about "oh, they weren't calling themselves Nazis" is that they were explicitly calling themselves Nazis, before Trump said they didn't.  It was explicitly a Nazi protest.  Everyone knew that except, I guess, Trump.  And the people who want me to put his statement in context who are themselves missing the broader context of the known facts of the time.

Also, you want documentation of Trump's racism?  Have an entire Wikipedia page with information going back to the '70s.  I didn't start calling Trump racist because he was President or Republican or anything like that.  I started calling him racist because, pretty much as soon as I knew anything about him, it became clear he was racist.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 13, 2020, 11:15:27 AM
And I would like to hope that we can all agree, regardless of our political stance, that his pardon of war criminals is unacceptable.  It's not "supporting our troops" to pardon people whose fellow troops turned them in for things like beheading teenagers and posing for pictures with the head.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 13, 2020, 01:02:05 PM
I think you're trying very hard to equate what Republicans are doing now to what Democrats have done in the past.

Perhaps it would be better to focus on what I said, rather than what you suspect my motives might be.

Here's what I actually said.

Quote
I happen to agree with that, although I find it quite unremarkable; it is true of every US president (and major party presidential candidate) for as long as I can remember.  I've seen criticisms of Trump (and Obama, and Bush Jr, and W Clinton, etc.) that are just plain goofy.  I've seen supporters (and opponents) of each of these presidents act in a highly hypocritical fashion, shrieking with outrage when X does something, but becoming strangely quiet when Y does the same thing.  Etc.

I've read it again, and I stand by every part of that statement.  Do you have any objection to what I actually said?

I'm objecting to the idea that anything the Democrats have ever done (at least in my lifetime) has even come close to the levels of blatant corruption exhibited by Republicans, especially the current Trump Republicans. This is specifically what I'm replying to:

Quote
I've seen supporters (and opponents) of each of these presidents act in a highly hypocritical fashion, shrieking with outrage when X does something, but becoming strangely quiet when Y does the same thing.

When did the Democrats block a Supreme Court nomination the way McConnell blocked Merrick Garland? When did a Democrat President make almost weekly visits to a golf club that they owned in order to enrich themselves at the taxpayers expense? When did a Democrat President ever permanently tarnish the reputations of the Department of Justice, FBI, and national intelligence agencies in order to cast doubt on their investigations into them? When did a Democrat President ever call into question the House's constitutional oversight duties or power to impeach? When has a Democrat President ever acted more friendly to a hostile dictator than they did to an ally?

Democratic.  Democratic Party.  Democratic President. 

Sorry, pet peeve.  That's all.  Back to your regularly scheduled freakout. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 13, 2020, 01:20:35 PM
Yeah, the thing about "oh, they weren't calling themselves Nazis" is that they were explicitly calling themselves Nazis, before Trump said they didn't.  It was explicitly a Nazi protest.  Everyone knew that except, I guess, Trump.  And the people who want me to put his statement in context who are themselves missing the broader context of the known facts of the time.

I'm willing to give Trump a little bit of wiggle room in this case because the protests might have started peacefully, with a small number of people merely objecting to the removal of the statues, and I wouldn't necessarily put them in the same group as Nazis or the KKK. They might have believed the statues had historic value and shouldn't have been removed despite the negative racial connection. And Trump might have been trying to be diplomatic by trying not to put all of the blame on one side. But still, it's clear that on the day of the riots the people who wanted to keep the statues and weren't outright Nazis would have been very small, and the only reason the counter protesters showed up was because Nazis were marching in the streets.

But it's irrelevant, because like you said, it's hardly the only example of Trump being racist.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 13, 2020, 01:50:25 PM
Democratic.  Democratic Party.  Democratic President.

Thanks. I thought the Democrat/Democratic were interchangeable, but according to Wikipedia "Democrat" is really just an epithet used by Republicans. Good to know.

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Back to your regularly scheduled freakout.

I'm amazed that there are so many people who aren't freaking out (even a little bit) over how quickly Trump exposed the ineffectiveness of the "checks and balances" in the US Constitution. But they are free to bury their heads in the sand if they wish.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 13, 2020, 03:39:29 PM
Democratic.  Democratic Party.  Democratic President.

Thanks. I thought the Democrat/Democratic were interchangeable, but according to Wikipedia "Democrat" is really just an epithet used by Republicans. Good to know.

Quote
Back to your regularly scheduled freakout.

I'm amazed that there are so many people who aren't freaking out (even a little bit) over how quickly Trump exposed the ineffectiveness of the "checks and balances" in the US Constitution. But they are free to bury their heads in the sand if they wish.

Trump didn't do that.  McConnell and Ryan did that.  Trump's only caused as much damage as he has because he had willing partners in Congress and on the courts.  McConnell will not let Trump be removed from office. 

I used to think it was because the Russians had dirt on McConnell and other senior Republicans, but I don't believe that anymore - I think it's simply the notion of absolute power corrupting absolutely.  Trump's a nitwit, but as long as he's President, McConnell can basically get anything he wants. 

As I keep saying, Trump isn't the disease, he's merely a symptom of it.  The dismantling of the US as a functioning democracy began decades ago. Blame television, blame cable news, blame social media, blame Newt Gingrich, truth is the GOP drove the car off the cliff in the '80s, we just haven't hit the bottom of the ravine yet. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 13, 2020, 04:08:31 PM
I'm amazed that there are so many people who aren't freaking out (even a little bit) over how quickly Trump exposed the ineffectiveness of the "checks and balances" in the US Constitution. But they are free to bury their heads in the sand if they wish.

Trump didn't do that.  McConnell and Ryan did that.  Trump's only caused as much damage as he has because he had willing partners in Congress and on the courts.  McConnell will not let Trump be removed from office. 

I used to think it was because the Russians had dirt on McConnell and other senior Republicans, but I don't believe that anymore - I think it's simply the notion of absolute power corrupting absolutely.  Trump's a nitwit, but as long as he's President, McConnell can basically get anything he wants. 

As I keep saying, Trump isn't the disease, he's merely a symptom of it.  The dismantling of the US as a functioning democracy began decades ago. Blame television, blame cable news, blame social media, blame Newt Gingrich, truth is the GOP drove the car off the cliff in the '80s, we just haven't hit the bottom of the ravine yet. 

Oh, believe me, I agree that McConnell and all of the other Republicans who are protecting Trump (especially Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz, Bill Barr, and Doug Collins) are a big part of the problem. They might even be a bigger problem than Trump. But Trump isn't innocent. He's the one who Tweets 100 times a day about how you can't trust the DoJ, FBI, intelligence agencies, Congress, the free press, whistle blowers, career diplomats, decorated war veterans, or pretty much anyone else that tries to expose his corruption. He pushes the ridiculous "deep state" conspiracy theory. Those are the kinds of attacks on the "checks and balances" that I'm talking about.

And when I said Trump exposed the "ineffectiveness of the checks and balances" it means a lot of different things. The authors of the Constitution didn't seem to anticipate that the majority of Congressmen would circle around a corrupt President to protect him. That would require the entire majority party to be corrupt.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 13, 2020, 05:11:00 PM
I started calling him racist because, pretty much as soon as I knew anything about him, it became clear he was racist.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump
Confirmation bias?  Democratic hypocrisy?  Both sides have their points.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/repeat_with_me_leftists_trump_is_not_a_racist.html
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 13, 2020, 05:28:28 PM
Your link doesn't work.
Sorry about that.


Just shows how the left ignores reality and keeps pressing lies with impunity.
I already linked to a CNN interview with Trump in which he refused to disavow David Duke's endorsement prior to the 2016 election.
I suggest you re-watch that link, and put it in its proper context with the one I just provided, then search your soul to see if you have enough integrity to admit you were wrong and/or fooled.
I would be more willing to believe Trump misspoke or was misunderstood if it was the only example of him being racist.
How many of your old CT friends did you employ to help you move your goalposts? SMH
All of my reasons for distrusting Trump come from his known behaviour, and the fact that he has been taken to court multiple times for it. What I don't get is how anyone can see how he has behaved in the past and still trust him enough to manage a paper route, nevermind the country.
Confirmation bias.  On both side.

EDIT:  And as a side note, from the evidence in this post, do you still wonder why there are concerns about "fake news"?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 13, 2020, 06:56:05 PM
I'm amazed that there are so many people who aren't freaking out (even a little bit) over how quickly Trump exposed the ineffectiveness of the "checks and balances" in the US Constitution. But they are free to bury their heads in the sand if they wish.

Trump didn't do that.  McConnell and Ryan did that.  Trump's only caused as much damage as he has because he had willing partners in Congress and on the courts.  McConnell will not let Trump be removed from office. 

I used to think it was because the Russians had dirt on McConnell and other senior Republicans, but I don't believe that anymore - I think it's simply the notion of absolute power corrupting absolutely.  Trump's a nitwit, but as long as he's President, McConnell can basically get anything he wants. 

As I keep saying, Trump isn't the disease, he's merely a symptom of it.  The dismantling of the US as a functioning democracy began decades ago. Blame television, blame cable news, blame social media, blame Newt Gingrich, truth is the GOP drove the car off the cliff in the '80s, we just haven't hit the bottom of the ravine yet. 

Oh, believe me, I agree that McConnell and all of the other Republicans who are protecting Trump (especially Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz, Bill Barr, and Doug Collins) are a big part of the problem. They might even be a bigger problem than Trump. But Trump isn't innocent. He's the one who Tweets 100 times a day about how you can't trust the DoJ, FBI, intelligence agencies, Congress, the free press, whistle blowers, career diplomats, decorated war veterans, or pretty much anyone else that tries to expose his corruption. He pushes the ridiculous "deep state" conspiracy theory. Those are the kinds of attacks on the "checks and balances" that I'm talking about.

And when I said Trump exposed the "ineffectiveness of the checks and balances" it means a lot of different things. The authors of the Constitution didn't seem to anticipate that the majority of Congressmen would circle around a corrupt President to protect him. That would require the entire majority party to be corrupt.

Yeah. 

The framers didn't anticipate a lot of things.  There's a reason Senators originally were not chosen by popular vote. 

I mean, yeah, Trump's got issues, but in a sane country he wouldn't have been elected President in the first place.  He wouldn't have made it into the primaries, much less be the nominee.  Yeah, the GOP is fantastically corrupt (on the national level, at least), but the voters put Trump in office. 

This mess is on the people of the United States.  This is on the people who voted for McConnell, Ryan, Nunes, etc., the people who voted for Trump, and the Democrats who stayed home because their favored unicorn didn't win. Okay, and the Democratic National Committee. 

Oh yes, there's a special place in Hell for a certain segment of Sanders supporters (not all of them, but a good chunk).  They bear as much responsibility for Trump getting elected as anyone else.  I'm an easy-going guy, but there were times at the state and county conventions where I wanted to take a tire iron to some of these people.  Ignorant and entitled, such a lovely combination. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 13, 2020, 07:41:35 PM
Just shows how the left ignores reality and keeps pressing lies with impunity.

The left ignores reality? The left? You found a compilation of Trump disavowing the KKK after he was criticized for publicly refusing to do so. He only disavowed them when he realized it could cost him the election if he didn't.

You're also ignoring ALL of the other examples of his racism. Like the fact that for years he was a proponent of birtherism (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdELrNvI9m4). He publicly accused Barack Obama of not being an American for no reason other than the fact that he has brown skin and a Muslim sounding name... because he thinks people with brown skin and Muslim names aren't "real Americans". My dad wasn't born in Canada... but strangely no one has ever asked me for my birth certificate when I applied for a job. Could it be because I have white skin and look like "a real Canadian"?

The Laura Ingraham Show, March 2011:
Quote
“He doesn’t have a birth certificate, or if he does, there’s something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now, somebody told me—and I have no idea whether this is bad for him or not, but perhaps it would be—that where it says ‘religion,’ it might have ‘Muslim.’ ”  -- Donald Trump

He opposed the construction of a mosque new Ground Zero (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n4BKdfW5R4) because he believes the entire religion is responsible for the terrorism committed by some of it's followers.

He told 4 Democratic congresswomen to "go back to where they came from" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMZnemqsCdI) even though 3 of them were born in the United States... because he thinks people with brown skin are not real Americans.

He tried to ban all Muslims from entering the United States (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo_nYQ6ItWM)... because he thinks all Muslims are terrorists.

He took out a full page ads in 4 major New York newspapers in 1989 calling for the death penalty for five black and Latino teens who were falsely accused of raping a white woman. They spent 15 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence and the confession of the actual rapist. But Donald Trump called the settlement they were given "a disgrace", and during the 2016 campaign he insisted they were guilty (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-says-central-park-five-are-guilty-despite-dna-n661941).

Just because a racist says they aren't racist doesn't mean it's true. Actions speak louder than words.

Quote
I would be more willing to believe Trump misspoke or was misunderstood if it was the only example of him being racist.
How many of your old CT friends did you employ to help you move your goalposts? SMH

I don't know, how many of your CT friends did you employ to help you ignore the tons of evidence that conflicts with your belief that Trump isn't racist?

Quote
All of my reasons for distrusting Trump come from his known behaviour, and the fact that he has been taken to court multiple times for it. What I don't get is how anyone can see how he has behaved in the past and still trust him enough to manage a paper route, nevermind the country.
Confirmation bias.  On both side.

Yes, there is certainly confirmation bias on your side. "Trump says he isn't racist. Case closed!"

Quote
EDIT:  And as a side note, from the evidence in this post, do you still wonder why there are concerns about "fake news"?

Fake news like you find on Fox? Or maybe the fake news about Obama not being an American? Or the fake news that Obama was going to impose Sharia Law and take all your guns? Or the fake news about Hillary running a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant? Yes, that is a concern.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 13, 2020, 08:19:37 PM
The left ignores reality? The left? You found a compilation of Trump disavowing the KKK after he was criticized for publicly refusing to do so. He only disavowed them when he realized it could cost him the election if he didn't.
What an odd thing to say.  Obviously you didn't watch and/or comprehend the link I provided, as his FIRST disavowal was from 2000. 

So exactly WHO is denying reality...again?
You're also ignoring ALL of the other examples of his racism.
How did I do that?  MY comment included quoting the link that contained almost everything you just mentioned.  That is actually the opposite of ignoring them.  All I pointed out was a counter-argument, that clearly shows you have no smoking gun, and confirmation bias IS a very real thing.
I don't know, how many of your CT friends did you employ to help you ignore the tons of evidence that conflicts with your belief that Trump isn't racist?
Since I am kind of a bulldog for science and reason, I don't really have any friends that are CT.  And here YOU are claiming I ignored tons of evidence (which I didn't, as stated above), all the while ignoring the logical fallacy of moving the goalposts, yourself.  Are you beginning to see a familiar pattern here?
Yes, there is certainly confirmation bias on your side. "Trump says he isn't racist. Case closed!"
Denial of the other evidence i provided in my links is willful ignorance.
Fake news like you find on Fox? Or maybe the fake news about Obama not being an American? Or the fake news that Obama was going to impose Sharia Law and take all your guns? Or the fake news about Hillary running a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant? Yes, that is a concern.
Yes it is.  Do you not agree the fake news from the liberal side is also of a concern?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 13, 2020, 08:55:54 PM
The left ignores reality? The left? You found a compilation of Trump disavowing the KKK after he was criticized for publicly refusing to do so. He only disavowed them when he realized it could cost him the election if he didn't.
What an odd thing to say.  Obviously you didn't watch and/or comprehend the link I provided, as his FIRST disavowal was from 2000.

Gee, for someone who isn't a racist, he sure has had to respond to people saying he's racist a lot, eh?

Quote
You're also ignoring ALL of the other examples of his racism.
How did I do that?  MY comment included quoting the link that contained almost everything you just mentioned.

What are you even talking about? What link? The one in your reply to Gillianren?

If that's the case, all I see it someone who is even more brainwashed than you basically saying "See, Trump can't be racist! He did something good for a black person!". None of it directly responds to the examples of his racism that I mentioned.

Quote
Since I am kind of a bulldog for science and reason, I don't really have any friends that are CT.

For the last 19 years I have spent much of my time debunking conspiracy theorists using science and reason, including here in this forum that I provide at no cost to you, but at great expense to me. Don't you DARE tell me that I am a conspiracy theorist. You can **** off any time now.

You have shut your eyes and ears to the many examples of Trump's lies, corruption, and racism; the same way that CTs shut their eyes and ears to the facts that conflict with their theories. I'm done giving you examples, because you're just going to ignore them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on January 13, 2020, 10:58:42 PM
Gee, for someone who isn't a racist, he sure has had to respond to people saying he's racist a lot, eh?
Look up the logical fallacy of "The Big Lie", as that is another tactic political parties use.  That video, still directly contradicted your (and others') statement concerning his failure to disavow Duke and the KKK.  Why can you not even admit that? 
What are you even talking about? What link? The one in your reply to Gillianren?
Yes.  I quoted her statement which included the wiki link to all the Trump racist claims.  Plenty of circumstantial evidence, but no smoking gun - just prejudicial interpretations, a.k.a. confirmation bias.
If that's the case, all I see it someone who is even more brainwashed than you basically saying "See, Trump can't be racist! He did something good for a black person!". None of it directly responds to the examples of his racism that I mentioned.
Other than "confirmation bias", I never claimed to.  YOU, on the other hand, said:
Just because a racist says they aren't racist doesn't mean it's true. Actions speak louder than words.
So that was also why I provided the link with examples of his actions, but you seem to have forgotten your last quote already.
For the last 19 years I have spent much of my time debunking conspiracy theorists using science and reason, including here in this forum that I provide at no cost to you, but at great expense to me. Don't you DARE tell me that I am a conspiracy theorist. You can **** off any time now.
Well, in that case, I do apologize.  I was under the impression that you used to argue that there WAS a Moon Hoax, and that you had reasoned through it enough to change your mind.  Still, per my previous assertion, oh so many posts ago, we are ALL able to fall into certain logically fallacious lines of reasoning, and my entire point was to try to point out what I saw as such lapses.  Just as a CT can rigidly adhere to those tactics, I think we should be on guard to identify and prevent the same.

As for your suggestion of how to occupy my time, I will take your advice to heart and proceed to do so, as long as I can.

Oh, and thank YOU for the time, effort and money you have invested in this site.  Despite any disagreement we may have on this topic, I have learned MANY valuable things from you and all the contributors here.  Thank you all.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 13, 2020, 11:56:16 PM
Well, in that case, I do apologize.  I was under the impression that you used to argue that there WAS a Moon Hoax, and that you had reasoned through it enough to change your mind.  Still, per my previous assertion, oh so many posts ago, we are ALL able to fall into certain logically fallacious lines of reasoning, and my entire point was to try to point out what I saw as such lapses.  Just as a CT can rigidly adhere to those tactics, I think we should be on guard to identify and prevent the same.

Let's summarize your participation in this thread so far:

You came here and replied to something I said 3 years ago and basically demanded a retraction for something that was 100% true then, and it still is. There were no logical fallacies, no speculation or rumours, and no distortion in what I said, but you still decided to single me out.

Later you admitted that you hadn't even bothered to read enough of the thread to determine one way or the other if your accusations were true. And now you're telling me that you don't even know enough about me to know that I have never been a conspiracy theorist, and that I've been debunking them for almost 20 years.

So you make accusations that are based on poor research, ignore evidence and facts that contradict your preconceived beliefs, make the same logical fallacies that you accuse us of, and then you accuse me of acting like a conspiracy theorist? Go look in the mirror.

Quote
As for your suggestion of how to occupy my time, I will take your advice to heart and proceed to do so, as long as I can.

See ya.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 14, 2020, 08:54:17 AM
He's conflating you with the original owner of the site, LO.  Which was someone whose interest in Apollo faded as soon as he realized it wasn't a hoax.

"No smoking gun"?  What would count as a smoking gun that proved Trump was a racist?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 14, 2020, 09:30:37 AM
He's conflating you with the original owner of the site, LO.

Yeah, that's what I figured.

Quote
"No smoking gun"?  What would count as a smoking gun that proved Trump was a racist?

I think if Trump had a black man chained to a wall in the White House basement MBDK would still find a way to spin it. Trump says he isn't racist, so nothing else matters.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on January 16, 2020, 04:25:04 PM
http://m.naharnet.com/stories/en/268248-trump-impeachment-trial-begins-at-u-s-senate

Good news !
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 17, 2020, 10:34:35 AM
Except for the part where many of the "impartial" Senators are actively working with the administration, and any number of them have flatly said they refuse to consider new evidence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 17, 2020, 12:58:39 PM
Except for the part where many of the "impartial" Senators are actively working with the administration, and any number of them have flatly said they refuse to consider new evidence.

As badly as the Senate Democrats behaved during Clinton's impeachment, they never stated outright that they were going to work hand-in-hand with the White House during the trial phase (at least, not that I remember).  And Mitch and Linds were staunch advocates of bringing in witnesses and opening up the scope of the investigation. 

Hell burns hottest for hypocrites, but the Republican leadership in the Senate is setting all kinds of benchmarks for shamelessness.  Yeah, you expect partisanship (impeachment is an inherently political process), but at the end of the day you want to believe that everyone has the country's best interests at heart (even if they disagree on what those best interests are).  I don't believe that with this bunch.  I honestly do not believe that Mitch and Linds and Marco give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves, and that they would happily screw over the proles if it meant enriching themselves and their friends. 

I would not be at all surprised if at least one of these assholes suggests suspending elections in 2020 (in order to "protect democracy", you see - expect to hear accusations "voter fraud" cranked up to 11).  We're already a police state, wouldn't take much to push us all the way into banana republic territory. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on January 18, 2020, 08:29:22 AM
Except for the part where many of the "impartial" Senators are actively working with the administration, and any number of them have flatly said they refuse to consider new evidence.

Then I think the people should go down to the streets to put pressure on them and show them that they are monitored
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on January 18, 2020, 09:36:35 AM
Problem is that many of the Republican supports are OK with that. The hard-core Trump supporters, in particular, according to what I've read pretty much believe most of Trump's claims.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 18, 2020, 12:07:38 PM
Oh, yeah.  I know a couple of people who aren't hard-core who are still convinced that it's all a sham and that he's never done anything wrong.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on January 18, 2020, 12:34:49 PM
Surely there is a million person at least who don't support him..they should express it to exert pressue
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on January 18, 2020, 05:44:20 PM
There is a large number of people who do not support him, yes.

Thing is, he didn't get a majority of the vote. While the US is somewhat more skewed than most due to gerrymandering and the Electoral College system, any first past the post system suffers from a similar defect. This happened here in Ontario, Canada in the last provincial election: the party that won got only 40% of the vote. However, every other party got less than that.

The US also has the problem that the party lines have become so entrenched that there's almost no switching; Trump still enjoys a significant percentage of support in Republican voters, and has absolutely dismal support in Democrat Party voters. It's also got to the point that people loyal to one party automatically discount anything said or supported by the other party (although I hope the Democrat voters aren't quite as bad there).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 19, 2020, 11:58:09 AM
Most of the Democratic voters I know would love a reasonable second party to exist, if they're not people who want to end the two-party system.  (In which case they'd love for several reasonable parties to exist!)  Obviously, I disagree with the basic ideals of the Republican party--that's why I'm not a Republican.  But I'd like to live in a world where a Republican might suggest something that wouldn't make me cringe automatically.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 21, 2020, 01:21:40 PM
Electoral College isn't going away without a Constitutional amendment, meaning the Electoral College isn't going away. 

However, states can decide how to apportion electoral votes.  We can lobby our various state legislatures to award electoral votes proportionally instead of winner-take-all.  We can jigger the election process to use ranked-choice or some other method.  There's lots of things we can do to make the situation suck a lot less.  We just have to, you know, do it (become more active at the local and state level, participate in the process more, run for office instead of just voting, etc.). 

Presidential candidates can also be smarter about how they campaign in hostile territory.  Putting aside the misogyny (which was real) and Russian shenanigans, Clinton was a shit candidate with a shit campaign staff who had no idea (or desire) how to reach voters outside of big cities.  Would she have won without Russian interference?  Maybe.  Probably.  But it would have been closer than it should have, and it would have been her fault.  She populated her campaign with grifters, hangers-on, and Anthony Weiner.  She alienated whole swaths of Obama voters.  Even though she was right with the "deplorables" comment, all that did was turn off people. 

It's like Al Gore's loss to GWB.  You're coming off the longest postwar expansion, you're following an extremely popular President, it shouldn't have even been close.  People like to blame Nader, but it shouldn't have been close enough for Nader to make a difference.  Gore was a shit candidate.  He was awful on the campaign trail.  And, yes, while what you do in office is what really matters, ya gotta get there first. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 22, 2020, 11:00:47 AM
I still don't understand how people blame the DNC for the quality of candidates.  They can only support the people who run, after all--and Trump is definitely proof that it's possible to overrule the wishes of the party officials, who definitely would've preferred a more biddable candidate.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 22, 2020, 05:59:20 PM
I still don't understand how people blame the DNC for the quality of candidates.  They can only support the people who run, after all--and Trump is definitely proof that it's possible to overrule the wishes of the party officials, who definitely would've preferred a more biddable candidate.

It's not so much that the DNC was responsible for Clinton being a bad candidate, but that they executed a number of public face-plants that gave ammunition to Clinton's main detractors (apart from the hacked emails).  I mean, yes, they obviously preferred Clinton to Sanders (who wasn't even a Democrat before 2015), and in a normal year that wouldn't be newsworthy, but they helped fuel the "it's all riiiiiigged" caterwauling by the Berners, which weighed on the campaign. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 23, 2020, 11:07:35 AM
Technically, Sanders still isn't a Democrat.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 23, 2020, 11:17:02 AM
Technically, Sanders still isn't a Democrat.

And his supporters wonder why the Democratic party hasn't been supportive of his campaign. Why would they be if he's only a Democrat when he wants to run for President?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 23, 2020, 05:27:01 PM
Technically, Sanders still isn't a Democrat.

And his supporters wonder why the Democratic party hasn't been supportive of his campaign. Why would they be if he's only a Democrat when he wants to run for President?

Berners by and large are ... not bright.  Frankly, many of the ones I ran into at the county and state conventions in 2016 were cut from the same cloth as HBs like cambo.  Ignorant and entitled.  Also apparently incapable of simple arithmetic.  Sanders actually won the primary in Travis County something like 51% to 49%, but the representation at the county convention was roughly 60% Clinton supporters, 40% Sanders supporters. 

Now, the one core truth about politics is that you win by showing up.  Even though Sanders had won the primary (barely), Sanders supporters simply did not show up to the county convention, and by a significant margin.  Apparently, in Berner-world, you win simply by being more annoying passionate and committed to your candidate. 

It turned out that everyone who showed up at the county convention was eligible to be a delegate at the state level1.  Towards the end of the day there was a resolution to forego precinct-level caucusing and automatically make everyone who showed up delegates for the state convention, which passed handily.  The Sanders contingent pitched a blue-lipped fit, arguing that it wasn't faaaaaiiiir that they wouldn't get equal (or greater) representation based on who actually showed up.  And they pointed out that of course fewer Sanders supporters showed up to the county convention because it was scheduled during SXSW, and everyone knew that young people overwhelmingly supported Sanders, so the whole process was disenfranchising and inherently biased against Bernie.

The dipshittery didn't end there, either.  Shenanigans at the state convention had me wanting to hit people with a tire iron.  I suddenly understood all the Truman-era Democrats at the 1968 convention in Chicago, wondering just what the hell was going on. 

And when Bernie wasn't the nominee, they voted for Trump.  Because. 


1. Texas (or at least the Democratic Party in Texas) changed the rules in 2016.  Prior to that year, we held both primaries (to select candidates) and caucuses (to select delegates to the county and state conventions).  We did away with the caucus in 2016, so anyone who voted in the primary was eligible to go to the county convention. There were enough slots available at the state convention that everyone who showed up to the county convention was eligible to serve as a delegate to the state convention.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 23, 2020, 09:52:17 PM
Berners by and large are ... not bright.
....
And when Bernie wasn't the nominee, they voted for Trump.  Because. 

Sheesh, that's a lot of hostility towards the ~43% of Democrats that voted for Sanders in the primaries. I can't help but feel that your feelings are more developed by exposure to a vocal minority.

12% of Bernie-primary voters voted for Trump in the general election, vs 8% for registered Democrats overall. That probably is a statistically significant difference, but it certainly isn't a majority.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on January 24, 2020, 09:17:47 AM
Technically, Sanders still isn't a Democrat.

And his supporters wonder why the Democratic party hasn't been supportive of his campaign. Why would they be if he's only a Democrat when he wants to run for President?
If the US had a sane and fair electoral system the Left would have its own party, so he wouldn't need to be.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 24, 2020, 09:45:00 AM
If the US had a sane and fair electoral system the Left would have its own party, so he wouldn't need to be.

As a Canadian, I can say that having multiple federal parties to choose from isn't necessarily sane or good for the country. It leads to parties winning even though they don't have the majority of votes. So be careful what you wish for.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 24, 2020, 11:04:59 AM
As a Canadian, I can say that having multiple federal parties to choose from isn't necessarily sane or good for the country. It leads to parties winning even though they don't have the majority of votes. So be careful what you wish for.

Our presidents keep winning without the plurality of the vote now, so I would say we are used to it. My impression is that multi-party coalition governments drive at least a modicum of different viewpoints talking to each other; would you say that is not really the case? Would a ranked choice voting system make the multiple party system work more smoothly?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ApolloEnthusiast on January 24, 2020, 11:31:37 AM
If the US had a sane and fair electoral system the Left would have its own party, so he wouldn't need to be.

As a Canadian, I can say that having multiple federal parties to choose from isn't necessarily sane or good for the country. It leads to parties winning even though they don't have the majority of votes. So be careful what you wish for.
That's a good thing.  With multiple competing parties, assuming one party doesn't simply sweep all of the different elected positions, the fact that leaders don't have a strong majority support requires more cooperation and compromise to maintain their power.  They are more inclined to give up some concessions in order to be in the driver's seat and try to get the things that mean most to them. 

With two parties, if one is in control, especially when the individuals are aware that they effectively can't be voted out, there is no incentive to compromise at all.  They can completely ignore the people who don't vote for them and serve exclusively the constituency who keeps them in power.  If you're in a multiparty system with less than a majority of the vote, you can't afford to abjectly ignore anyone, because you may need them sooner than you think.

Washington and Adams expressly warned against a two party system, and Hamilton and Madison both wrote extensively about the problems inherent in partisan politics.  Unfortunately, we are watching their centuries old prognostications play out in real time, with the potential consequence being the breakdown of the Republic.  One doesn't need to look any further than the current Senate to see party over country as a dominant theme.  A government that prioritizes internal partisan politics over the country itself is a dangerously unstable institution.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on January 24, 2020, 11:48:44 AM
If the US had a sane and fair electoral system the Left would have its own party, so he wouldn't need to be.

As a Canadian, I can say that having multiple federal parties to choose from isn't necessarily sane or good for the country. It leads to parties winning even though they don't have the majority of votes. So be careful what you wish for.
So Canada fails the fair part.
At least most Westminster-style democracies manage to have at least a 2-and-half party system., i.e. more choice.

I'm used to a strict proportional representation system where every vote counts and no party ever wins a majority.
Exactly as it should be.

For humongous countries like Canada multi-member constituencies Belgian style, or the German system where people get two votes, one list, one local.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 24, 2020, 11:52:04 AM
As a Canadian, I can say that having multiple federal parties to choose from isn't necessarily sane or good for the country. It leads to parties winning even though they don't have the majority of votes. So be careful what you wish for.

Our presidents keep winning without the plurality of the vote now, so I would say we are used to it. My impression is that multi-party coalition governments drive at least a modicum of different viewpoints talking to each other; would you say that is not really the case? Would a ranked choice voting system make the multiple party system work more smoothly?

Usually coalition governments just result in more frequent elections because they inevitably fail. But that is probably unique to a parliamentary system; it might not be relevant to the US since you have fixed term lengths and no way to force an election.

I'm not really an expert, but yes, I think there has been a push to change how the winner is selected from "first past the post" to a proportional system.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 24, 2020, 12:02:08 PM
There are a lot of failings in the US system--I used to support the idea of the Electoral College, but I'm done doing that now--but I'm not sure a multi-party system would automatically make everything better.

As to Sanders supporters . . . well, there are several kinds.  The two most vocal ones I knew four years ago didn't vote Trump.  One voted for Jill Stein.  One wrote in Jesus, because she couldn't bear to vote for Hillary Clinton no matter how many times I told her the things she believed about Hillary were demonstrably wrong.  (She wasn't quite to Pizzagate, but I believe she leaned toward the idea of the Clinton Body Count.)  Now, they were in Washington and Oregon, respectively, so they didn't really change things, but still.  On the other hand, I know a lot of people who voted Sanders in the primary and held their noses and voted Clinton in the general. 

And not all of those people are Sanders supporters this time around; a lot of them are frustrated by things like his whole "oops, I didn't realize my campaign was a toxic environment for women that also mysteriously paid them less."  One of my friends quite cheerfully votes for him--for Senator.  And doesn't support him for President, because she doesn't think he'd do a good job at it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 24, 2020, 04:52:02 PM
Again, getting rid of the EC would require a Constitutional amendment, which isn't going to happen (not before this election or the next, at least).  The focus needs to be on lobbying state legislatures to apportion electors proportionally instead of winner take all and to impose substantive penalties on "faithless" electors.  That's hard, not gonna pretend otherwise, but it's not "let's amend the Constitution" hard.  Similarly states need to be lobbied to adopt non-partisan districting (which needs to happen yesterday - 2020's a census year, and districts will be redrawn accordingly).  TX stands to gain up to three electoral votes, and you know those new districts will be drawn to dilute Democratic influence even further.  If the Democrats ever win the Lege again, that's the first thing that needs to happen. 

And as I've said before, both the Democratic and Republican parties are already coalitions of fairly diverse interests - neither party is monolithic in thought or approach.  Pretty much the only thing that unites the various wings of the Republican party today is tax cuts, otherwise you have nation-builders and isolationists, hard-core social conservatives and libertarians, pro-lifers and pro-choicers, etc.  Democrats have environmentalists and labor, pro-choicers and pro-lifers, Keynesians and supply-siders, etc.  No, it's not the same as having multiple parties, but it's not quite as dire as some would claim. 

I freely admit my view of Sanders supporters is colored by my experiences at the county and state conventions, and I'm sure for every one that was an asshole there were 10 who were quite lovely people, but the assholes are the ones I remember (maybe because they were techbros who set my teeth on edge anyway).  There were some Hillary dead-enders, but by and large it seemed like most of the Clinton delegation was more focused beating Trump. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 27, 2020, 12:41:56 PM
The statistical behavior of the electoral college made more sense, I think, when there was not as great a difference in the populations of states.  Nowadays it really does simply amount to giving individual inhabitants of some states considerably more authority to choose the President than individual inhabitants of other states.  We have to keep in mind also that this form of choosing the executive was still relatively new and experimental when it was put in place in America, and has been supplanted in younger constitutional democracies by a more straightforward popular vote.  I think the younger generations of Americans lean toward this as what they want.  They see this aspect of the electoral college as having had an undesirable effect in the 2016 presidential election.

But if you read the Federalists, you hear in no uncertain terms that the other prominent feature of the electoral college was intended to insulate the high office of President from being easily attained to by an intemperate, unprincipled, or otherwise undesirable person simply by virtue of appealing to what the Framers feared would arise in the form of unbridled populism.  They were supposed to be the last line of defense, because the offices outlined in Article II of the U.S. constitution were designed to be held by people with at least some good will and sense of responsibility.  Put bluntly, the notion of a "faithless" elector is a relatively new concept.  The notion that the electors from a state would just mechanically (or, as later came to be, by statute) vote for whatever candidate their state's voters indicated is rather contrary to the original hope of electors as being sober, sound persons who will reject an evidently undesirable candidate.

Because eliminating the electoral college is a major structural change to the way the United States government is organized, it will have to clear a very high hurdle in order to be effected.  But since the states control how their electors are chosen and, in some cases how they are expected to vote, we can begin to implement and test changes that make our elections work the way we want them to.  As you say, eliminate the winner-take-all footing.  And repeal the faithless-elector laws, freeing up electors to vote their consciences.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on January 27, 2020, 02:44:18 PM
…. And repeal the faithless-elector laws, freeing up electors to vote their consciences.
If we don't prohibit faithless electors, then we might as well just elect the president by popular vote.  If my vote is going to  count for something, then I want to be sure that my elector is required to vote the will of the people in his or her district.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 27, 2020, 05:03:33 PM
If we don't prohibit faithless electors, then we might as well just elect the president by popular vote.

Which is what some people in America now want.  But by the same token, if electors are required to vote according to some presumption, then why have actual human electors at all?  Why not just apply the formula given in the constitution for the apportioning of the electors and let the President and Vice President be elected by simple arithmetic?

Quote
If my vote is going to  count for something, then I want to be sure that my elector is required to vote the will of the people in his or her district.

Which would be the effect of the direct popular vote, absent any actual human electors.  The constitution imposes little policy on how a state's legislature may choose their electors or how those electors must vote.  The notion of a "pledged" elector evolved later -- and not unreasonably.  Each state has nearly full authority over its electoral delegation.  A state could, for example, legislate that the sitting governor gets to appoint the electors without ever consulting the people.  Another state could legislate to hold a lottery and draw its electors at random.  At the constitutional level, nothing at all says that the electors' votes need to have anything to do with the will of the people.  In fact, it rather implies that they shouldn't.

Prudently enough, every state somehow ties its electoral vote to some canvass of its inhabitants.  This is because, as you rightly point out, it's the democratic way.  And if a state decides to do that by allowing electors to be themselves elected by direct suffrage, it would have a very difficult time doing that without requiring candidates for elector to pledge their votes.  The original intent was that you would campaign to be an elector based on your judgment and impartiality, not who you planned to vote for.  The pledged elector -- and its more refined offspring, the partisan elector -- is a consequence of what is obviously the most democratic way for a state to choose its electors, under the non-Federalist interpretation that the will of the people should be preserved.  And it holds up in court.

The Supreme Court just recently granted certiorari for a case asking whether a state can punish faithless electors.  The constitutionality of this hasn't yet been tested, although many states have such a law.  The only thing we've tested so far is whether the state can required the candidate elector to pledge his or her vote prior to being given the job.  This is more of a problem than it seems because the 12th Amendment requires the electors to vote by ballot (by which we understand a secret ballot).  Requiring a candidate elector to announce his intended vote seems to undermine that part.  But just as ordinary citizens are not barred from revealing their vote -- intended or actual -- electors for President are not barred from announcing how they intend to vote.  The first question the Court had to answer was whether a state could require a candidate to do so.

It can, because no one is coerced to be an elector.  A candidate presenting himself to his secretary of state to be an elector does so voluntarily.  And if he does it on behalf of a party, the party can make him submit to whatever qualifications they deem appropriate -- including, obviously, a pledge to vote for that party's candidates.

Where we take a turn is in the spirit of the 12th Amendment, which was always to say that electors were supposed to be fair, non-partisan, independent judges of who should hold the highest offices in the United States.  Reading the Federalists, one is struck by the deliberate and painstaking design that went into the electoral college, anticipating a number of potential evils and prescribing remedies for them.  And by the early 1800s it had all flown out the door.

The Framers directly considered the possibility that the will of the people would simply be wrong.  The safety-net feature of the electoral college was an integral, important part of why it was created.  And, paradoxically, it's the linchpin of upholding the pledge laws.  An candidate-elector's pledged vote may be required of him as a condition for the party he represents to certify him as such to the state, but that's solely a matter for the candidate and the party.  Once elected, the elector becomes a functionary of the United States and does not depend further on the party.  Once convened with his other electors, he could vote his conscience in secret.  So no constitutional principle is impugned in requiring the pledge.  Requiring the vote, however, will run afoul of Art. II Sec. 1 of the constitution and the whole body of the 12th Amendment.

Basically we're on the brink of deciding whether to abandon the whole quaint safety-net principle of the electoral college.  Whether that's a good idea or not is anyone's guess, but a lot of people were thinking about it in 2016.  As this august group demonstrates, it's possible to hear reasoned arguments on both sides of the issue.  By the time of the infamous 1824 election, the electoral college had pretty much run off the rails and become dominated by pleged partisans.  So given that this is how we've done it for nearly 200 years, is it okay to enshrine it as a required way of doing it?

Your statement is pretty clear.  You desire a certain person to be President, and you intend your vote to have the effect of electing that person without anything going wrong between you and that.  I wager that's probably how quite a lot of modern Americans think.  So I guess to revise my argument above, we should choose either one picture of the electoral college or another.  If we want to retain the safety net, then we should go the full way toward keeping it there, which means permitting electors to disagree with the voters in their states.  If we want to make the election of the President more directly popular, then we should get as close as we can to that without having to repeal the 12th Amendment.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 27, 2020, 06:17:41 PM
And repeal the faithless-elector laws, freeing up electors to vote their consciences.

What are faithless-elector laws? I have never heard that term before.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 27, 2020, 06:46:00 PM
What are faithless-elector laws? I have never heard that term before.

In short, they're laws that require electors to vote as they pledged, under pain of removal and replacement, or fine.

The U.S. Constitution gives the state legislatures the authority to determine how the state's electors will be chosen.  Most states have followed a pattern in which the electors are themselves elected by a statewide election.  The original intent was for electors to be people whom the general public trusted with the judgment to pick a good President, regardless of who that turned out to be.  It was not originally intended that the President and Vice President be chosen directly by popular vote.  Very quickly the criteria for election as an elector became which specific candidate for President the elector favored, thus practically making a state's popular vote directly effective at voting for President.

Most state legislatures bow to this inevitability by prescribing partisan elections of electors.  Each party certifies its candidates for elector to the secretary of state, as for the election of any other partisan office.  (However, electors are expressly not officers but ad hoc functionaries.)  State law makes the winner of that election its appointees as electors.  Naturally, candidates for electors formally pledge to vote for whichever person that party's convention or caucus nominates for President and Vice President.  In a number of states, the legislature further requires the electors to vote as they pledged.  A "faithless" elector is one who has pledged to vote for one candidate for President, but votes for another, or fails to vote.  In states that have faithless-elector laws, this behavior subjects the elector to removal and replacement (e.g., by an alternate elector provided by the party), or to criminal liability.

The constitutionality of requiring electors to vote a specific way, as opposed to being free agents, has been variously ruled upon by lower federal courts (generally favoring upholding the laws requiring electors to act in faith), and is now the subject of a consolidated case in the U.S. Supreme Court.  The case is docket 19-465, which has not yet been set for argument.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 28, 2020, 11:02:03 AM
As I recall, faithless electors are now the reason a second black man, Colin Powell, has gotten an EC vote--and I know one of ours in Washington flatly refused to cast a vote for Hillary Clinton and cast it for a Native American instead, probably the first Native American to get an EC vote.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 28, 2020, 11:19:42 AM
As I recall, faithless electors are now the reason a second black man, Colin Powell, has gotten an EC vote--and I know one of ours in Washington flatly refused to cast a vote for Hillary Clinton and cast it for a Native American instead, probably the first Native American to get an EC vote.

The case involving these actual electors is the one before the Supreme Court.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on February 08, 2020, 02:11:52 AM


***BE AWARE THE VIDEO CONTAINS VERY COLOURFUL LANGUAGE***

Jonathan Pie is a UK spoof news reporter but his evaluation of the impeachment process and Trumps Acquittal is spot on.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 08, 2020, 03:51:19 AM
Jonathan Pie is a UK spoof news reporter but his evaluation of the impeachment process and Trumps Acquittal is spot on.

Yes, it is spot on - as an affirmation of the leaps and bounds made by the anti-Trump Democrats to spread dis-information* and hate.  If you can laugh at this vulgar and uninformed video, then you are on equal footing with the Republican fools that laugh at vulgar and uninformed criticisms of the left.

*Example: From-
https://www.rollcall.com/2019/12/02/gop-report-evidence-does-not-prove-trump-pressured-ukraine-for-political-benefit/
“None of the Democrats’ witnesses testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor,” the Republican staff wrote in the executive summary of the report.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 08, 2020, 11:17:19 AM
What witnesses?  The ones that the Senate wouldn't even listen to before making up their minds?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 08, 2020, 11:39:19 AM
What witnesses?  The ones that the Senate wouldn't even listen to before making up their minds?
Pretty clear from the text they are (quote)"the Democrats’ witnesses* testified (unquote)

*"that" should be included here as an amendment to the quote in order for it to make grammatical sense.

As far as additional witnesses in the Senate goes, if the case wasn't solid in the House, it should never have been sent to he Senate in the first place.  Also, don't forget Clinton's Senate trial included no further witnesses, either.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on February 08, 2020, 11:41:41 AM
In the end, the evidence was inescapable. “The president did in fact pressure a foreign government to corrupt our election process,” Romney said. “And really, corrupting an election process in a democratic republic is about as abusive and egregious an act against the Constitution—and one's oath—that I can imagine. It's what autocrats do.”

Mitt Romney Republican.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 08, 2020, 12:01:47 PM
In the end, the evidence was inescapable. “The president did in fact pressure a foreign government to corrupt our election process,” Romney said. “And really, corrupting an election process in a democratic republic is about as abusive and egregious an act against the Constitution—and one's oath—that I can imagine. It's what autocrats do.”

Mitt Romney Republican.
In his opinion.  There was NEVER any direct evidence, only conjecture and opinion.  No one should EVER be convicted on such grounds.  Odd, IMHO, that you should feel differently.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on February 08, 2020, 12:14:48 PM
In the opinion of many other republicans as well, ones who did not have the courage to vote according to their conscience.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 08, 2020, 01:06:47 PM
In the end, the evidence was inescapable. “The president did in fact pressure a foreign government to corrupt our election process,” Romney said. “And really, corrupting an election process in a democratic republic is about as abusive and egregious an act against the Constitution—and one's oath—that I can imagine. It's what autocrats do.”

Mitt Romney Republican.
In his opinion.  There was NEVER any direct evidence, only conjecture and opinion.

There is direct evidence, and the President blocked access to it (hence the Obstruction of Congress charge). The House Managers showed documents that they had access to that were heavily redacted, but still confirmed many details provided by their witnesses. Do you think he would have prevented people like Mick Mulvaney or John Bolton from testifying if they were able to prove his innocence? Do you think he would have blocked access to emails and other documents if they proved he did nothing wrong? You're living in denial, just like all of the Republican Senators who voted to acquit Trump.

Susan Collins believes Trump has learned his lesson and won't make a mistake like this again, but I disagree. The only lesson he learned is that he can do whatever he wants without consequences. This didn't cause him hit the brakes on his corrupt ways, it caused him to push the gas pedal.

Quote
No one should EVER be convicted on such grounds.  Odd, IMHO, that you should feel differently.

No one should EVER be above the law. Odd, IMHO, that you should feel differently.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 08, 2020, 01:16:50 PM
There is direct evidence, and the President blocked access to it (hence the Obstruction of Congress charge).
No.  This IS conjecture.  What don't you understand about THAT?
The House Managers showed documents that they had access to that were heavily redacted, but still confirmed many details provided by their witnesses.
Completely irrelevant to the FACT that all they stated was their OPINION.  What don't you understand about THAT?
No one should EVER be above the law. Odd, IMHO, that you should feel differently.
I don't.  Since he has been acquitted, and rightly so based on the lack of concrete evidence, it is a matter of record that he wasn't, at least in this case.  Based on your previous smear attempts, I guess it is NOT so odd that you should think differently.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 08, 2020, 01:47:54 PM
There is direct evidence, and the President blocked access to it (hence the Obstruction of Congress charge).
No.  This IS conjecture.  What don't you understand about THAT?

How on Earth is it conjecture? Are you denying that Trump withheld documents and blocked witnesses from testifying? Name any other circumstance where the subject of an investigation would be allowed to block the investigators from doing their job. If the mayor of your city blocked the police from investigating him/her, wouldn't you find that suspicious? I'm trying to understand how you can look at Trump's behaviour an not think he is trying to hide his corruption.

Quote
The House Managers showed documents that they had access to that were heavily redacted, but still confirmed many details provided by their witnesses.
Completely irrelevant to the FACT that all they stated was their OPINION.  What don't you understand about THAT?

For Christ's sake, it isn't opinion to say that there were discussions happening between all of the people involved, that there are documents that corroborate what the witnesses have testified, and that Trump blocked access to those documents. If they in any way assisted Trump's defense he would have made sure we saw them.

Quote
No one should EVER be above the law. Odd, IMHO, that you should feel differently.
I don't.  Since he has been acquitted...

He was acquitted by a sham trial that did not allow witnesses or evidence.

Quote
and rightly so based on the lack of concrete evidence

Let me give you a scenario...

Pretend Trump had murdered someone in the Oval Office, and there was security camera footage to prove it. But Trump has declared the footage "top secret" and blocked access to it. Would that be acceptable to you? Should he be acquitted of murder charges because "there was no concrete evidence", even though the reason there is no evidence is because the murderer has withheld it?

Quote
Based on your previous smear attempts, I guess it is NOT so odd that you should think differently.

I thought you were leaving? Should I help?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 08, 2020, 05:12:25 PM
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200208/d6fb47b0f9105078b9b5591da999146d.jpg)

Sent from my SM-G975W using Tapatalk

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 08, 2020, 06:11:22 PM
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200208/d6fb47b0f9105078b9b5591da999146d.jpg)

Sent from my SM-G975W using Tapatalk

....and this, ladies and gentlemen, exactly sums up the wilful stupidity of Trump sycophants. It is frightening....no its bloody  terrifying, for those of us living in the rest of the free world, to see that 1 in every 3 Americans thinks just like this.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 08, 2020, 06:36:39 PM
Let me start with this.
I thought you were leaving? Should I help?

In post #680, you wrote this: "You can **** off any time now."

My reply to that sentence was, "As for your suggestion of how to occupy my time, I will take your advice to heart and proceed to do so, as long as I can."

Well, I did it as long as I felt I could, and any offer you extend to "help" me is actually justification for my return.  This is because, once again, you are using a CT tactic by threatening to ostracize me, apparently since you do not agree with what I have to say.
How on Earth is it conjecture? Are you denying that Trump withheld documents and blocked witnesses from testifying?
Because YOU are filling in the blanks.  That is the very definition of conjecture.  If you have contrary evidence, please present it.
If the mayor of your city blocked the police from investigating him/her, wouldn't you find that suspicious? I'm trying to understand how you can look at Trump's behaviour an not think he is trying to hide his corruption.
Yes, I would find it suspicious, but I am not entitled to claim a specific crime was proven to occur based solely on suspicion.  Why do YOU do so?
Also, it doesn't matter what I, or you THINK Trump is trying to do, because our thoughts and "suspicions" are not proof, by any means, especially legally.
For Christ's sake, it isn't opinion to say that there were discussions happening between all of the people involved, that there are documents that collaborate what the witnesses have testified, and that Trump blocked access to those documents. If they in any way assisted Trump's defense he would have made sure we saw them.
Yes, discussions happened, but the meaning of them, since specific conditions were NOT mentioned, ARE pure conjecture.  What the documents said, and their impact, are also conjecture.  I could argue thousands of other reasons the documents were blocked, including national security, but without the actual evidence, my assumptions hold no water, either.
No one should EVER be above the law. Odd, IMHO, that you should feel differently.
I don't.  I think people should be subject to the same legal requirements regardless of social or political stature.
He was acquitted by a sham trial that did not allow witnesses or evidence.
IMHO, the House's indictment was much more of a sham, for reasons previously stated, and any such witnesses or evidence should have been presented there.  Realize, too, that Democrats during the House proceedings denied witnesses and concealed testimony that weakened their already shoddy case.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/schiff-house-democrats-conceal-testimony-of-18th-witness-from-trump-team/
[/quote]
Let me give you a scenario...

Pretend Trump had murdered someone in the Oval Office, and there was security camera footage to prove it. But Trump has declared the footage "top secret" and blocked access to it. Would that be acceptable to you? Should he be acquitted of murder charges because "there was no concrete evidence", even though the reason there is no evidence is because the murderer has withheld it?
Well, since per your scenario, you already deemed him guilty, you (or your trusted source) must be privilege to such evidence, and as such, should be able to testify accordingly (regarding its proof of murder) without being in violation of security rules.  Also, a House committee can wrangle the pertinent information from him (albeit, in such circumstances, surely not without a protracted legal battle).  Regardless, if that is the ONLY evidence against the president, then under our rules of law, without it, he should not be convicted.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 08, 2020, 06:39:30 PM
....and this, ladies and gentlemen, exactly sums up the wilful stupidity of Trump sycophants. It is frightening....no its bloody  terrifying, for those of us living in the rest of the free world, to see that 1 in every 3 Americans thinks just like this.
I agree.  However, I also know the same level of stupidity is just as rampant on the left.  That is my entire point.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on February 08, 2020, 07:22:39 PM


***BE AWARE THE VIDEO CONTAINS VERY COLOURFUL LANGUAGE***

Jonathan Pie is a UK spoof news reporter but his evaluation of the impeachment process and Trumps Acquittal is spot on.

Brilliant, Michael - absolutely brilliant!!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 08, 2020, 07:26:09 PM
....and this, ladies and gentlemen, exactly sums up the wilful stupidity of Trump sycophants. It is frightening....no its bloody  terrifying, for those of us living in the rest of the free world, to see that 1 in every 3 Americans thinks just like this.
I agree.  However, I also know the same level of stupidity is just as rampant on the left.  That is my entire point.

No, it isn't at all

No-one on the left is trying to hide evidence of their criminality
No-one of the left thinks they are above the law
No-one on the left is using the power of their office to stuff their own bank accounts
No-one on the left is using the power of their office to invite foreign interference to help them get re-elected
No-one on the left is fighting all the way to SCOTUS to prevent their tax returns from being released
No-one on the left is giving a free pass to killers, misogynists and rapists
No-one on the left has a large portion if their advisors and managers indicted and/or convicted
No-one on the left is promoting conspiracy theories that are part of a Russian Security Service disinformation campaign
No-one on the left has lied or made misleading claims to the American people over 15,000 times in less that 1,100 days

I could write a dozen further lines, but this is enough to make the point, clearly and unequivocally.

THE IS NO COUNTERPOINT IN THE LEFT OF AMERICAN POLITICS THAT BALANCES TRUMP'S PERFIDY!!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 08, 2020, 07:37:26 PM
Let me start with this.
I thought you were leaving? Should I help?

In post #680, you wrote this: "You can **** off any time now."

My reply to that sentence was, "As for your suggestion of how to occupy my time, I will take your advice to heart and proceed to do so, as long as I can."

Well, I did it as long as I felt I could, and any offer you extend to "help" me is actually justification for my return.  This is because, once again, you are using a CT tactic by threatening to ostracize me, apparently since you do not agree with what I have to say.

I don't care if you disagree with me, I've put up with people disagreeing with me in this forum for many years. You came here, to a forum that I provide to you for free, and insulted me. Insulting your host is a good way to get yourself kicked out of a party.

Quote
How on Earth is it conjecture? Are you denying that Trump withheld documents and blocked witnesses from testifying?
Because YOU are filling in the blanks.  That is the very definition of conjecture.  If you have contrary evidence, please present it.

It's simple logic. If the evidence that Trump is withholding could clear him of any wrong doing he would make that evidence publicly available. We're talking about someone who tweeted top secret spy satellite photos just because he wanted to push the idea that we need to go to war with Iran.

Quote
If the mayor of your city blocked the police from investigating him/her, wouldn't you find that suspicious? I'm trying to understand how you can look at Trump's behaviour an not think he is trying to hide his corruption.
Yes, I would find it suspicious, but I am not entitled to claim a specific crime was proven to occur based solely on suspicion.  Why do YOU do so?

I have never claimed to know for a fact that Trump did anything wrong. I have expressed suspicion. Why is it ok for you to be suspicious of the mayor in that hypothetical situation, but not for me to be suspicious of the President in a real situation?

Quote
Also, it doesn't matter what I, or you THINK Trump is trying to do, because our thoughts and "suspicions" are not proof, by any means, especially legally.

I think it matters very much that a significant portion of the population is suspicious of the President, especially since if those suspicions are justified, it means the most powerful man on the planet is corrupt. The fact that you are not concerned about him is mind-boggling to me. People need to be able to trust the President of the United States, and there are enough reasons to not trust him that investigation is warranted... and one of those reasons is that he keeps obstructing those investigations.

People's suspicions are used to initiate criminal investigations all the time. Just recently the police where I live arrested a man who had been reported for attempting to abduct a woman off the street. He followed her down the street in his car and yelled at her to get in. Did the police know for a fact that he was going to abduct her before investigating it? No, but his behaviour did fit with that possibility, right? So was the woman wrong to report her suspicions to the police because she was just "speculating" and "using conjecture"?

Quote
For Christ's sake, it isn't opinion to say that there were discussions happening between all of the people involved, that there are documents that collaborate what the witnesses have testified, and that Trump blocked access to those documents. If they in any way assisted Trump's defense he would have made sure we saw them.
Yes, discussions happened, but the meaning of them, since specific conditions were NOT mentioned, ARE pure conjecture.  What the documents said, and their impact, are also conjecture.  I could argue thousands of other reasons the documents were blocked, including national security, but without the actual evidence, my assumptions hold no water, either.

The meaning is only conjecture because the subject of the investigation for some reason has the power to limit that investigation. That should not be possible. If the President claims Executive Privilege or national security reason, he should have to justify that to the investigators, otherwise he can just claim everything he does is top secret and literally get away with murder if he wanted to.

Quote
No one should EVER be above the law. Odd, IMHO, that you should feel differently.
I don't.  I think people should be subject to the same legal requirements regardless of social or political stature.

Then why do you have a problem with investigating credible allegations of the President's corrupt behaviour? No other American citizen can block investigations into their behaviour, so why should Trump be able to?

Quote
He was acquitted by a sham trial that did not allow witnesses or evidence.
IMHO, the House's indictment was much more of a sham, for reasons previously stated, and any such witnesses or evidence should have been presented there.  Realize, too, that Democrats during the House proceedings denied witnesses and concealed testimony that weakened their already shoddy case.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/schiff-house-democrats-conceal-testimony-of-18th-witness-from-trump-team/

Why do Republicans want that testimony made public? Probably because they want to expose the identity of the whistle-blower. We saw just yesterday what happens to people who testified against Trump. What difference does it make who the whistle-blower is? If the allegations they made can be verified by other means they are no longer needed.

Quote
Let me give you a scenario...

Pretend Trump had murdered someone in the Oval Office, and there was security camera footage to prove it. But Trump has declared the footage "top secret" and blocked access to it. Would that be acceptable to you? Should he be acquitted of murder charges because "there was no concrete evidence", even though the reason there is no evidence is because the murderer has withheld it?
Well, since per your scenario, you already deemed him guilty...

Ok, let's say he is merely suspected of committing murder. But there is security camera footage that can either prove he is guilty or innocent... surely you'd agree that he would happily provide the footage if it proved someone else committed the murder.

Quote
you (or your trusted source) must be privilege to such evidence

I would think that every American citizen should be "privileged" to see evidence of their President committing a murder.

Quote
Also, a House committee can wrangle the pertinent information from him (albeit, in such circumstances, surely not without a protracted legal battle).

It should not be necessary to go to court to obtain evidence of a crime. No other person in America has the right to withhold evidence from an investigation. Executive Privilege is not supposed to be used to cover up criminal behaviour, that is an abuse of power.

Quote
Regardless, if that is the ONLY evidence against the president, then under our rules of law, without it, he should not be convicted.

It is absolutely unbelievable the lengths that Trump supporters will go to in order to defend him. You're actually arguing that the President has the right to withhold evidence that he murdered someone. You're arguing that the President can do anything he wants, block any attempts to investigate him, and vindictively punish anyone who reports his behaviour to Congress. That is the side you're arguing on... and I doubt you'd be making those same arguments if it had been Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton that we were talking about.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 09, 2020, 01:28:29 AM
....and this, ladies and gentlemen, exactly sums up the wilful stupidity of Trump sycophants. It is frightening....no its bloody  terrifying, for those of us living in the rest of the free world, to see that 1 in every 3 Americans thinks just like this.
I agree.  However, I also know the same level of stupidity is just as rampant on the left.  That is my entire point.

No, it isn't at all

No-one on the left is trying to hide evidence of their criminality
No-one of the left thinks they are above the law
No-one on the left is using the power of their office to stuff their own bank accounts
No-one on the left is using the power of their office to invite foreign interference to help them get re-elected
No-one on the left is fighting all the way to SCOTUS to prevent their tax returns from being released
No-one on the left is giving a free pass to killers, misogynists and rapists
No-one on the left has a large portion if their advisors and managers indicted and/or convicted
No-one on the left is promoting conspiracy theories that are part of a Russian Security Service disinformation campaign
No-one on the left has lied or made misleading claims to the American people over 15,000 times in less that 1,100 days

I could write a dozen further lines, but this is enough to make the point, clearly and unequivocally.

THE IS NO COUNTERPOINT IN THE LEFT OF AMERICAN POLITICS THAT BALANCES TRUMP'S PERFIDY!!
Your logic train has completely derailed.  You went from complaining about the intelligence level of some Trump supporters to listing a litany of allegations you have against Trump himself, all the while listing some obvious falsehoods you have gotten completely wrong. 

Let's start with the intelligence levels.  This started with a meme that showed the ridiculousness of a Trump supporter who had no cogent argument in Trump's defense.  You commented on those people.  I claimed the left also has people with the same level of laughable contentions/actions.

Your response is complete denial of such easily verifiable facts (I can provide plenty of examples of people on the left acting/arguing just as foolishly, if you want), and then your allegations, which I have no intention of debating in their entirety, as they have no bearing on the intelligence, or lack thereof, in comparing other individuals.  What I mean by this is, if you claim someone from another town is stupid because, for example, they support a person you claim has stolen a car, a person in your town can be just as stupid without having to support someone who has been accused of auto theft.  Otherwise, you are making a logically fallacious case that in order to be stupid, a person has to act within a very narrow set of parameters.

As for obvious falsehoods you have gotten completely wrong, allow me to briefly list them:

No-one on the left is trying to hide evidence of their criminality
No-one of the left thinks they are above the law
No-one on the left is using the power of their office to stuff their own bank accounts

Hillary is too obvious, but do you REALLY stand by such outlandish claims? 
Before you answer, you may just want to chew on THIS for a while (in regards to the $$$)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/net-worths-of-presidents/

And remember, these must apply to EVERYONE on the left, or you need to strike "no-one" from your contentions.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on February 09, 2020, 04:08:50 AM
IMHO, the House's indictment was much more of a sham, for reasons previously stated, and any such witnesses or evidence should have been presented there.

Admittedly I'm no expert on US impeachment proceedings, but that seems to be saying that the House should have had a watertight case for conviction before moving proceedings to the impeachment trial, in which case why have a two-stage process at all?

Let me give you a scenario...

Pretend Trump had murdered someone in the Oval Office, and there was security camera footage to prove it. But Trump has declared the footage "top secret" and blocked access to it. Would that be acceptable to you? Should he be acquitted of murder charges because "there was no concrete evidence", even though the reason there is no evidence is because the murderer has withheld it?
Well, since per your scenario, you already deemed him guilty, you (or your trusted source) must be privilege to such evidence, and as such, should be able to testify accordingly (regarding its proof of murder) without being in violation of security rules.[/quote]

That's not what is being suggested at all. No-one is presuming guilt, the scenario presented is that he DID do it and is hiding the evidence.

Quote
Regardless, if that is the ONLY evidence against the president, then under our rules of law, without it, he should not be convicted.

The question you have not answered, which was the point, is why should he, as the person indicted for the crime, have the power to withold that evidence? In no other case, surely, does the person on trial get to decide what material evidence is seen and who gets to testify, so why should the President be accorded such privilege in his own impeachment trial? There may be good reasons for evidence not being made part of the public record, but that's not the same as witholding it from consideration entirely.

If he, as an indicted president, has the power to determine what evidence is seen and who testifies, then he is being accorded a privilege open to literally nobody else, and that is pretty much the definition of being above the law.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on February 09, 2020, 04:42:35 AM
I must agree with Jason in the last comment, it reminds me of a scenario during my project management days. I was responsible for one of the first STM64 fibre networks in Europe. My contractor, Nortel, had a set of tests for the the NVT of the network. When I caused a network failure with an ad hoc test, Nortel called foul, saying it was not a valid test.
You can’t set the ground rules for the evidence that is admissible in any scenario be it a judicial revue or a network test, when it is you (or your network) that is under examination. The point I put to Nortel was; it’s like having an exam where you set the questions, answer them yourself and then mark the paper, additionally you set the pass criteria.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 09, 2020, 05:19:50 AM
....and this, ladies and gentlemen, exactly sums up the wilful stupidity of Trump sycophants. It is frightening....no its bloody  terrifying, for those of us living in the rest of the free world, to see that 1 in every 3 Americans thinks just like this.
I agree.  However, I also know the same level of stupidity is just as rampant on the left.  That is my entire point.

No, it isn't at all

No-one on the left is trying to hide evidence of their criminality
No-one of the left thinks they are above the law
No-one on the left is using the power of their office to stuff their own bank accounts
No-one on the left is using the power of their office to invite foreign interference to help them get re-elected
No-one on the left is fighting all the way to SCOTUS to prevent their tax returns from being released
No-one on the left is giving a free pass to killers, misogynists and rapists
No-one on the left has a large portion if their advisors and managers indicted and/or convicted
No-one on the left is promoting conspiracy theories that are part of a Russian Security Service disinformation campaign
No-one on the left has lied or made misleading claims to the American people over 15,000 times in less that 1,100 days

I could write a dozen further lines, but this is enough to make the point, clearly and unequivocally.

THE IS NO COUNTERPOINT IN THE LEFT OF AMERICAN POLITICS THAT BALANCES TRUMP'S PERFIDY!!
Your logic train has completely derailed.  You went from complaining about the intelligence level of some Trump supporters to listing a litany of allegations you have against Trump himself, all the while listing some obvious falsehoods you have gotten completely wrong.

Oh, angels and ministers of Grace defend us!!! You have entirely missed the point.

Trump supporters retain blind loyalty to the Orange Turd currently squatting in the White House IN SPITE OF THE FACT that he has done all of the above - THAT is why they are stupid, THAT is the point I was making.

And you want to talk about Hilary Clinton's honesty... One word... Benghazi!

She endured over 11 hours of testimony in before the Senate Inquisition

She did not dodge
She did not equivocate
She did not procrastinate
She did not prevaricate

She answered every question truthfully (as far as we can tell), and as fully as she was able to given the allotted time and the hostile, partisan and politically charged nature of the questioning. It was a near flawless testimony, and it must have really chapped a few Republican Senators' arses that, try as they might, they were unable to get her to fumble the football.

As a counterpoint to what Clinton did in the Benghazi hearings, that corrupt piece of human excrement occupying the White House was too much of a rank coward to put his money where his mouth is and come testify, under oath, on his own behalf...... And we all know why that is don't we - because he cannot open his mouth without lies coming out.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 09, 2020, 11:53:25 AM
It is also a lie that there were no Senate witnesses in Clinton's impeachment trial.  https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jan/21/tammy-baldwin/Trump-every-other-senate-impeachment-had-witnesses/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 09, 2020, 12:14:39 PM
It is also a lie that there were no Senate witnesses in Clinton's impeachment trial.  https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jan/21/tammy-baldwin/Trump-every-other-senate-impeachment-had-witnesses/
Semantics.  None were called to testify.  From your own link -
"In the Clinton case, House managers obtained depositions from the witnesses and excerpts of that testimony were shown to the Senate, the Washington Post reported."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 09, 2020, 01:47:38 PM
It is also a lie that there were no Senate witnesses in Clinton's impeachment trial.  https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jan/21/tammy-baldwin/Trump-every-other-senate-impeachment-had-witnesses/
Semantics.  None were called to testify.  From your own link -
"In the Clinton case, House managers obtained depositions from the witnesses and excerpts of that testimony were shown to the Senate, the Washington Post reported."

Goal post move.

Witnesses are witnesses. Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal still undertook questioning, under oath - and their testimony is still valid.

Trump's impeachment trial is the only one of the 19 impeachment trials in the history of the USA, which did not hear from any witnesses at all. It wasn't a trial, it was a cover up, orchestrated by Trump and his minions, and carried out by every Republican Senator but one, the only honorable Republican among the scumbags. History will judge them harshly.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 09, 2020, 06:56:48 PM
It is also a lie that there were no Senate witnesses in Clinton's impeachment trial.  https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jan/21/tammy-baldwin/Trump-every-other-senate-impeachment-had-witnesses/
Semantics.  None were called to testify.  From your own link -
"In the Clinton case, House managers obtained depositions from the witnesses and excerpts of that testimony were shown to the Senate, the Washington Post reported."

Goal post move.

Witnesses are witnesses. Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan, and White House aide Sidney Blumenthal still undertook questioning, under oath - and their testimony is still valid.

Trump's impeachment trial is the only one of the 19 impeachment trials in the history of the USA, which did not hear from any witnesses at all. It wasn't a trial, it was a cover up, orchestrated by Trump and his minions, and carried out by every Republican Senator but one, the only honorable Republican among the scumbags. History will judge them harshly.

There were only 15 previous impeachments that had a full Senate trial.  And, yes all of those included witnesses by person, or deposition.  I concede that from further investigation, such depositions are considered witness testimony, but being no legal expert, I had thought that the 6th amendment, which gives criminal defendants the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, would be infringed by declaring the deposition as equal to a witness.   And since the Clinton impeachment involved recorded video depositions, not live witnesses, no questioning by the defendant could occur.

So, gillianren, though I am confounded by the fact depositions are considered the legal equivalent of a witness (in relation to the 6th amendment), I do apologize for my misconception and ensuing false allegation on this specific matter.  I am sorry, but at least I have learned something from my mistake.

Still, smartcooky, I am waiting for your reply to Post #734, where I asked, "do you REALLY stand by such outlandish claims?" (the ones I listed).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 10, 2020, 01:12:43 AM

As for obvious falsehoods you have gotten completely wrong, allow me to briefly list them:

No-one on the left is trying to hide evidence of their criminality
No-one of the left thinks they are above the law
No-one on the left is using the power of their office to stuff their own bank accounts

Hillary is too obvious, but do you REALLY stand by such outlandish claims? 
Before you answer, you may just want to chew on THIS for a while (in regards to the $$$)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/net-worths-of-presidents/

And remember, these must apply to EVERYONE on the left, or you need to strike "no-one" from your contentions.



Misrepresenting facts again I see.

You are, I take it, accusing the Clintons of abusing their office, right. Well, it looks like the facts (from the article YOU linked to) don't support that claim.

"As of 2017, the Clintons were estimated to have made $240 million since Bill Clinton left office in 2001:"

"the Clinton and Obama families have done very well for themselves since leaving the White House


Pro Tip 1: It pays to fully read any article you link in support of your claim, just to make sure that it actually DOES support your claim.

Pro Tip 2: The emolument's clause does not apply to former Presidents. Neither Bill Clinton, nor Barack Obama, violated the emoluments clause while they were sitting presidents, but I know a president who has...

1. Members of foreign governments staying at any and all his hotels or resorts or golf courses since January 20, 2017

2. Chinese and other foreign trademarks that have been granted to the Trump brand while he was president,

3. Licensing fees paid by foreign governments for “The Apprentice” for the past two years.

4.  Trump Org has rented space to foreign governments in Trump Tower.

And this last one is a real doozy...

5. Trump has ordered USAF flights to Europe must stop and refuel at a different airport from the ones they have been using for the past four decades. Previously they were using military airfields. It just so happens that the new airport they stopover at is a civilian one, Prestwick, in Scotland, which just happens to be an airport that Trump has a financial interest in, and which services Trump's golf course at Turnberry... Oh how veeeeeery convenient. Furthermore, the USAF buses the flight crew and staff over 20 miles away to a Trump owned resort for the overnight stay - the resort than any other nearby accommodations. USAF have made flights though Prestwick since the 1990s, but this was at most 3 to 6 flights per year. However since 2017...

2017 - 180 flights, 150 overnight stays
2018 - 257 flights, 221 overnight stays
2019 - 324 flights, 298 overnight stays

All but 29 of the overnight stays were at the Trump Resort

Since October 2017, the records (obtained from Scottish FOI applications) show 917 payments for expenses including fuel at Prestwick totaling US$17.2 million.

US taxpayers ought to be outraged by this... most of them probably don't even know, and Trump sycophantic hangers-on won't care anyway. When this is your mentality...

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ctq5nufbmavpk7/ratherberussian.jpg?raw=1)

... there is not a lot of hope left for America.

PS: I just thought I would leave this here for you to ponder...

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/mgxreuuhhbnzb0d/TrumpOrbit3.png?raw=1)
   
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on February 10, 2020, 10:37:40 AM
While we currently have our own mendacious, grifting, womanising problem in the UK, which takes up a lot of my attention, the US situation is almost on another level.  There was an interesting piece on the BBC web site which gives some idea of how a lot of us on this side of the pond view things :

Trump impeachment trial: Is US politics beyond the point of repair? (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51417722)
Quote
The new decade in American politics has started with a hangover that keeps on getting worse - a quickening of the downward democratic spiral we have witnessed over the past 30 years.

So much of what has gone awry has been resident in the trial of Donald Trump.

The partisan vitriol. The degradation of debate. The use of what were previously rarely used weapons - in this instance impeachment - to escalate America's ceaseless political war.
It also includes the handy word "hyperpartisanship".
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 10, 2020, 11:06:31 AM
Trump openly solicited foreign aid against a domestic political rival in 2016 - "Russia, if you're listening..."

That by itself should have disqualified him from the nomination.  Republicans across the country should have demanded he be replaced as the nominee right then and there.  But he got away with it.  Every time he does something that would have had a Democrat (or, frankly, any moderate Republican) pilloried and expelled from office, the GOP just nods and goes along with it.  He literally could shoot someone on 5th avenue and not pay any consequences whatsoever. 

The worst outcome of this whole shitshow is the precedent it has set.  Future Presidents and Presidential candidates are now free to use the resources of foreign governments and the Department of Justice against their domestic political opponents.  If the Democrats ever take control of the Senate again, future Democratic Presidents and candidates are now free to call up their pals in whatever tinpot dictatorship and get them to help dig up dirt on domestic rivals, and the only thing that will stop them is Senate Democrats putting loyalty to country ahead of loyalty to party, and there's no reason to believe they will behave any differently from the current crop of Senate Republicans in that respect. 

Mitch McConnell just put the "Banana" in "Republican".  There is no putting this genie back in its bottle. 

The only thing that's protected the Republic for almost 250 years has been a sense of shame.  That's gone now. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 10, 2020, 12:08:23 PM
Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm when he was President rather than make money from the Presidency.  Trump didn't even put his businesses in a blind trust after insisting he would.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 10, 2020, 12:11:32 PM
Misrepresenting facts again I see.
When did I do that?  I certainly didn't do it in my last reply to you.  YOU, on the other hand, have ignored my actual question and continued your diatribe to crucify Trump.
You are, I take it, accusing the Clintons of abusing their office, right.
Wrong.  I made no such claim, but provided a link that shows how they "used" the power of their office to garner enormous wealth from book deals and speaking engagements after their terms. My "Hilary" remark was predicated on your "hide evidence", and "above the law" comments. 

I didn't clarify the Hillary association, because I don't want to debate it.

Apparently you have warped the statement YOU made -
"No-one on the left is using the power of their office to stuff their own bank accounts" (my bold) by substituting "abusing", so you could continue your crusade. 

Now, from that continuation, I am not going to accuse YOU of misrepresenting facts, but I think you should double check your source(s).  I didn't even bother to look into your other complaints, just the one you considered to be extraordinary.
"but I know a president who has..."

And this last one is a real doozy...

5. Trump has ordered USAF flights to Europe must stop and refuel at a different airport from the ones they have been using for the past four decades. Previously they were using military airfields. It just so happens that the new airport they stopover at is a civilian one, Prestwick, in Scotland, which just happens to be an airport that Trump has a financial interest in, and which services Trump's golf course at Turnberry... Oh how veeeeeery convenient. Furthermore, the USAF buses the flight crew and staff over 20 miles away to a Trump owned resort for the overnight stay - the resort than any other nearby accommodations. USAF have made flights though Prestwick since the 1990s, but this was at most 3 to 6 flights per year. However since 2017...

2017 - 180 flights, 150 overnight stays
2018 - 257 flights, 221 overnight stays
2019 - 324 flights, 298 overnight stays

All but 29 of the overnight stays were at the Trump Resort

Since October 2017, the records (obtained from Scottish FOI applications) show 917 payments for expenses including fuel at Prestwick totaling US$17.2 million.

US taxpayers ought to be outraged by this... most of them probably don't even know, and Trump sycophantic hangers-on won't care anyway. When this is your mentality...
Well, I have found information where the facts only contradict this particular contention of yours.

From-
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/air-force-finds-air-crews-stayed-trump-resort/story?id=65594325
"An Air Force official said an internal review of the 659 overnight stops found that about 6% (39) of the overnight stays were at the Trump Turnberry resort located 20 miles from the airport."

and

"Air Force officials say the increase in refueling stops is due to the airport's 24 hour a day operations and better weather than other airports in the United Kingdom."

and

"The Trump property nightly rate of $136 was less expensive than the $161 charged by a nearby Marriott property. Both of those rates were below the per diem rate of $166."

So, once again, I re-iterate that I am not here to defend Trump, but to point our the very human trait that all people, including the posters here, are subject to - which is that we can let emotions and other factors interfere with our critical thinking process(es), just as CTs do.  And as such, we should all remind ourselves to be vigilant over ourselves to minimize such behavior(s).  Don't always accept everything, even from normally credible sources, at face value.  It is a rare occasion indeed when there is not more to the story.

With that said, I don't expect an answer to the question I asked in post #733 regarding the blanket statements smartcooky made that I took issue with.  The sheer numbers of people who would have to be considered completely free from any associated guilt make them completely implausible.  Still, as a last little "gotcha", remember how much YOU have complained when your question(s) has(have) been ignored by CTs.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on February 10, 2020, 02:47:26 PM
So, once again, I re-iterate that I am not here to defend Trump, but to point our the very human trait that all people, including the posters here, are subject to - which is that we can let emotions and other factors interfere with our critical thinking process(es), just as CTs do.  And as such, we should all remind ourselves to be vigilant over ourselves to minimize such behavior(s).

Such as, for example, suggesting that Trump's accquittal in an impeachment trial where he blocked evidence and witnesses shows him to not be above the law? I repeat my earlier question: If he, as the indictee, gets to decide (or indeed have any say at all) what evidence is seen and what witnesses testify, how is that not abusing his power and being above the law? Who else gets to decide how their own trial goes in that way?

And at what point is it appropriate to let emotion take a part in this when the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth behaves like a spoiled brat, lies almost every time he opens his mouth, and demonstrates not one ounce of geunine humility for even the most basic and understandable mistakes but rather doubles down on finding ways that he is still right and the rest of the world is wrong? The man is dangerous, and the degeneration of high office to childish bickering in such halls of power is frankly terrifying.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 10, 2020, 02:55:40 PM
When did I do that?  I certainly didn't do it in my last reply to you.  YOU, on the other hand, have ignored my actual question and continued your diatribe to crucify Trump.
You misrepresented facts. You posted a link to support your claim that two other presidents abused their office. Those are false claims.


Wrong.  I made no such claim, but provided a link that shows how they "used" the power of their office to garner enormous wealth from book deals and speaking engagements after their terms.
Another goal post move.

The argument is about abuse of the power of the office. You are claiming an equivalence between gathering wealth AFTER a President leaves office and gathering it WHILE the President is still in office. This a compeltely false equivalence.

It is not against the law for a former president to gather wealth after they leave office, but it IS against the law to so to do while the president is still in office. This is because a former president has no power to affect anything in government; a sitting president has. He can manipulate goverment policy and actions to his person benefit - and this is exactly what the Orange Turd has done

You are completely wrong in drawing this false equivalence, you are grasping at straws, using desperate, ill-conceived whataboutism to justify what your Dear Leader is doing.


Now, from that continuation, I am not going to accuse YOU of misrepresenting facts, but I think you should double check your source(s).  I didn't even bother to look into your other complaints, just the one you considered to be extraordinary.
"but I know a president who has..."

And this last one is a real doozy...

5. Trump has ordered USAF flights to Europe must stop and refuel at a different airport from the ones they have been using for the past four decades. Previously they were using military airfields. It just so happens that the new airport they stopover at is a civilian one, Prestwick, in Scotland, which just happens to be an airport that Trump has a financial interest in, and which services Trump's golf course at Turnberry... Oh how veeeeeery convenient. Furthermore, the USAF buses the flight crew and staff over 20 miles away to a Trump owned resort for the overnight stay - the resort than any other nearby accommodations. USAF have made flights though Prestwick since the 1990s, but this was at most 3 to 6 flights per year. However since 2017...

2017 - 180 flights, 150 overnight stays
2018 - 257 flights, 221 overnight stays
2019 - 324 flights, 298 overnight stays

All but 29 of the overnight stays were at the Trump Resort

Since October 2017, the records (obtained from Scottish FOI applications) show 917 payments for expenses including fuel at Prestwick totaling US$17.2 million.

US taxpayers ought to be outraged by this... most of them probably don't even know, and Trump sycophantic hangers-on won't care anyway. When this is your mentality...
Well, I have found information where the facts only contradict this particular contention of yours.

From-
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/air-force-finds-air-crews-stayed-trump-resort/story?id=65594325
"An Air Force official said an internal review of the 659 overnight stops found that about 6% (39) of the overnight stays were at the Trump Turnberry resort located 20 miles from the airport."
My source disagrees. When I have more time, I will post them


"Air Force officials say the increase in refueling stops is due to the airport's 24 hour a day operations and better weather than other airports in the United Kingdom."
Well, they would, wouldn't they


"The Trump property nightly rate of $136 was less expensive than the $161 charged by a nearby Marriott property. Both of those rates were below the per diem rate of $166."

There are literally dozens of accommodations within 20 miles of Prestwick - you've cherry-picked the most expensive to make a false point.

So, once again, I re-iterate that I am not here to defend Trump
Well you are making a bang up job of look like a devoted supporter!


but to point our the very human trait that all people, including the posters here, are subject to - which is that we can let emotions and other factors interfere with our critical thinking process(es), just as CTs do.  And as such, we should all remind ourselves to be vigilant over ourselves to minimize such behavior(s).  Don't always accept everything, even from normally credible sources, at face value.  It is a rare occasion indeed when there is not more to the story.

Trump is a nasty individual, a vile piece of human waste - he always has been and he always will be. The only difference now is that since he became POTUS, he is a vile piece of human waste, with real power - power that he abuses every day.


With that said, I don't expect an answer to the question I asked in post #733 regarding the blanket statements smartcooky made that I took issue with.  The sheer numbers of people who would have to be considered completely free from any associated guilt make them completely implausible.  Still, as a last little "gotcha", remember how much YOU have complained when your question(s) has(have) been ignored by CTs.
I have answered your questions. Just because you don't like the answer does not mean I haven't answered it
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on February 10, 2020, 03:12:54 PM
"Air Force officials say the increase in refueling stops is due to the airport's 24 hour a day operations and better weather than other airports in the United Kingdom."
Well, they would, wouldn't they

And literally no-one in the UK is going to buy the argument that Prestwick has "better weather" than the rest of the United Kingdom! Cold, wet, cloudy and windy are pretty much the norm there.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 10, 2020, 03:27:36 PM
When did I do that?  I certainly didn't do it in my last reply to you.  YOU, on the other hand, have ignored my actual question and continued your diatribe to crucify Trump.
You misrepresented facts. You posted a link to support your claim that two other presidents abused their office. Those are false claims.
Wrong.  I NEVER made that claim, and expressly pointed out where you are 100& in error on YOUR above quoted claim.  Until you can accept this undeniable and obviously provable FACT, and withdrawn your blatantly false statement, I refuse to have further discourse with such a hate-blinded person.

Perhaps more level-headed and trustworthy (to smartcooky) members of this forum can patiently explain to smartcooky his (I assume) misconception here.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 10, 2020, 03:32:30 PM
And at what point is it appropriate to let emotion take a part in this when...
When you can do so without resorting to half-truths and unsupported claims (not saying YOU have, just everyone in general, myself included).  Definitely do not allow yourself to rage to the point where even the most basic of things become distorted, as smartcooky has unfortunately done in his last couple of posts (as noted in my last couple of posts).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 10, 2020, 04:01:41 PM
"The Trump property nightly rate of $136 was less expensive than the $161 charged by a nearby Marriott property. Both of those rates were below the per diem rate of $166."

Just to bring some facts back into the debate

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivzwr37w8p7j1qz/PrestwickAccomodation.png?raw=1)

The map is about 7km edge to edge

 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 10, 2020, 04:07:06 PM
So, once again, I re-iterate that I am not here to defend Trump, but to point our the very human trait that all people, including the posters here, are subject to - which is that we can let emotions and other factors interfere with our critical thinking process(es), just as CTs do.  And as such, we should all remind ourselves to be vigilant over ourselves to minimize such behavior(s).

Such as, for example, suggesting that Trump's accquittal in an impeachment trial where he blocked evidence and witnesses shows him to not be above the law? I repeat my earlier question: If he, as the indictee, gets to decide (or indeed have any say at all) what evidence is seen and what witnesses testify, how is that not abusing his power and being above the law? Who else gets to decide how their own trial goes in that way?

He doesn't.

The problem is that all but four Senate Republicans put loyalty to (or probably more likely, fear of) party ahead of loyalty to country.  The Senate majority did not even pretend to act as an impartial arbiter - Senate leadership explicitly said they would be coordinating with the White House defense.  That wasn't Trump's doing, that was McConnell's doing. 

The President cannot determine what witnesses the Senate may or may not call, or what evidence they may or may not see, except by claiming executive privilege or national security or whatever and jamming it up in the courts.   Congress doesn't legally answer to the President, and they don't have to do a goddamned thing he says (within the limits of the Constitution, anyway).  McConnell and the majority of Senate Republicans chose to let him dictate what evidence would or wouldn't be heard.  They're in on the con.  The Senate is just fine with everything Trump has done so far, including inviting a geopolitical adversary to interfere in domestic elections, because those Senators personally benefit from it.  The corruption isn't limited to the White House. 

Once again, some more, with feeling - Trump isn't the problem.  Trump is only a symptom of the problem.  The problem runs much deeper, and is much worse than most people realize.

Screw the White House, we need to keep the House and win the Senate, and by yooge numbers.  It doesn't matter if Trump is still President if Congress is willing to stand up to him. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 10, 2020, 04:12:02 PM
When did I do that?  I certainly didn't do it in my last reply to you.  YOU, on the other hand, have ignored my actual question and continued your diatribe to crucify Trump.
You misrepresented facts. You posted a link to support your claim that two other presidents abused their office. Those are false claims.
Wrong.  I NEVER made that claim, and expressly pointed out where you are 100& in error on YOUR above quoted claim.

Yes, you DID make that claim. You are simply pretending that you didn't...

My statement was: "No-one on the left is using the power of their office to stuff their own bank accounts"

Your reply was
Hillary is too obvious, but do you REALLY stand by such outlandish claims? 
Before you answer, you may just want to chew on THIS for a while (in regards to the $$$)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/net-worths-of-presidents/


That is a de-facto claim, in response to my statement, that other president have abused their office.

Your claim fails on its face, from the very link you posted in support of it

Until you can accept this undeniable and obviously provable FACT, and withdrawn your blatantly false statement, I refuse to have further discourse with such a hate-blinded person.

Conspiracy Theorist behavior 101 - get the hump when you get caught making a false claim, and then run away. Sooooo predictable!

See ya!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 11, 2020, 03:09:02 AM
Never mind the idiotic click-bait title, (Nancy isn't even really mentioned).  To anyone that truly cares, here is what I think points out major problems with the Democratic party's policies when it comes to dealing with the black community, and also why Trump got more of their votes than predicted. 

https://www.kusi.com/republican-party-of-san-diego-county-hosts-record-breaking-gathering/

Anybody (though I won't reply to smartcooky, until he acknowledges his false accusation where he claimed I misrepresented facts) care to critique it?

Note:  Edited to remove inappropriate remark.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 11, 2020, 04:52:35 AM
.....I won't reply to smartcooky, until he acknowledges his false accusation where he claimed I misrepresented facts?

What a childish fit of pique!

Do you also stamp your feet and wail when you don't get what you want?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 11, 2020, 10:59:51 AM
I see absolutely nothing of substance in that link, and the use of "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" is a Republican dogwhistle.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 11, 2020, 11:39:32 AM


...the use of "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" is a Republican dogwhistle.

Please clarify this for me. How do you refer to individual members of the Democratic Party?

Ie.
"Ronald Reagan was a Republican."
"John F. Kennedy was a __________."


Sent from my SM-G975W using Tapatalk

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on February 11, 2020, 12:28:09 PM
I wish to retract my last post (reply No. 754), as I realize it is off-topic.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 12, 2020, 10:35:21 AM


...the use of "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" is a Republican dogwhistle.

Please clarify this for me. How do you refer to individual members of the Democratic Party?

Ie.
"Ronald Reagan was a Republican."
"John F. Kennedy was a __________."


Sent from my SM-G975W using Tapatalk



In that case, "Democrat" is acceptable.  However, "the Democrat Party" is a Republican usage.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 12, 2020, 11:05:45 AM


...the use of "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" is a Republican dogwhistle.

Please clarify this for me. How do you refer to individual members of the Democratic Party?

Ie.
"Ronald Reagan was a Republican."
"John F. Kennedy was a __________."

In that case, "Democrat" is acceptable.  However, "the Democrat Party" is a Republican usage.

Ok, thanks, that makes more sense.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 12, 2020, 12:12:15 PM
The name of the party is "The Democratic Party".  A member of the Democratic Party is a Democrat, but when using the party name as a descriptor or adjective for a bill or policy or officeholder, it's always "Democratic".

This has been the usage since the 1840s.  FOX News and other conservative outlets deliberately use "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" because it's mildly triggering in the same way confusing "loose" and "lose" is mildly triggering. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 12, 2020, 01:35:40 PM
This has been the usage since the 1840s.  FOX News and other conservative outlets deliberately use "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" because it's mildly triggering in the same way confusing "loose" and "lose" is mildly triggering. 

So it's sort of like how calling a Canadian an "American" is mildly triggering to us even though it's technically true because we're from one of the American continents. Got it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 13, 2020, 10:58:49 AM
I'd note that merely saying that the Democratic Party is "the plantation" is also a deliberate dogwhistle on the part of a party that is primarily responsible for keeping laws in place that are bad for minorities, claiming that the only reason to vote for the Democrats is that you've been told do so.  Despite things like a President who still believes five young men are responsible for a high-profile crime for no reason I can see beyond the colour of their skin.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 13, 2020, 06:54:42 PM
I'd note that merely saying that the Democratic Party is "the plantation" is also a deliberate dogwhistle on the part of a party that is primarily responsible for keeping laws in place that are bad for minorities, claiming that the only reason to vote for the Democrats is that you've been told do so.  Despite things like a President who still believes five young men are responsible for a high-profile crime (despite the fact that the DNA evidence completely exculpates them) for no reason I can see beyond the colour of their skin.

I added the bit in red for further context.

Remember that Trump is an obvious malignant narcissist, and malignant narcissists don't ever admit they were wrong, even in the face of 100% conclusive evidence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 14, 2020, 10:46:42 AM
I'd note that merely saying that the Democratic Party is "the plantation" is also a deliberate dogwhistle on the part of a party that is primarily responsible for keeping laws in place that are bad for minorities, claiming that the only reason to vote for the Democrats is that you've been told do so.  Despite things like a President who still believes five young men are responsible for a high-profile crime for no reason I can see beyond the colour of their skin.

Modern Republicans love to point out that the Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow.  And it's true - up until the 1970s, Southern states were overwhelmingly Democratic and overwhelmingly racist.  When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, he remarked at the time that he was losing the South for a generation.

He was an optimist.

So what happened to all those Dixiecrats?  Nixon had already wooed a lot of them into the GOP in the late 60s, but when Republican Bill Clements became Governor of Texas in 1979 and the world didn't end, many Southern politicians realized that it had been a hundred years since Reconstruction, they didn't agree with the direction the Democratic Party was taking, and decided it was okay to switch sides. 

In short, they are the modern Republican Party. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 14, 2020, 10:59:59 AM
I don't know if you watched the miniseries about them, but it's beautifully done.  And so painful.

What people don't realize, I guess, is that black people originally tended to vote for Republicans (when they could vote at all) because the Republicans had indeed been the party of Lincoln, and the Democrats of the 19th century were the party doing as much as possible to keep them in servitude.  However, as time passed and the parties shifted, black people realized which party served their own interests better and made the switch.  Then, in the 1960s, the Republicans became the party of racism (hello, Strom Thurmond!), and their only real attempt to win black voters tends to be implying that black people only vote for the Democrats because the Democrats give them money through social programs.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on February 14, 2020, 11:46:07 AM
Apropos of absolutely nothing, saw a wonderful idea on Twitter that Bloomberg should buy up all of Trump's debt and then call the loans or foreclose, although I think it would be funnier if Bezos did it.  Turn Mar a Lago into a launch site for New Glenn. 

No, it's not a good thing, but it would be funny as hell. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 14, 2020, 03:43:43 PM
Bloomberg should buy up all of Trump's debt and then call the loans or foreclose

That is kind of what I expect China to do with the US debt owed to them if Trump keeps antagonizing them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on February 16, 2020, 10:55:40 AM

That is kind of what I expect China to do with the US debt owed to them if Trump keeps antagonizing them.

Treasury bonds aren't callable.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 03, 2020, 10:26:29 AM
Well, how safe is everyone feeling in a country where the entire CDC pandemic team was fired and not replaced?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 03, 2020, 02:22:46 PM
Well, how safe is everyone feeling in a country where the entire CDC pandemic team was fired and not replaced?

Or that the person in charge of the response to the corona virus is Mike "Pray Away the Gay" Pence? What could go wrong?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 03, 2020, 04:29:12 PM
Well, how safe is everyone feeling in a country where the entire CDC pandemic team was fired and not replaced?
A boneheaded move, indeed.  However, I feel just as safe as I would if there WAS a team in place.  I don't see how such a team would have any practical effect at this time.  First of all, the WHO does NOT consider it pandemic...yet...(although news coverage of it certainly is).  Secondly,

From -
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/03/coronavirus-live-updates-covid-19-california-cdc-numbers-deaths/4929223002/
"We should be cautious and take appropriate measures to prepare and protect ourselves, but we should not be afraid," Surgeon General Jerome Adams said. "We've been through this before, and no place in the world is better prepared to handle this challenge."

And if you ARE worried, the best way to avoid it is using common sense methods already posted by the CDC.
From -
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-treatment.html
"Prevention
There is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, CDC always recommends everyday preventive actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases, including:

Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe.
Follow CDC’s recommendations for using a facemask.
CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including COVID-19.
Facemasks should be used by people who show symptoms of COVID-19 to help prevent the spread of the disease to  others. The use of facemasks is also crucial for health workers and people who are taking care of someone in close settings (at home or in a health care facility).
Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Always wash hands with soap and water if hands are visibly dirty.
For information about handwashing, see CDC’s Handwashing website

For information specific to healthcare, see CDC’s Hand Hygiene in Healthcare Settings

These are everyday habits that can help prevent the spread of several viruses. CDC does have specific guidance for travelers."


Also, as a matter of emphasis, I would like to remind everyone of the oft-ignored pathway that currency contributes.
https://time.com/4918626/money-germs-microbes-dirty/
"In a 2017 study published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers swabbed $1 bills from a bank in New York City to see what was living on paper currency. They found hundreds of species of microorganisms."

Although it also says,
"U.S. currency is a pretty plush place for germs to land. It’s 75% cotton and 25% linen, which offers a soft environment into which microbes can settle. Yet cash doesn’t typically have the right temperature or moisture conditions to allow microbes to grow and proliferate. Its porous surface actually helps it hold on to most of the germs it’s carrying, so not many microbes wipe off on your hands—meaning money is not very good at transmitting diseases."

However this article does not address coins, either.

I would suggest if you do worry about money, use plastic as much as practical, and decontaminate your card(s) after use.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 03, 2020, 06:41:50 PM
Well, how safe is everyone feeling in a country where the entire CDC pandemic team was fired and not replaced?

(https://www.kalw.org/sites/kalw/files/201612/Slim-Pickens-riding-the-Bomb.jpg)

Granted, that's pretty much how I feel about everything these days. 

SXSW is coming, so it will be in Central TX in the next couple of weeks, if it isn't already.  I already avoid going where SXSW events will be, but I will need to be extra vigilant through March and April - be conscious of where I put my hands, wash them frequently, avoid crowds, etc.   

Basically, just be careful. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 03, 2020, 09:06:24 PM
A boneheaded move, indeed.  However, I feel just as safe as I would if there WAS a team in place.  I don't see how such a team would have any practical effect at this time.

Really? Perhaps this will make you think again. That Dear Leader you adore so much...

1. Stated incorrectly that coronavirus will disappear in a few days.

2. Stated incorrectly that it is less dangerous and has a lower kill rate than the flu.

3. Has called coronavirus a Democrat hoax.

4. Criticises and overrules experts, and instead of putting the CDC and their virologists and scientists charge, is putting inexperienced, unqualified political allies in charge. (Check out how Pence dealt with the 2015 HIV outbreak in Indiana when he was Governor - that story does not give me any of confidence in his judgement).

Furthermore, your Dear Leader made an unforgivable blunder (one that he was repeatedly warned about and implored not to make) when he ignored the advice of the CDC (a department that is expert in dealing with contagions, outbreaks and epidemics, and containing them) and ordered passengers from a cruise ship who had tested positive for the virus to be flown back to the USA IN THE SAME PLANE AS THE OTHER 300 NON-INFECTED PASSENGERS, a move that put all those "clear" passengers at risk of infection. 

Even worse, he had them flown to Travis AFB (Solano County CA) for quarantine, and then promptly broke the quarantine by sending unprepared, unprotected and inexperienced staff from HHS  (NOT the department that is supposed to deal with outbreaks) to visit the passengers. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/coronavirus-us-whistleblower.html)

Think it can't get any worse? Think again! The staff then left the facility and stayed in hotels in and around Solano County. The first US case of coronavirus with no verifiable source appeared in Solano County just a few days after the break in quarantine, less that 15km from Travis AFB.... well fancy that. I wonder how that happened?

Enough? Not yet! Now there is this fiasco...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/03/trumps-baffling-coronavirus-vaccine-event/

If you have confidence in the Idiot in Chief, then I think it is seriously misplaced.

Trump is a loose cannon playing a dangerous game. Its pretty obvious from his continual attempts to get the experts to commit to everything being done and dusted in six months, is because there is an election coming. He is desperate see the virus outbreak dealt with and the markets on the up again. The only thing he cares about is the optics, and how bad optics will reflect on him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on March 03, 2020, 11:24:12 PM
If there is a God, then hear my plea: give Trump COVID-19!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 04, 2020, 01:58:00 AM
Really? Perhaps this will make you think again. That Dear Leader you adore so much...
I never made ANY such comment, or inference.  I only pointed out some of the unfortunate similarities between some of the posts in this topic stream where people were using (most likely unwittingly) tactics and fallacious logic that is also seen in CTs arguments.

Your attempt to put words in my mouth and misconstrue MY argument is just another example. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 04, 2020, 03:20:05 AM
Really? Perhaps this will make you think again. That Dear Leader you adore so much...
I never made ANY such comment, or inference.

Rubbish

Most of your posts in this thread absolutely REEK of undying support for the Orange Turd. I am at a loss to understand how you could not see that.

In any case, like a good conspiracy theorist, you failed to address a single point I made in my post (not that I really expected you to) preferring instead to sidestep the issue by feigning indignation at being allegedly misunderstood.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 04, 2020, 04:18:50 AM
Really? Perhaps this will make you think again. That Dear Leader you adore so much...
I never made ANY such comment, or inference.

Rubbish

Most of your posts in this thread absolutely REEK of undying support for the Orange Turd. I am at a loss to understand how you could not see that.
Then you should have absolutely no trouble producing one that supports your exact accusations.  I won't hold my breath.
In any case, like a good conspiracy theorist, you failed to address a single point I made in my post (not that I really expected you to) preferring instead to sidestep the issue by feigning indignation at being allegedly misunderstood.
As I repeatedly have stated, I have no interest in defending the man.  I am just pointing out YOUR (and other posters') instances where you have failed to adhere to true and logical discourse, but would criticize CTs when they do likewise. 

The points you made are irrelevant to those instances I have previously noted, and, as such, are actually YOUR attempt(s) to sidestep the issue(s) I have pointed out.  Perhaps this is not your intent, but is effectively the consequence.

So, to be more specific regarding this latest confusion you have claimed, I expect you to put up one or more direct and contextually relevant examples where I have indicated actual adoration of Mr. Trump.  I know you can't, because I do not, and have never claimed to even like the man.  You can appreciate a time or two where someone does one or more things you consider to be good, without claiming it defines a person's overall character.  Without evidence to solidly back your contention, I then expect either an apology, or an amendment to your claim.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 04, 2020, 05:30:32 AM
Then you should have absolutely no trouble producing one that supports your exact accusations.  I won't hold my breath.

Here, take your pick. There are a few to choose from

http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=1259

There are plenty in there where you take the opposite view from a poster criticizing Trump. I cannot find one where you take agree with a poster criticizing Trump, or taking the opposite view of a poster praising Trump. Perhaps you can help prove that wrong by finding some...

I won't hold my breath.

As I repeatedly have stated, I have no interest in defending the man.

And yet you continue to do so, to the point of personally attacking the owner of this very forum when he criticized your position. I think you are trying to pretend that you have not nailed your colours to the mast, but your body of work (which I have linked above) clearly indicates that you have.

If you have no interest in defending Trump, then stop defending him... it really is that simple?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 04, 2020, 10:56:05 AM
Seriously--you don't want to defend him?  Name a thing he's done wrong.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 04, 2020, 11:50:00 AM
Stupid Tuesday has come and gone, and we're basically down to Biden and Bernie. 

=sigh=

I struggled.  Biden's the best choice by far from a foreign policy perspective (which is what we're gonna desperately need in the coming years), but unless we flip the Senate he's gonna get rolled harder than Obama ever was, and I'm not sure he has the coattails for a flip.  Domestically I wanted Warren (and who I wound up voting for after waffling between her and Biden), but she's effectively out of the race now (and I'd rather she stay in the Senate - we need her there, especially if the impossible happens and we flip it). 

Bernie - is making a shitload of promises he knows he can't keep, and I'm disappointed in all the "progressives" falling for it.  Despite what Cheney and Barr and Trump would have you believe, the President's powers are limited.  Less limited than they should be, for sure, but he (or she) can't simply create M4A by executive fiat, or legalize marijuana across all 50 states, or all the other unicorns he's tossing out there.  Ironically, I do believe Bernie has slightly longer coattails than Biden, and that if he managed to win, we would definitely keep the House and win the Senate.  But...Bernie.  I don't think he has the chops for the job, and while Biden would get rolled by the Republicans, Bernie would have opposition from Republicans and mainline Democrats. 

And Jesus Christ they're both OLD (77 and 78).  I'm old enough to remember when everyone was genuinely concerned about Reagan's age when we won his first term, and he was a sprightly 69.  It matters from a health and cognitive perspective. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 04, 2020, 12:00:04 PM
As I repeatedly have stated, I have no interest in defending the man.

And yet you have done so repeatedly.

It sounds so familiar... sort of like when a conspiracy theorist says something along the lines of "I'm not saying the moon landings were faked, I'm just asking questions" and then say things that lead you to believe they think the moon landings were faked. And the way you dismiss any evidence that Trump is racist and corrupt is very reminiscent of the way conspiracy theorists dismiss all of the evidence presented to them that the landings really happened.

"You didn't witness the moon landings first hand, so you have no way to know for sure that they happened. It's all conjecture."
"You are not inside the mind of Donald Trump, so you have no way to know for sure what his beliefs or motives are. It's all conjecture."

In both cases we use the available evidence to form our beliefs. The evidence overwhelmingly supports the belief that the moon landings really happened, and the belief that Trump is corrupt and racist is also supported by evidence. So if you want to keep using the "you're acting like a conspiracy theorist" argument, you might want to do some self-reflection first.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 04, 2020, 12:35:28 PM
Stupid Tuesday has come and gone, and we're basically down to Biden and Bernie. 

=sigh=

Some opinions from an outside observer:

I liked Kamala Harris a lot, and Elizabeth Warren too. It doesn't make sense that they received so little support. Of the remaining people running (last time I checked) I'd vote for Warren. I also liked Andrew Yang a lot. People didn't take him seriously, but he at least seems to be aware of what is coming our way economically.

I would have been okay with Pete Buttigieg too, but he became more and more moderate during the course of his campaign. He's young, so I think it makes more sense for him to run for Congress or as a Governor first anyway.

I think American's have been programmed to fear Bernie Sanders, and I honestly don't understand why. He would benefit the vast majority of Americans (if he got his way, at least) but for some reason people want to protect billionaires while they funnel more and more money out of your bank accounts and into theirs. I would fight to protect the healthcare system we have in Canada, and can't imagine having to choose between dying or going bankrupt from hospital bills.

I think Michael Bloomberg is more interested in beating Bernie Sanders than he is in beating Trump. He just wants to protect his wealth and keep the trillion dollar tax break that Trump provided, so I can't take him seriously when he talks about things like fighting climate change. As far as billionaire politicians go, I liked Tom Steyer a whole lot more than Bloomberg.

I will accept Joe Biden if he gets the nomination. He just doesn't excite me. Plus you'll be hearing about nothing besides Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Ukraine for at least the next 4+ years if he wins.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 04, 2020, 01:09:19 PM
Then you should have absolutely no trouble producing one that supports your exact accusations.  I won't hold my breath.

Here, take your pick. There are a few to choose from

http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=1259
What part of "supports your exact accusations" don't you understand?  Let's see.  Instead, you have just ignored the specifics of my post, and made a shotgun response that includes trying to shift the burden of proof on me.  Congratulations for the CT trifecta!   

Let's make it easier for you to respond, and/or CT tactic your way through another round.  What do you consider to be your BEST single piece of evidence that indicates I adore Trump?
There are plenty in there where you take the opposite view from a poster criticizing Trump.

In the instances where unsupported accusations have been made, pointing out the flaws in those accusations is, by necessity, an opposite view of their VALIDITY.
I cannot find one where you take agree with a poster criticizing Trump, or taking the opposite view of a poster praising Trump. Perhaps you can help prove that wrong by finding some...

I won't hold my breath.
More irrelevance as it pertains to my oft repeated stated intention for my posts.
As I repeatedly have stated, I have no interest in defending the man.

And yet you continue to do so, to the point of personally attacking the owner of this very forum when he criticized your position.
Your interpretation of "defending" has been exposed above.  The "personal attack" (associating LO with having CTs for friends, at least historically) was an honest mistake based on unconfirmed information from several sources in the past.  I have apologized for this.
I think you are trying to pretend that you have not nailed your colours to the mast, but your body of work (which I have linked above) clearly indicates that you have.

If you have no interest in defending Trump, then stop defending him... it really is that simple?
What you think is not supported by the full context of my posts.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 04, 2020, 01:10:09 PM
Seriously--you don't want to defend him?  Name a thing he's done wrong.
I already did in my last reply to you.  Didn't you notice?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 04, 2020, 01:38:35 PM
As I repeatedly have stated, I have no interest in defending the man.

And yet you have done so repeatedly.
Not really, as explained in my responses to smartcookie.

The evidence overwhelmingly supports the belief that the moon landings really happened, and the belief that Trump is corrupt and racist is also supported by evidence. So if you want to keep using the "you're acting like a conspiracy theorist" argument, you might want to do some self-reflection first.
The "evidence" I have taken to task (with a couple of acknowledged and retracted errors), does not hold up to scrutiny, yet has been endorsed on this topic thread using the same tactics as CTs do.  That evidence is NOT all-inclusive of everything posted, nor has it EVER been claimed as such.  Yet, you and others continue to rabidly argue its authenticity without merit*.  I suggest YOU re-examine some of your arguments in an unemotional state, if you can.

*As an example, let's revisit the racism claim based upon one of Trump's businesses refusing to allow a couple of color to rent a dwelling.  There is absolutely ZERO evidence Trump had such a policy, or made such a demand in any way.  The statement by the person who denied the couple their due consideration only claimed the policy came vaguely from "above".  How many layers of management are there between that person and Trump?  That is an important factor to know.  How come none of his myriad other rentals, hotels  and like business had the same policy?  Others have claimed Trump lost the lawsuit brought by the couple, when in fact it never went to court. 

So, we have a provably false allegation (the court thing), and gigantic leaps of conjecture to insist a direct tie-in to Trump, yet no acknowledgement of these transgressions.  Instead, the replies are the extremely CTish, "but...but..all the OTHER evidence."  Sorry, but as you all SHOULD know, all the other evidence does NOT put bogus accusations on even footing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 04, 2020, 03:23:17 PM
*As an example, let's revisit the racism claim based upon one of Trump's businesses refusing to allow a couple of color to rent a dwelling.  There is absolutely ZERO evidence Trump had such a policy, or made such a demand in any way.  The statement by the person who denied the couple their due consideration only claimed the policy came vaguely from "above". How many layers of management are there between that person and Trump?

From what I understand, the Trump organization has always been fairly small, just him and a handful of others (not counting the contractors that he likes to rip off). Regardless, as the head of the organization he bears some of the responsibility. Or are you saying he was totally unaware of the problem until he found himself in court? Surely he could have overrode the decision of his underling if he disagreed with it and allowed the couple to rent, and I find it difficult to believe the opportunity to do so didn't exist before going to court.

Quote
There is absolutely ZERO evidence Trump had such a policy

Racists, while generally pretty stupid, are not always so stupid that they would put their racist policies in writing. That would allow it to be used against them in court later. The policy would most likely be an unspoken rule that could be easily denied. I'll also point out that a lot of racist people don't consider themselves racist and would deny it if accused. That is why we look at his behavior, not just at what he says. Actions speak louder than words.

Quote
So, we have a provably false allegation (the court thing)

That is not even close to being "provably false". At best you have made the case that it's unclear whether Trump personally blocked the couple from renting an apartment... but you have not proved that it wasn't his decision. You are using conjecture to pass the blame to some unknown employee who Trump permitted to make important decisions on his behalf. That person must have a name... what is it? Was it the same person that placed a Coca-Cola bottle on the Moon set? Or maybe the same guy who shot JFK from the grassy knoll?

And of course you ignore all of the other allegations of racism that have surrounded Trump for years. If it was just the one apartment rental case from 1973 I might agree that there is too little information available to start throwing around accusations. But that is not the only accusation, and the others are quite clear. Refusing to disavow the endorsement of David Duke, Obama Birtherism, the false accusations against the Central Park 5, calling poor countries that are mostly populated by brown-skinned people "shitholes", calling Mexicans rapists and murderers, locking children in cages... none of that sets off any alarms for you?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 04, 2020, 08:42:43 PM
*As an example, let's revisit the racism claim based upon one of Trump's businesses refusing to allow a couple of color to rent a dwelling.  There is absolutely ZERO evidence Trump had such a policy, or made such a demand in any way.  The statement by the person who denied the couple their due consideration only claimed the policy came vaguely from "above". How many layers of management are there between that person and Trump?

From what I understand, the Trump organization has always been fairly small, just him and a handful of others (not counting the contractors that he likes to rip off).
Wiki says differently - "The Trump Organization is a group of about 500 business entities of which Donald Trump is the sole or principal owner."

However, what it was like before being designated as The Trump Organization (1973), was undoubtedly smaller, but also undoubtedly NOT a mom and pop operation.
Regardless, as the head of the organization he bears some of the responsibility. Or are you saying he was totally unaware of the problem until he found himself in court? Surely he could have overrode the decision of his underling if he disagreed with it and allowed the couple to rent, and I find it difficult to believe the opportunity to do so didn't exist before going to court.
Conjecture based on no concrete evidence.  Would you let a CT get away with that?

From -
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-housing-race.html
"While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties, he was on hand while they were in place, working out of a cubicle in Trump Management’s Brooklyn offices as early as the summer of 1968."

Please note that I included the entire quote for accuracy, but despite the article's clear bias, the FACT is still there to be read - "there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties"
Quote
There is absolutely ZERO evidence Trump had such a policy
Racists, while generally pretty stupid, are not always so stupid that they would put their racist policies in writing.
Rationalizing a dearth of evidence is also a common CT ploy.  Regardless, in this instance, the result is still no direct evidence.  Would you let a CT get away with this?
Quote
So, we have a provably false allegation (the court thing)
That is not even close to being "provably false". At best you have made the case that it's unclear whether Trump personally blocked the couple from renting an apartment... but you have not proved that it wasn't his decision.
First of all, your attempt to shift the burden of proof is noted.  Would you let a CT get away with this?

Secondly, please notice my parenthesized "the court thing".  My only mention of "court" in the post you quoted was this sentence - "Others have claimed Trump lost the lawsuit brought by the couple, when in fact it never went to court."

Now, I will admit, I could have worded it more pointedly, that the suit was not "lost" by Trump Management, instead, settled by consent decree which contained no admission of wrongdoing, and further investigation indicates a vastly more wide-spread investigation than just a couple (how the subject was first brought to my attention).  Also, the decree required the Trump firm to institute a series of safeguards to make sure apartments were rented without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin. (unquote)

Still, the FACT remains such a claim of loss is provably false.  Would you let a CT get away with such a false claim?
You are using conjecture to pass the blame to some unknown employee who Trump permitted to make important decisions on his behalf. That person must have a name... what is it?
Talk to the FBI.  They are the ones who redacted names from the complaint documents. 
https://www.spin.com/2017/02/fred-trump-told-me-not-to-rent-to-blacks-fbi-1970s-investigation-into-racism-at-trump-apartments/
And of course you ignore all of the other allegations of racism that have surrounded Trump for years.
Why do -YOU ignore the qualifying statement I made?  Would you let a CT do THAT?
The "evidence" I have taken to task (with a couple of acknowledged and retracted errors), does not hold up to scrutiny, yet has been endorsed on this topic thread using the same tactics as CTs do.  That evidence is NOT all-inclusive of everything posted, nor has it EVER been claimed as such.
[/quote]
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 04, 2020, 11:00:03 PM
From what I understand, the Trump organization has always been fairly small, just him and a handful of others (not counting the contractors that he likes to rip off).
Wiki says differently - "The Trump Organization is a group of about 500 business entities of which Donald Trump is the sole or principal owner."

"500 business entities" does not necessarily mean "many employees", since they could be businesses on paper only. And I'm not talking about the low level employees in his hotels and golf courses, I'm referring to top level executives.

From The New York Times: (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/us/politics/trump-organization-business.html)

Quote
Mr. Trump often boasts of the size of the Trump Organization. “It’s a big company,” he said in the interview last spring. A spokeswoman said the business employed “tens of thousands.”

But industry experts estimate that no more than 4,000 people work for the Trump Organization worldwide. And executives say that the three floors that make up the headquarters appear to have no more than 150 employees.

It is a family business, as everyone involved is quick to explain. And the management structure is informal if not confusing, with deputies constantly buzzing in and out of the boss’s office.

“We kind of run a little bit like a mom-and-pop in that sense,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a 2011 deposition for a lawsuit involving a Florida development. “I guess there is an organizational chart, but in theory, there is not too many levels.” He added: “Could I make one? Yes. Is there one officially? Not that I’m aware of.”

Quote
Regardless, as the head of the organization he bears some of the responsibility. Or are you saying he was totally unaware of the problem until he found himself in court? Surely he could have overrode the decision of his underling if he disagreed with it and allowed the couple to rent, and I find it difficult to believe the opportunity to do so didn't exist before going to court.
Conjecture based on no concrete evidence.  Would you let a CT get away with that?

So you're saying that Trump was unaware of the problem until it went to court. I find that hard to believe.

Quote
From -
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-housing-race.html
"While there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties, he was on hand while they were in place, working out of a cubicle in Trump Management’s Brooklyn offices as early as the summer of 1968."

Please note that I included the entire quote for accuracy, but despite the article's clear bias, the FACT is still there to be read - "there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties"

But the full quote is important. He might not have personally set the policies, but he was "on hand" while they were being enforced. But yeah, let's blame the guy who worked beneath him and whose name we conveniently don't know.

Quote
Quote
There is absolutely ZERO evidence Trump had such a policy
Racists, while generally pretty stupid, are not always so stupid that they would put their racist policies in writing.
Rationalizing a dearth of evidence is also a common CT ploy.

Don't be ridiculous. Next you'll be telling me that since the mafia doesn't have all of their intricate mob rules written down, it must mean the mafia doesn't exist.

Quote
Quote
So, we have a provably false allegation (the court thing)
That is not even close to being "provably false". At best you have made the case that it's unclear whether Trump personally blocked the couple from renting an apartment... but you have not proved that it wasn't his decision.
First of all, your attempt to shift the burden of proof is noted.  Would you let a CT get away with this?

You claimed something was "provably false" but you failed to prove your argument. If you had said there was uncertainty about whether Trump personally blocked the couple from renting the apartment I would agree with you, but you said it was "provable" that he didn't. But that would only be true if you could give me the name of the person who was responsible.

Also, there is a difference between "evidence" and "proof". I've never said that the discrimination lawsuit is "proof" that Trump is a racist. It's one piece of evidence.

Quote
Secondly, please notice my parenthesized "the court thing".  My only mention of "court" in the post you quoted was this sentence - "Others have claimed Trump lost the lawsuit brought by the couple, when in fact it never went to court."

What difference does it make? It doesn't have to go to court. The mere fact that he was accused of discrimination is damning. The fact that he settled out of court doesn't change that, it would help him more if he had gone to trial and was acquitted.

Quote
Still, the FACT remains such a claim of loss is provably false.  Would you let a CT get away with such a false claim?

You're focusing on the wrong detail. It doesn't matter if he lost the court case. That's a technicality. If he settled before going to trial it probably means he expected to lose.

Quote
You are using conjecture to pass the blame to some unknown employee who Trump permitted to make important decisions on his behalf. That person must have a name... what is it?
Talk to the FBI.  They are the ones who redacted names from the complaint documents.

My point is that you can't say it's "provably false" that Trump discriminated against people wishing to rent apartments if you can't prove that someone else made the decision. You have only argued that there is uncertainty about whether he was responsible or not.

Quote
And of course you ignore all of the other allegations of racism that have surrounded Trump for years.
Why do -YOU ignore the qualifying statement I made?

Do you forget where this discussion stems from? Several people asked you why you have repeatedly defended Trump. You've defended him regarding that 1973 discrimination lawsuit by saying it's "provably false" that Trump was responsible. And by pretending that the other accusations don't exist or aren't important, you're essentially defending him. Accusing President Obama of not being a real American just because he has brown skin and a Muslim sounding name is a racist conspiracy theory. Are you defending it or not? Calling for the Central Park 5 to be executed even after they were found innocent is a racist conspiracy theory. Are you defending it or not?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 04, 2020, 11:22:48 PM
Racists, while generally pretty stupid, are not always so stupid that they would put their racist policies in writing. That would allow it to be used against them in court later. The policy would most likely be an unspoken rule that could be easily denied. I'll also point out that a lot of racist people don't consider themselves racist and would deny it if accused. That is why we look at his behavior, not just at what he says. Actions speak louder than words.

THIS

Anyone... ANYONE who refers to white supremacists as "fine people"; or who says "after seeing America, Nigerians would never 'go back to their huts' "; or says that El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and African countries were "shithole countries"; or says that Congresswomen of colour should 'go back to the countries they came from' is a racist.

Trump did all of the above... he is undeniably a stone cold racist.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 05, 2020, 03:40:54 AM
More conjecture in your last reply, as well as failure to answer my questions.

And when you attempt to reconcile your conclusions with, "The mere fact that he was accused of discrimination is damning", just shows why you should never be on a jury.

But, to address your pertinent concerns...
Do you forget where this discussion stems from?
Of course not.  You seem to have forgotten, or perhaps failed to noticed, my reason for interjecting, though.  Allow me to repost part of my very first post on this topic.
From Reply#612:
"Just want to point out that despite having only bothered to read the first couple of pages of posts written in this discussion topic, I find it appalling to find so many, who supposedly promote critical thinking, facts, truth, and accountability, getting emotionally invested and forgetting everything they have chastised the conspiracy theorists about.

First of all, I want you to know that I do not like Trump as our President, particularly regarding his disregard of competent science, and did not vote for him, but I also did not vote Democratic, as they are just as flawed in their own fashion.  However, during the course of his presidency I have noted a constant concerted effort to find flaws in everything he does, manufacture them where they don't exist, shout it all out to the world, and, if not outright defiant in the face of facts, remain utterly silent when such claims come up empty or are proven false.  That said, I won't defend his many faults, but I still feel it is important to maintain the standards we want in our Apollo discussions, by NOT using out-of-context evidence, false narratives and hearsay in lieu of facts and reason."


For transparency, I will reiterate that the first example I used was wrong, and I retracted my claim (for that first example) in Reply #636.

Several people asked you why you have repeatedly defended Trump.
And I have repeatedly answered this truthfully.  Just as in my first post, I am not here to defend him, just to point out that some bits of "evidence" used to lambaste him are similar in context, if not identical, to CT tactics.  You, and others seem to have just ignored this only expressed reason for my posts, and run amok pursuing your own agendas.  Sound familiar?
pretending that the other accusations don't exist or aren't important, you're essentially defending him
No. Other accusations are irrelevant, when considering a specific one that has no tangible support.  That's would be like giving validity to a claim that Jeffery Dahmer was responsible for one or more missing persons in his town based solely on the fact that he was so evil.

EACH claim should be evaluated individually, without prejudice.  That is how science works, and how the law is supposed to work.

Why people have short-circuited their reasoning capabilities and insist on galloping in their own closed loop just shows (IMHO) what happens when emotions and/or beliefs are allowed to rule.  I have been guilty of doing that, and undoubtedly will do so again.  That's just part of the human condition.  However, being aware of it, and trying to recognize and temper it, can only enhance logical discourse.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 05, 2020, 04:55:39 AM
First of all, I want you to know that I do not like Trump as our President, particularly regarding his disregard of competent science, and did not vote for him, but I also did not vote Democratic, as they are just as flawed in their own fashion.

Yeah, there are good people on both sides  ::)

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/tt9wecso8e5lhc4/Giorgio-DefendsTrump.png?raw=1)

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 05, 2020, 10:33:46 AM
Seriously.  If you're not here to defend Trump, you're doing an awfully good impersonation of someone who is.

List things he does that you disagree with.  Go for it.  I can tell you things about any number of candidates I support that I disagree with--and did, when Hillary Clinton was running.  But you even defended his firing of the pandemic response team with "I don't see why it's a problem."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 05, 2020, 11:39:34 AM
MBDK, what do you think of the stable genius's latest claim about the COVID19 death rates? Apparently he knows more than the WHO.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/05/trump-coronavirus-who-global-death-rate-false-number

The man is a blithering idiot and a dangerous one at that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 05, 2020, 12:12:55 PM

I think American's have been programmed to fear Bernie Sanders, and I honestly don't understand why. He would benefit the vast majority of Americans (if he got his way, at least) but for some reason people want to protect billionaires while they funnel more and more money out of your bank accounts and into theirs. I would fight to protect the healthcare system we have in Canada, and can't imagine having to choose between dying or going bankrupt from hospital bills.

I won't deny that most news organizations have gone out of their way to paint Bernie in a negative light, but frankly they haven't had to work that hard.  He's a crank.  He only joined the Democratic party to run for President. 

He is the one candidate that is truly left-wing - maybe not "seize the means of production" left, but not that far removed.  While plenty of Americans (including myself) would like to see a stronger welfare state, stronger consumer protections (in health care and insurance as well as products), stronger financial regulation, etc., we're not quite willing to go the full socialist.  He has spoken favorably of the old Soviet Union in the past. 

And he's making promises he knows he can't keep - he's pulling a Trump, but with socialist-curious Millenials instead of aging racist shitheads.  And from what I can tell he's all for even further expanding Executive power, which even I, big-gummint Democrat I am, strongly oppose.  The Executive is already too goddamned powerful. 

Not that any of the Dem candidates are any better in that specific respect. 

Quote
I will accept Joe Biden if he gets the nomination. He just doesn't excite me. Plus you'll be hearing about nothing besides Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Ukraine for at least the next 4+ years if he wins.

I don't want an "exciting" President.  I don't want a President who's in the news every goddamned day for saying or doing something stupid.  I want a President who's competent, picks competent people to run the various departments, and basically just does the job. 

And the best way to avoid 4 years of Hunterghazi is to keep the House and flip the Senate.  Which we need to do anyway because RBG isn't going to last another 4 years, and McConnell has proven he's perfectly willing to let a SCOTUS seat remain empty as long as it takes to get a Republican President. 

The Senate should be the focus of every American this election, not the White House. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 05, 2020, 04:40:32 PM
I think American's have been programmed to fear Bernie Sanders...

I won't deny that most news organizations have gone out of their way to paint Bernie in a negative light, but frankly they haven't had to work that hard.

I think it goes beyond just Bernie. It seems like if you say the word "socialism" around some Americans they suffer anxiety attacks and don't sleep for a month. The wealthy have done an amazing job convincing people that it's in their best interests to let them hoard all the money.

If only people were as concerned about fascism... you probably wouldn't have President Trump.

Quote
He only joined the Democratic party to run for President.

I gotta admit, that always bothered me about him.

Quote
He is the one candidate that is truly left-wing - maybe not "seize the means of production" left, but not that far removed.

I wouldn't go that far. As far as I can tell, he's only talking about having the wealthy share more of the burden because they can.

Quote
He has spoken favorably of the old Soviet Union in the past.

Yeah, that's another thing that bothers me about him.

Quote
And he's making promises he knows he can't keep

Maybe, but if he raises awareness to the reality that the current system has become obscenely unfair then it might at least push things back in the right direction an inch or two.

Quote
Quote
I will accept Joe Biden if he gets the nomination. He just doesn't excite me. Plus you'll be hearing about nothing besides Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Ukraine for at least the next 4+ years if he wins.

I don't want an "exciting" President.  I don't want a President who's in the news every goddamned day for saying or doing something stupid.  I want a President who's competent, picks competent people to run the various departments, and basically just does the job. 

"Excite" might have been the wrong choice of words. I don't want to have to worry about the President of the USA starting an exciting nuclear war with Iran or North Korea. So yeah, boring can be good. But I would like to see some fresh ideas get implemented, rather than just reverting to the way things were done for decades because that's what Biden knows. The problems that we have today are partly due to politicians in the past who didn't do enough to avert them.

Quote
And the best way to avoid 4 years of Hunterghazi is to keep the House and flip the Senate.  Which we need to do anyway because RBG isn't going to last another 4 years, and McConnell has proven he's perfectly willing to let a SCOTUS seat remain empty as long as it takes to get a Republican President.

The Senate should be the focus of every American this election, not the White House. 

I definitely won't disagree with that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 05, 2020, 08:15:40 PM
I think it goes beyond just Bernie. It seems like if you say the word "socialism" around some Americans they suffer anxiety attacks and don't sleep for a month. The wealthy have done an amazing job convincing people that it's in their best interests to let them hoard all the money

Even worse, the average American not only has no idea what "socialism" actually is... (they see socialism and communism as two sides of the same coin) they actually don't realise that by the standards of the rest of the world, they choose every two years between two essentially right wing parties, Democrats (right of centre) and Republicans (further right of centre). Both the Dems and the GOP are further right than our centre-right National Party, and if you transposed our Labour Party into US Politics, they would be considered more extreme left wing than AOC. She would fit quite comfortably into the moderate wing of our Labour Party.

Just take a look at what happened in the aftermath of the Christchurch Mosque shootings. It just took one event like that for the Government to ban assault rifles within a few weeks. Done and dusted. Can you imagine any US Administration ever responding like that?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 06, 2020, 04:28:22 AM
Stupid Tuesday has come and gone, and we're basically down to Biden and Bernie. 

=sigh=

Some opinions from an outside observer:

I liked Kamala Harris a lot, and Elizabeth Warren too. It doesn't make sense that they received so little support. Of the remaining people running (last time I checked) I'd vote for Warren. I also liked Andrew Yang a lot. People didn't take him seriously, but he at least seems to be aware of what is coming our way economically.

I would have been okay with Pete Buttigieg too, but he became more and more moderate during the course of his campaign. He's young, so I think it makes more sense for him to run for Congress or as a Governor first anyway.

I think American's have been programmed to fear Bernie Sanders, and I honestly don't understand why. He would benefit the vast majority of Americans (if he got his way, at least) but for some reason people want to protect billionaires while they funnel more and more money out of your bank accounts and into theirs. I would fight to protect the healthcare system we have in Canada, and can't imagine having to choose between dying or going bankrupt from hospital bills.

I think Michael Bloomberg is more interested in beating Bernie Sanders than he is in beating Trump. He just wants to protect his wealth and keep the trillion dollar tax break that Trump provided, so I can't take him seriously when he talks about things like fighting climate change. As far as billionaire politicians go, I liked Tom Steyer a whole lot more than Bloomberg.

I will accept Joe Biden if he gets the nomination. He just doesn't excite me. Plus you'll be hearing about nothing besides Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Ukraine for at least the next 4+ years if he wins.

The bolded section above reminds me of a quote attributed (I understand mistakenly) to John Steinbeck: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." The USA is a society with among the lowest social mobility of any OECD country, and yet thanks to the success of the concept of the American Dream many Americans seem to see the wealthy as a group of people they are just one brilliant success away from joining.

And in that regard Hollywood has a lot to answer for - movies telling the success stories of the American Dream do well at the box office (think of "The Pursuit of Happyness", "Joy" or "The Blind Side") despite the rarity of such events.

Also, that attitude to the rich I think underpins some of Trump's attractiveness to white working class men who voted for him: they see much of themselves in him, and his success is something they can aspire to.

As for the various Democratic aspirants to the Presidential nomination - a lot of them have drawbacks of various sorts: age, inexperience, questionable pasts, questionable policies. As these shortcomings have been publicised during the Democratic debates they simply hand ammunition to Trump to use all over again in the Presidential election campaign.

With Biden looking increasingly likely to be the successful candidate, his choice of VP is going to be important. The upside is that if he wins the election he probably has a good pool of talent to choose his cabinet from. I'd also like to think that a couple of the unsuccessful candidates might like to exploit the publicity they've gained in the last couple of months to stand for Congress (if it's not too late for them to nominate), like Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro or Richard Ojeda.

But ultimately, if the Democrats are going to remain a strong party, it's going to take a heap of ordinary people to get involved in politics at all levels rather than sitting back and expressing their outrage via Twitter.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 06, 2020, 10:45:00 AM
The bolded section above reminds me of a quote attributed (I understand mistakenly) to John Steinbeck: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

I like that quote.

Quote
Also, that attitude to the rich I think underpins some of Trump's attractiveness to white working class men who voted for him: they see much of themselves in him, and his success is something they can aspire to.

Which is something I don't get. Trump didn't start out poor and become wealthy through hard work... he was born wealthy and through ineptitude has had to declare bankruptcy multiple times. He isn't a role model in any conceivable way.

Quote
As for the various Democratic aspirants to the Presidential nomination - a lot of them have drawbacks of various sorts: age, inexperience, questionable pasts, questionable policies. As these shortcomings have been publicised during the Democratic debates they simply hand ammunition to Trump to use all over again in the Presidential election campaign.

Age, inexperience, a questionable past, and questionable policies... Trump has all of those drawbacks too, so I can't see how attacking the Democratic candidate on those grounds would be a winning strategy for him. We now have a record of just how terrible President Trump has been, whereas in 2016 it was just speculation. The only people who will vote for Trump this time are people who are blinded by loyalty, hypocrites, and people who are as racist and morally corrupt as he is.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 06, 2020, 10:47:04 AM
My candidate of choice had been Elizabeth Warren, though I was frankly concerned about her age--I want a President considerably closer to my age; I'm 43, which is at the low end of eligibility, but I want a President below retirement age.  It's a stressful job, and I worry about someone in their 70s or 80s surviving a first term, let alone a second.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 06, 2020, 10:55:26 AM
My candidate of choice had been Elizabeth Warren, though I was frankly concerned about her age--I want a President considerably closer to my age; I'm 43, which is at the low end of eligibility, but I want a President below retirement age.  It's a stressful job, and I worry about someone in their 70s or 80s surviving a first term, let alone a second.

She at least seems healthier than the guy that just had a heart attack 3 months ago.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 06, 2020, 03:46:27 PM
First of all, I want you to know that I do not like Trump as our President, particularly regarding his disregard of competent science, and did not vote for him, but I also did not vote Democratic, as they are just as flawed in their own fashion.

Yeah, there are good people on both sides  ::)

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/tt9wecso8e5lhc4/Giorgio-DefendsTrump.png?raw=1)
Again (again), pointing out flawed conclusions, even thought they may reside among a lot of similar correct ones, does NOT justify those flawed conclusions.  That does not hold up in science, nor in any unbiased court of law.  This has been stated many times, and your adherence to a mindless mantra is rather juvenile.

Still, you have just proven this portion of an earlier post of mine.

"people have short-circuited their reasoning capabilities and insist on galloping in their own closed loop"

NOTE:  Edited for clarity regarding flawed conclusions.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 06, 2020, 03:49:07 PM
Seriously.  If you're not here to defend Trump, you're doing an awfully good impersonation of someone who is.

List things he does that you disagree with. 
While I swear on a bible?  Sibrel would be proud of this copy-cat tactic.  Your request remains irrelevant to flaws I pointed out.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 06, 2020, 03:52:43 PM
MBDK, what do you think of the stable genius's latest claim about the COVID19 death rates? Apparently he knows more than the WHO.
My opinion on this sideline has not wavered since my original post on this topic:
"First of all, I want you to know that I do not like Trump as our President, particularly regarding his disregard of competent science"

Scientifically, evidence clearly shows he IS at least ignorant, if not WILLINGLY so.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 06, 2020, 04:28:01 PM
First of all, I want you to know that I do not like Trump as our President, particularly regarding his disregard of competent science, and did not vote for him, but I also did not vote Democratic, as they are just as flawed in their own fashion.

Yeah, there are good people on both sides  ::)

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/tt9wecso8e5lhc4/Giorgio-DefendsTrump.png?raw=1)
Again (again), pointing out flawed conclusions, even thought they may reside among a lot of similar correct ones, does NOT justify those flawed conclusions.  That does not hold up in science, nor in any unbiased court of law.  This has been stated many times, and your adherence to a mindless mantra is rather juvenile.

Still, you have just proven this portion of an earlier post of mine.

"people have short-circuited their reasoning capabilities and insist on galloping in their own closed loop"

NOTE:  Edited for clarity regarding flawed conclusions.

My problem with you is that you seem to only  be interested in pointing out flawed conclusions on one side, those that show Trump in a bad light.

The only "galloping in their own closed loop" happening here is by you. I seems you are so biased towards Trump, you are unable to see how that bias looks when observed from the outside. You can only come out in support of him (and against his opponents) so many times before it becomes suspicious.


ETA: If you believe that Trump is a good guy, a law abiding citizen who has only ever surrounded himself with the best people, then I will leave this here for you to ponder

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/mgxreuuhhbnzb0d/TrumpOrbit3.png?raw=1)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 06, 2020, 04:44:54 PM
First of all, I want you to know that I do not like Trump as our President, particularly regarding his disregard of competent science, and did not vote for him, but I also did not vote Democratic, as they are just as flawed in their own fashion.

Yeah, there are good people on both sides  ::)

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/tt9wecso8e5lhc4/Giorgio-DefendsTrump.png?raw=1)
Again (again), pointing out flawed conclusions, even thought they may reside among a lot of similar correct ones, does NOT justify those flawed conclusions.  That does not hold up in science, nor in any unbiased court of law.  This has been stated many times, and your adherence to a mindless mantra is rather juvenile.

Still, you have just proven this portion of an earlier post of mine.

"people have short-circuited their reasoning capabilities and insist on galloping in their own closed loop"

NOTE:  Edited for clarity regarding flawed conclusions.

My problem with you is that you seem to only  be interested in pointing out flawed conclusions on one side, those that show Trump in a bad light.

The only "galloping in their own closed loop" happening here is by you. I seems you are so biased towards Trump, you are unable to see how that bias looks when observed from the outside. You can only come out in support of him (and against his opponents) so many times before it becomes suspicious.
No.  I clearly stated my purpose in my first post.  I have tried to adhere to it, and if anything have acquiesced to some aspects of other posters' comments.  You, and others, can't argue your way around the similarities that some of your claims have with CTs' flawed lines of reasoning.  Instead, you demand other, irrelevant to my original post, actions/words from me that prop up your more reasonable conclusions.  Why I have to keep explaining this SIMPLE concept is very much akin to trying to explain basic physics to a CT.  You really need to take a step back, look at my complaint in conjunction with similar complaints YOU have made regarding CT posts/tactics, and if you CAN'T identify the parallels, you are essentially just as close-minded as they are. 

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
― Walt Kelly
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 06, 2020, 04:54:51 PM
ETA: If you believe that Trump is a good guy, a law abiding citizen who has only ever surrounded himself with the best people, then I will leave this here for you to ponder
Ignoring the actual content of my posts...AGAIN...is either a willful attempt to skew facts, or an indication of some underlying condition you have that temporarily blinds you whenever you come across words your prejudice(s) reject.  Please indicate where I have EVER made such generalizations.  Hint:  You can't, because I never have.

Note:  Edited to get rid of unneeded redundant image.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 07, 2020, 09:42:52 AM
You defended that he fired the pandemic response team and said it didn't make a difference.  Do you even know what a pandemic response team does and why it's necessary, you know, during a pandemic?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 07, 2020, 12:58:20 PM
You defended that he fired the pandemic response team and said it didn't make a difference.  Do you even know what a pandemic response team does and why it's necessary, you know, during a pandemic?
Sorry, gillianren, but YOU started this ball rolling with reply #770, where your entire comment was simply -
"Well, how safe is everyone feeling in a country where the entire CDC pandemic team was fired and not replaced?"

MY direct reply (# 772) was -
"A boneheaded move, indeed.  However, I feel just as safe as I would if there WAS a team in place.  I don't see how such a team would have any practical effect at this time.  First of all, the WHO does NOT consider it pandemic...yet...(although news coverage of it certainly is)."

- followed by a quote from the Surgeon General, who said, "we should not be afraid".  Then I added information on how best to prevent becoming infected, including information from the CDC.

Nowhere in that is a defense of the firing.  How safe I feel includes my trust in the Surgeon General, but is ultimately my own opinion, and since the virus is currently NOT a pandemic per the WHO, any "pandemic team" would have no role to play AT THIS TIME.

So, I answered the question you asked, precisely as it applied to me at that time (and currently still does).  Yet, here you are, once more, reading things into my response(s) that aren't there. 

If you want more information on WHY the coronavirus is NOT a pandemic, here is a link -
https://www.mic.com/p/what-is-a-pandemic-is-the-coronavirus-outbreak-considered-one-22416103
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 07, 2020, 03:43:18 PM
First of all, I want you to know that I do not like Trump as our President, particularly regarding his disregard of competent science, and did not vote for him, but I also did not vote Democratic, as they are just as flawed in their own fashion.

Yeah, there are good people on both sides  ::)

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/tt9wecso8e5lhc4/Giorgio-DefendsTrump.png?raw=1)
Again (again), pointing out flawed conclusions, even thought they may reside among a lot of similar correct ones, does NOT justify those flawed conclusions.  That does not hold up in science, nor in any unbiased court of law.  This has been stated many times, and your adherence to a mindless mantra is rather juvenile.

Still, you have just proven this portion of an earlier post of mine.

"people have short-circuited their reasoning capabilities and insist on galloping in their own closed loop"

NOTE:  Edited for clarity regarding flawed conclusions.

My problem with you is that you seem to only  be interested in pointing out flawed conclusions on one side, those that show Trump in a bad light.

The only "galloping in their own closed loop" happening here is by you. I seems you are so biased towards Trump, you are unable to see how that bias looks when observed from the outside. You can only come out in support of him (and against his opponents) so many times before it becomes suspicious.
No.  I clearly stated my purpose in my first post. I have tried to adhere to it, and if anything have acquiesced to some aspects of other posters' comments.  You, and others, can't argue your way around the similarities that some of your claims have with CTs' flawed lines of reasoning.  Instead, you demand other, irrelevant to my original post, actions/words from me that prop up your more reasonable conclusions.  Why I have to keep explaining this SIMPLE concept is very much akin to trying to explain basic physics to a CT.  You really need to take a step back, look at my complaint in conjunction with similar complaints YOU have made regarding CT posts/tactics, and if you CAN'T identify the parallels, you are essentially just as close-minded as they are. 

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
― Walt Kelly

Most of us here are experienced enough to eventually recognise the Hoax believers who attempt the subterfuge of starting off here posting that they believe the moan landings actually happened and that they have a open mind as to whether there was any fakery involved but gradually show their true colours; those colours indicating that they were a card-carrying moon hoax believer all along.

What you say as to your bias or opinions in your opening posts carries zero weight with me... what you follow up with is what counts. And your follow up has included some pretty strong defences of some of the indefensible things that Trump has done. I was prepared to give you at least some benefit of the doubt until the point where you defended the Orange Turd against allegations that he tried to pressure Ukraine/Zelenskiy to announce investigations into Joe & Hunter Biden, by withholding Congressionally approved military aid. You said, and I quote

"There was NEVER any direct evidence, only conjecture and opinion"

That tells me that you have drunk the Trump/GOP Kool-Ade. The evidence that he did what he was accused of was utterly overwhelming. Fact witness after fact witness in the House testified to what Trump did... even people who were actually listening in on the very phone call, such as Lt Col Alex Vindman

"I was concerned by the call, what I heard was inappropriate, and I reported my concerns to Mr. Eisenberg," Vindman said.

"It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a US citizen and a political opponent. It was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play. This would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing bipartisan support, undermine US national security, and advance Russia's strategic objectives in the region."

This is NOT conjecture

This is NOT opinion

This is direct, first hand eye-witness testimony (exactly the kind of evidence you incorrectly claim did not exist) from a very reliable, very experienced and highly decorated military veteran, and yet you dismiss it!!

Not only that... Trump himself admitted what he did, and claimed there was nothing wrong with it. The fact that he released the aid only when he got caught shows the consciousness of a guilty mind.

At this point, I reached the only viable conclusion; that you are a Trump sycophant trying hard to pretend not to be.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 07, 2020, 07:50:51 PM
Most of us here are experienced enough to eventually recognise the Hoax believers who attempt the subterfuge of starting off here posting that they believe the moan landings actually happened and that they have a open mind as to whether there was any fakery involved but gradually show their true colours; those colours indicating that they were a card-carrying moon hoax believer all along.
And you SHOULD be experienced enough to think critically, yet YOU have failed time and again in your responses to me concerning this topic.
What you say as to your bias or opinions in your opening posts carries zero weight with me...
Rejecting MY firsthand testimony, but holding that of others as factual proof is quite hypocritical.
"what you follow up with is what counts"
Yet, you have never really been able to comprehend that the substance of my follow ups have been instep with my declared intention.
I was prepared to give you at least some benefit of the doubt until the point where you defended the Orange Turd against allegations that he tried to pressure Ukraine/Zelenskiy to announce investigations into Joe & Hunter Biden, by withholding Congressionally approved military aid. You said, and I quote

"There was NEVER any direct evidence, only conjecture and opinion"

That tells me that you have drunk the Trump/GOP Kool-Ade. The evidence that he did what he was accused of was utterly overwhelming. Fact witness after fact witness in the House testified to what Trump did... even people who were actually listening in on the very phone call, such as Lt Col Alex Vindman

"I was concerned by the call, what I heard was inappropriate, and I reported my concerns to Mr. Eisenberg," Vindman said.

"It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a US citizen and a political opponent. It was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play. This would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing bipartisan support, undermine US national security, and advance Russia's strategic objectives in the region."

This is NOT conjecture

This is NOT opinion

This is direct, first hand eye-witness testimony (exactly the kind of evidence you incorrectly claim did not exist) from a very reliable, very experienced and highly decorated military veteran, and yet you dismiss it!!
Hah.  Talk about drinking the Kool-Aide...

Your experience here on this board should have included the real FACT that eyewitness testimony is proven to be some of the least reliable and problematic evidence used, regardless of the witness' "qualifications".  Do you want links to verify this scientific fact?
Not only that... Trump himself admitted what he did, and claimed there was nothing wrong with it.
I don't think so.  Do you have a source other than the Geraldo podcast a few weeks back where he answered that he sent Guiliani to the Ukraine?   If so, you need to try better.  If not, provide a source, please.

Hint:  He sent him there in late 2019.  Guiliani has been on trump's legal team since 2018.  He had not traveled to the Ukraine from that time until late 2019, as mentioned.   
The fact that he released the aid only when he got caught shows the consciousness of a guilty mind.
Conjecture.
At this point, I reached the only viable conclusion; that you are a Trump sycophant trying hard to pretend not to be.
Only viable to a prejudiced mind.  Your cognitive bias is the only viable reason for your conclusion.

And to put another nail in your attempt to claim Vindman's testimony is more than opinion (beyond the contradictions between his and others' testimonies)...in his own words:
From -
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/08/impeachment-alexcander-vindmans-ukraine-call-testimony-takeaways/2530124001/ (my bold)
Vindman testified, "The conversation unfolded with Sondland proceeding to kind of, you know, review what the deliverable would be in order to get the meeting, and he talked about the investigation into the Bidens, and, frankly, I can’t 100 percent recall because I didn’t take notes of it, but Burisma, that it seemed — I mean, there was no ambiguity, I guess, in my mind. He was calling for something, calling for an investigation that didn’t exist into the Bidens and Burisma"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 07, 2020, 10:16:09 PM
Most of us here are experienced enough to eventually recognise the Hoax believers who attempt the subterfuge of starting off here posting that they believe the moan landings actually happened and that they have a open mind as to whether there was any fakery involved but gradually show their true colours; those colours indicating that they were a card-carrying moon hoax believer all along.
And you SHOULD be experienced enough to think critically, yet YOU have failed time and again in your responses to me concerning this topic.



What you say as to your bias or opinions in your opening posts carries zero weight with me...
Rejecting MY firsthand testimony, but holding that of others as factual proof is quite hypocritical.
"what you follow up with is what counts"
Yet, you have never really been able to comprehend that the substance of my follow ups have been instep with my declared intention.
I was prepared to give you at least some benefit of the doubt until the point where you defended the Orange Turd against allegations that he tried to pressure Ukraine/Zelenskiy to announce investigations into Joe & Hunter Biden, by withholding Congressionally approved military aid. You said, and I quote

"There was NEVER any direct evidence, only conjecture and opinion"

That tells me that you have drunk the Trump/GOP Kool-Ade. The evidence that he did what he was accused of was utterly overwhelming. Fact witness after fact witness in the House testified to what Trump did... even people who were actually listening in on the very phone call, such as Lt Col Alex Vindman

"I was concerned by the call, what I heard was inappropriate, and I reported my concerns to Mr. Eisenberg," Vindman said.

"It is improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a US citizen and a political opponent. It was also clear that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma, it would be interpreted as a partisan play. This would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing bipartisan support, undermine US national security, and advance Russia's strategic objectives in the region."

This is NOT conjecture

This is NOT opinion

This is direct, first hand eye-witness testimony (exactly the kind of evidence you incorrectly claim did not exist) from a very reliable, very experienced and highly decorated military veteran, and yet you dismiss it!!
Hah.  Talk about drinking the Kool-Aide...

Your experience here on this board should have included the real FACT that eyewitness testimony is proven to be some of the least reliable and problematic evidence used, regardless of the witness' "qualifications".  Do you want links to verify this scientific fact?
Not only that... Trump himself admitted what he did, and claimed there was nothing wrong with it.
I don't think so.  Do you have a source other than the Geraldo podcast a few weeks back where he answered that he sent Guiliani to the Ukraine?   If so, you need to try better.  If not, provide a source, please.

Hint:  He sent him there in late 2019.  Guiliani has been on trump's legal team since 2018.  He had not traveled to the Ukraine from that time until late 2019, as mentioned.   
The fact that he released the aid only when he got caught shows the consciousness of a guilty mind.
Conjecture.
At this point, I reached the only viable conclusion; that you are a Trump sycophant trying hard to pretend not to be.
Only viable to a prejudiced mind.  Your cognitive bias is the only viable reason for your conclusion.

And to put another nail in your attempt to claim Vindman's testimony is more than opinion (beyond the contradictions between his and others' testimonies)...in his own words:
From -
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/08/impeachment-alexcander-vindmans-ukraine-call-testimony-takeaways/2530124001/ (my bold)
Vindman testified, "The conversation unfolded with Sondland proceeding to kind of, you know, review what the deliverable would be in order to get the meeting, and he talked about the investigation into the Bidens, and, frankly, I can’t 100 percent recall because I didn’t take notes of it, but Burisma, that it seemed — I mean, there was no ambiguity, I guess, in my mind. He was calling for something, calling for an investigation that didn’t exist into the Bidens and Burisma"

My only reply to any of the rubbish you just posted is that it is a pity you chose to selectively quote just one part of the link you posted and not the rest of it... and reading the WHOLE, its easy to see why... it is so much more interesting.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/08/impeachment-alexcander-vindmans-ukraine-call-testimony-takeaways/2530124001/

At this point, I am done with you. Its is clear to me, and I think pretty much most of the other participants in this thread, that you are a card-carrying Trump sycophant trying to pretend you are neutral. Your posting record in this thread emphatically supports that conclusion.

If this forum had an ignore feature, you would be on it because frankly, you bring nothing worth discussing to the table... that does not mean I can't ignore you anyway.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 08, 2020, 06:11:25 PM
My only reply to any of the rubbish you just posted is that it is a pity you chose to selectively quote just one part of the link you posted and not the rest of it... and reading the WHOLE, its easy to see why... it is so much more interesting.
An odd thing to say.  You offer no explanation as to the specifics of your claim, yet expect me to sort through a library of information and guess as to what exact part(s) you are referring (you know, how CTs say, "But watch the entire 3 hour video!").  This, BY ITSELF, is proof of my OP.
At this point, I am done with you. Its is clear to me, and I think pretty much most of the other participants in this thread, that you are a card-carrying Trump sycophant trying to pretend you are neutral. Your posting record in this thread emphatically supports that conclusion.
As the author of those posts, I emphatically disagree, but I can only lead a horse.
If this forum had an ignore feature, you would be on it because frankly, you bring nothing worth discussing to the table... that does not mean I can't ignore you anyway.
So true.  And it should present absolutely no challenge to you, as YOUR track record on this topic has shown how adept you are at ignoring the salient points I have made.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 09, 2020, 11:32:11 AM
So true.  And it should present absolutely no challenge to you, as YOUR track record on this topic has shown how adept you are at ignoring the salient points I have made.

I'm still not sure what "salient points" you have made. And accusing people of ignoring your points is rich considering you won't even talk about all of the other accusations of racism against Trump besides that one apartment rental matter that you have declared "case closed" without actually proving anything.

I agree with smartcooky... you're not with our time. You're so blinded by loyalty to Trump that you can't see the overwhelming evidence that he is corrupt.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 09, 2020, 01:33:43 PM
I'm still not sure what "salient points" you have made.
Nothing new there.
"And accusing people of ignoring your points is rich considering you won't even talk about all of the other accusations of racism against Trump besides that one apartment rental matter that you have declared "case closed" without actually proving anything"
That quote, once again proves my OP.  Rather than discuss the specific validity of a claim, you have self-confirmed it BECAUSE of "all of the other" stuff - not due to that claim's actual merits.  As per your revisiting the apartment rental case, that episode just shows again how you use "all of the other" stuff to legitimize your conclusion while ignoring "there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties".  You know, the stuff required by science and law to make a solid judgement.

To revisit in what may be a productive manner, let's go back to my Jeff Dahmer, example, and make it even more specific.  If Dahmer's next door neighbor was deemed to be a missing person during the time that Dahmer lived there, and with no other evidence aside from Dahmer's other proven crimes, can you rightfully conclude Dahmer was involved with that neighbor's disappearance?  And to be clear, please explain your reasoning behind your answer.
I agree with smartcooky... you're not with our time. You're so blinded by loyalty to Trump that you can't see the overwhelming evidence that he is corrupt.
And seeing as how neither of you are me, and both have repeatedly failed to glean the actual message, you are both wrong.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 09, 2020, 03:35:24 PM
I'm still not sure what "salient points" you have made.
Nothing new there.

Because you're acting just like a conspiracy theorist. You make "arguments" that you think are groundbreaking when in fact they are not. As far as I can tell, our only "crime" is having an opinion about Trump that you don't like, and because of that you repeatedly defend him (despite claiming that you have no interest in doing so).

Quote
Rather than discuss the specific validity of a claim, you have self-confirmed it BECAUSE of "all of the other" stuff - not due to that claim's actual merits.  As per your revisiting the apartment rental case, that episode just shows again how you use "all of the other" stuff to legitimize your conclusion while ignoring "there is no evidence that Mr. Trump personally set the rental policies at his father’s properties".  You know, the stuff required by science and law to make a solid judgement.

I have discussed the validity of your claim about the apartment rental issue. Trump, among others, was sued for discrimination. That is undeniable. It isn't proof by itself that he is racist... but it's evidence (in conjunction with other accusations over the decades) that he might be.

You keep putting "all of the other other stuff" into quotes as if all of the other evidence that Trump is racist and corrupt doesn't exist or is irrelevant. That's what I don't get about your argument. Why aren't we allowed to use ALL of the available evidence about Trump to form our OPINIONS about him? Why aren't we allowed to have OPINIONS about him at all?

Are we supposed to just pretend Trump didn't push a racist conspiracy theory about President Obama? Are we supposed to pretend he didn't refuse to disavow David Duke's endorsement when asked to do so on national TV? Are we supposed to pretend he didn't call for the executions of the Central Park 5 even after they were cleared? Are we supposed to pretend that he hasn't advocated for policies that restrict the immigration (legal or otherwise) of people who are not white or Christian?

Why are we only allowed to look at that one apartment rental situation that you have unilaterally declared closed?

Quote
To revisit in what may be a productive manner, let's go back to my Jeff Dahmer, example, and make it even more specific.  If Dahmer's next door neighbor was deemed to be a missing person during the time that Dahmer lived there, and with no other evidence aside from Dahmer's other proven crimes, can you rightfully conclude Dahmer was involved with that neighbor's disappearance?

I would deem it to be worthy of investigation. If the neighbour was never found, Dahmer denied any involvement, and there were no other leads I would leave it as an unsolved case, but Dahmer would still be a prime suspect.

Using your "logic", we would not be allowed to investigate Dahmer in relation to that neighbour's disappearance unless we actually witnessed him murdering them. Thinking there might be a connection to the neighbour's disappearance and the known murderer next door is just conjecture on our part. So unfair!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on March 10, 2020, 03:00:16 AM
To my friends here:

I know this will not be to your liking but I have to say it - and apologise in advance...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-10/us-republicans-self-quarantine-coronavirus-contact-donald-trump/12041566
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 10, 2020, 04:03:30 AM
To my friends here:

I know this will not be to your liking but I have to say it - and apologise in advance...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-10/us-republicans-self-quarantine-coronavirus-contact-donald-trump/12041566
I'll be back later to reply to LO (thank you for that, sir), but I was just doing a quick check.  In doing so, I must say.. you gotta love the media.  From your link:
"The hardest-hit place in the United States has been a nursing home in the suburb of Kirkland in the Washington state capital of Seattle"

The legislature in Olympia must be ticked that they have to move. *sarcasm*
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on March 10, 2020, 04:46:02 AM
Hi!

In Australia, as a Defence contractor, after travelling through Sydney & Brisbane airports last week and working in a headquarters filled with people, I have started to remote work. I can do this easily and I only really need face-to-face contact every now and again.

I have no symptoms but since I am Type 2 diabetic, I don't want to take any risks.

My company supports my remote work, and Defence is happy as they get the software support they need. If I am infected, I won't spread it to anyone else; if I am clear I don't run the risk of becoming infected (through work).

In fact, I have suggested this provides us a great opportunity to demonstrate we can support our software remotely, care for our employees, and want to make sure we don't contribute to the present situation. In fact, the entire section I normally work in is going to all work remotely on Friday to ensure that we can do this without detriment to capability.

So... why can't the US President do the same? Why, when he has been placed at risk, isn't he getting tested and limiting the spread?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 10, 2020, 07:04:29 AM


So... why can't the US President do the same? Why, when he has been placed at risk, isn't he getting tested and limiting the spread?

<shrugs shoulders> Because he's bloviating moron??

This is worth a read and summarises the corner that he's painted himself into.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51803890
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 10, 2020, 11:20:34 AM
To my friends here:

I know this will not be to your liking but I have to say it - and apologise in advance...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-10/us-republicans-self-quarantine-coronavirus-contact-donald-trump/12041566
I'll be back later to reply to LO (thank you for that, sir), but I was just doing a quick check.  In doing so, I must say.. you gotta love the media.  From your link:
"The hardest-hit place in the United States has been a nursing home in the suburb of Kirkland in the Washington state capital of Seattle"

The legislature in Olympia must be ticked that they have to move. *sarcasm*

Everyone forgets Olympia exists.  As an Olympian, I'm used to it.  There's actually a state law that all state departments (except tribal agencies, which are allowed to be on tribal land of the relevant tribe) have to have their headquarters within a certain number of miles of the capitol building to prevent all the departments from moving to Seattle, which most of them would prefer to do.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 10, 2020, 11:51:13 AM
Quote
As an Olympian...

That has a nice ring to it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 10, 2020, 03:04:52 PM


So... why can't the US President do the same? Why, when he has been placed at risk, isn't he getting tested and limiting the spread?

<shrugs shoulders> Because he's bloviating moron??

This is worth a read and summarises the corner that he's painted himself into.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51803890

That article is bang on point.

Many other US Presidents (that is, those who didn't lie just about every time they opened their mouths) were often able to calm and reassure the American people (and the markets) in times of crisis by the careful and intelligent use of words, and by telling the truth. But Trump has told so many lies that no-one believes him any more. That is why the markets are not only failing to respond positively to what he says, his pronouncement appear to be driving them further down. Trump is incapable of instilling confidence.

Even his supporter base of deplorables, who knew he was lying, but didn't care because so long as his lies were "triggering the Libtards", are now beginning to realise the pickle that Trump has got America into with his inaction, his stupid decisions and his continual pronouncements about things he actually knows nothing about.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 10, 2020, 06:37:54 PM
You make "arguments" that you think are groundbreaking
Never claimed that.  Pointing out humans can be unaware of some of the things they do, when they should know better, being an idiom, is ground that has been thoroughly tilled.
As far as I can tell, our only "crime" is having an opinion about Trump that you don't like
No crime there, obviously, but when opinion is expressed as fact, I find fault.  If I have misinterpreted such sentiments, then that is on me, but the arguments presented to me, so far, have not indicated this to be the case.

I have discussed the validity of your claim about the apartment rental issue. Trump, among others, was sued for discrimination. That is undeniable. It isn't proof by itself that he is racist... but it's evidence (in conjunction with other accusations over the decades) that he might be.
As this is the guilt by association fallacy, you are claiming logical fallacies are evidence.  There may be other evidence that supports your position, but this bit has already been declared (per my previous reference) to not be evidence.  Yet you fight tooth and nail to champion this bit.  Would you allow a CT to use a logical fallacy as evidence?
You keep putting "all of the other other stuff" into quotes as if all of the other evidence that Trump is racist and corrupt doesn't exist or is irrelevant.
Because, when you have a CT backed into a corner on a specific point, they often use the "but there's all this other stuff" line in an attempt to change the subject, so they don't have to acknowledge their failure with the current point.  Regardless of anything else being true or not, the specific point should reasonably be able to stand on its own.

Go ahead, USE other evidence, but don't include faulty and/or flimsy material, too.  Such things can ONLY weaken your case.  Just as the most ridiculous CT claims (i.e., no stars = fake) immediately make them look ignorant of the most basic pertinent subject matter, so can weak arguments taint other attempts at dialogue.
I would deem it to be worthy of investigation. If the neighbour was never found, Dahmer denied any involvement, and there were no other leads I would leave it as an unsolved case, but Dahmer would still be a prime suspect.
Precisely.
Using your "logic", we would not be allowed to investigate Dahmer in relation to that neighbour's disappearance unless we actually witnessed him murdering them. Thinking there might be a connection to the neighbour's disappearance and the known murderer next door is just conjecture on our part. So unfair!
Here is where you get it wrong.  Using my "logic", with the situation as presented, you cannot use his neighbor's disappearance to conclude ANYTHING in relation to Dahmer.  It is a completely separate event.  You can look into it, just as they looked into the rental dispute, but when the investigators conclude there is no evidence to confirm it, you cannot justifiably continue to insist it is viable evidence against Dahmer.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 11, 2020, 03:02:33 PM
Well, The WHO has officially labeled the coronavirus as pandemic.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/who-declares-the-coronavirus-outbreak-a-pandemic/

And gillianren, I'm not sure what a pandemic response team would do differently from current actions, but I must say they could only make the situation better.  I still feel safe, myself, as I have spent my career containing and chasing after invisible (to the naked eye) particles, and know how to prevent cross-contamination.  I do, however, worry about some of my older friends, and hope they and all your dear ones weather this storm safely.  That goes for every member here.  Wishing you all the best of health.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 12, 2020, 11:04:14 AM
Seattle public schools are closed for two weeks at least.  In Seattle, all events larger than 250 people have been cancelled.  Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have tested positive, and because of current CDC problems (in part stemming from not having a pandemic response team), they wouldn't have gotten tested at all if they'd been in the US.  (And, sure, we care because they're celebrities, but the fact remains that he's a diabetic in his 60s and not guaranteed a positive outcome, even with doctors on top of the situation.)  And we have a man in charge right now who didn't understand why getting a flu shot wouldn't protect you from coronavirus.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 12, 2020, 01:49:14 PM
we have a man in charge right now who didn't understand why getting a flu shot wouldn't protect you from coronavirus.
Now, that DOES scare me...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 12, 2020, 01:50:21 PM
Great points made in the Twitterverse comparing this to the Y2K bug - people think it was overhyped because in the end nothing really bad happened, but the only reason nothing really bad happened is because thousands of people spent millions of man-hours scrubbing and patching legacy COBOL code before it became a problem, and they still didn't catch everything. 

It's the same thing with FEMA, it's the same thing with this - you always keep supplies and manpower in reserve so it can be mobilized and directed quickly as soon as a problem is detected.  In this particular case, gathering data, performing tests, etc.  You don't want to wait until you get to the exponential growth stage before you figure out how to test for it. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 13, 2020, 09:10:42 AM
Then there's the way he mangled his address to the nation: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-13/how-will-coronavirus-impact-the-us-presidential-election/12051232

Quote
Without warning and with next to no consultation with foreign allies and even key members of his own administration, Mr Trump announced a travel ban...

Quote
...his statement didn't clearly state that the travel ban only applies to foreign citizens. Nor did his speech indicate what countries in Europe would be included.

Quote
"These prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval," Trump said. He was wrong. It seems Trump had inadvertently added one hugely consequential word: "only".

Quote
...he also wrongly claimed health insurance companies would "waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments". But all they'd agreed to was testing.

And Trump claimed his administration is "making antiviral treatments available in record time," when there are as yet no approved antiviral treatments for COVID-19.

All in one speech.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 13, 2020, 11:05:38 AM
Olympia schools close as of Monday, except for the one that's closed today because someone connected with someone who works there has an unofficially confirmed case.  Meanwhile, the Senate--for which of course read Republicans--has blocked a bill that would guarantee sick leave for people who have to quarantine, thereby guaranteeing that people can't afford to quarantine.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 13, 2020, 11:20:34 AM
What exactly is causing the hold up with the testing in the US? Is it an actual shortage of something (test kits, or people able to do the test), or is there some kind of political road block (ie. the government is not willing to pay for the tests, or does not see the need for them)?

I'm not sure how easy it would be for me to get tested here in Canada, but it sounds to me like it is more of a "don't overburden the hospitals by getting tested unnecessarily" concern, not a matter of patients not being able to be tested even if the doctors wanted to.

All publicly funded schools in Ontario will be closed starting Monday (which would have been the start of March Break anyway) until at least April 5th. And Prime Minister Trudeau is in isolation because his wife has tested positive for the corona virus. Meanwhile, our Ontario Premier (and Donald Trump wannabe) Doug Ford has said people should have fun and continue travelling for March Break.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 13, 2020, 12:27:51 PM
What exactly is causing the hold up with the testing in the US? Is it an actual shortage of something (test kits, or people able to do the test), or is there some kind of political road block (ie. the government is not willing to pay for the tests, or does not see the need for them)?

"This may have delayed the response to the epidemic. Further, instead of using the World Health Organization’s tests for coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — for reasons best known to itself — chose to create its own test. Unfortunately, a part of the test kits was contaminated. The US Food and Drug Administration only gave states permission to create their own tests on February 29th."

From here:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/12/21176170/coronavirus-response-donald-trump-resign-crisis-pandemic-response
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 13, 2020, 12:29:40 PM
I have no evidence, but I would not be surprised if the WH is leaning heavily on the CDC. The last thing that Captain Bonespurs wants is lots of testing and lots of people being declared infected.

Read this:https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/united-states-badly-bungled-coronavirus-testing-things-may-soon-improve

And then this: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 13, 2020, 02:46:27 PM
I have no evidence, but I would not be surprised if the WH is leaning heavily on the CDC. The last thing that Captain Bonespurs wants is lots of testing and lots of people being declared infected.

Yes, that is more or less what I suspected too. It certainly seems like Trump is more interested keeping the numbers artificially low (by keeping infected cruise ship passengers aboard the ship, for example).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 13, 2020, 02:51:09 PM
Then there's the way he mangled his address to the nation: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-13/how-will-coronavirus-impact-the-us-presidential-election/12051232

Quote
Without warning and with next to no consultation with foreign allies and even key members of his own administration, Mr Trump announced a travel ban...

Quote
...his statement didn't clearly state that the travel ban only applies to foreign citizens. Nor did his speech indicate what countries in Europe would be included.

Quote
"These prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval," Trump said. He was wrong. It seems Trump had inadvertently added one hugely consequential word: "only".

Quote
...he also wrongly claimed health insurance companies would "waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments". But all they'd agreed to was testing.

And Trump claimed his administration is "making antiviral treatments available in record time," when there are as yet no approved antiviral treatments for COVID-19.

All in one speech.

We did our apocalypse shopping last weekend.  Hand sanitizer was long gone, but pretty much everything else was well-stocked.

Last night I had to pick up a couple last-minute items, and people were in full panic-buying mode.  Rice, beans, dried spaghetti, canned soup and some canned vegetables, instant ramen, paper towels, and toilet paper were gone.  Evil factory-farm eggs were almost gone.  That unbelievable train wreck of an address spooked the holy crap out of a lot of people. 

Fortunately there was plenty of booze, so I got a couple of extra bottles of wine and beer so we don't have to go out for anything in the next couple of weeks. 

Cases have been confirmed in Austin, so everything is shutting down.  We haven't been ordered to work from home yet, but I imagine that will change in next week or so. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 13, 2020, 03:23:01 PM
We did our apocalypse shopping last weekend.  Hand sanitizer was long gone, but pretty much everything else was well-stocked.

I've been buying extras of things I would normally buy anyway. I want to be able to go a couple of weeks without going to the grocery store. I'm not a full on prepper yet, and my off grid cabin in the woods is still a pipe dream.

Quote
Cases have been confirmed in Austin, so everything is shutting down.  We haven't been ordered to work from home yet, but I imagine that will change in next week or so.

My job just recently switched me to working from home full time in November. I haven't had so much as a runny nose all winter. I highly recommend working from home to anyone who can. Not everyone can handle the isolation I guess, but I was born for it.  ;)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 13, 2020, 03:54:50 PM
I have a friend who was supposed to be a critic at SXSW this year for the first time.  That got canceled.  My faire boss is having a lot of events canceled, which is really going to hurt his pocket.  (LO, can I link his site?  He's even got some fun space-themed pins.)  Yesterday, $1.5 trillion dollars was dumped into the stock market, which boosted it . . . for half an hour.  And Trump hasn't been tested yet despite having contact with a known patient.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 13, 2020, 04:23:11 PM
My faire boss is having a lot of events canceled, which is really going to hurt his pocket.  (LO, can I link his site?  He's even got some fun space-themed pins.)

Sure, no problem. You've actually just got me thinking about something... tell me what you think. Maybe there could be a section of the forum where members can share their websites, info about their businesses, job opportunities, or even just their fun side projects. Sort of like the classifieds section of a newspaper. It wouldn't necessarily need be space related either, but I'd have to be careful because it could easily be abused. I might be able to set it up so I have to approve posts in that section.

Quote
Yesterday, $1.5 trillion dollars was dumped into the stock market, which boosted it . . . for half an hour.

Yikes. I definitely think it's the stock market investors, not the people stocking up on groceries, that are overreacting and need to chill.

Quote
And Trump hasn't been tested yet despite having contact with a known patient.

He's probably afraid of what the test will say.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on March 13, 2020, 05:49:57 PM
An old fat man like Trump who is exposed to infected people and refusing to be tested (or has he been tested secretly?) is a recipe for the VP taking over soon.   

Ranb
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 14, 2020, 12:19:49 AM
An old fat man like Trump who is exposed to infected people and refusing to be tested (or has he been tested secretly?) is a recipe for the VP taking over soon.   

Ranb

Hmm, in the same category as doctors who don't bother to disinfect their hands between ward visits: they're doctors and they cure people, they don't infect people.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 14, 2020, 06:53:39 AM
I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 14, 2020, 10:13:34 AM
I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

Interesting article, although with its American perspective I can't comment on some parts. Still, I can't resist chucking my hat in the ring...

Quote
I find it notable the media — every single network and most newspapers — used the phrase “Wuhan virus” or “Wuhan coronavirus” as this virus started spreading.

Here in Australia I don't remember hearing either term. We call it coronavirus or the coronavirus. And since the WHO gave it its official name, we occasionally use the term COVID-19. I find it notable that the author of the article didn't use the term COVID-19 once.

Quote
To claim that we cannot refer to the Wuhan virus by that name is to give special preference to China we have not given to African regions, Connecticut, or many other areas.

Well, I thought it was made pretty clear by the WHO that they'd recently changed their naming conventions for new diseases to not use locations and people in order to prevent stigmatising. I don't know whether it's happening in the USA, but in Australia there has been an unpleasant level of racism directed at people of Asian origin, on the basis that the disease originated in an Asian country.

The disease has an official name - why not use it to minimise confusion?

Quote
The truth is that the virus is a far bigger concern than the flu and pneumonia. But it is not some deadly pandemic that will see millions die.

That's pretty much how I see it. For the last week or so my (very inexpert) assessment has been this may end up being perhaps ten times worse than a bad flu season (all the worse in the southern hemisphere as we head into winter and flu time).

Personally, that makes me a little worried. I have a suppressed immune system, and one of my kids is particularly susceptible to lung infections having been born six weeks premature.

In return, can I offer this article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-14/coronavirus-threat-downplayed-by-leaders-over-economic-fears/12054860

Quote
International leaders including (but not limited to) China, Iran and the United States, have for weeks either withheld information, spread misinformation or consistently played down the threat of coronavirus...

Then there are leaders peddling misinformation: On Friday, as Akbar Velayati, one of the closest aides to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, went into quarantine, Khamenei said the virus could be part of a "biological attack".
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 14, 2020, 11:26:43 AM
With the problems with the US healthcare system, it's not unlikely that, if the precautions we're taking aren't taken, enormous numbers of people would die simply because there aren't enough ICU beds.  It's a known problem.

My faire boss's website is http://www.redwolfltd.com

The sayings pins in the "virtual booth" are alphabetized; in each section of the alphabet, there's a category called "knowledge base" that's the science stuff and the nerd stuff and so forth.  I can't figure out how to make tags work across pages, and we simply have too many pins not to make separate pages; the site gets confused if you have more than about 200 items on a page.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 14, 2020, 12:45:33 PM
Cases have been confirmed in Austin, so everything is shutting down.  We haven't been ordered to work from home yet, but I imagine that will change in next week or so.

And that changed.  Which kinda sucks, as I do poorly working from home - my workspace is a bit cramped and uncomfortable, and I'm way too easily distracted by all my toys.  But, both my wife and I are moderate risk - mid-50s, she's diabetic, and when I'm off my meds my blood pressure is ZOMG-why-aren't-you-in-the-hospital high - so we do need to cloister for the next couple of weeks.

And, true to form, Trump takes "no responsibility" for this clusterfuck of a response in the US.  Of course, he takes credit for the stock market crawling up on its knees after that historic faceplant caused by his address.  He'll take all the credit, but blame?  No, that's Obama's fault, or Biden's fault, or the Mexicans, or the Chinese, or the Europeans.  He's pure as the driven snow, only good things happen when he's around. 

He has fostered a toxic environment within his administration, where everyone is knifing each other in the back to win favor that day, and policy suffers as a result.  Azar and Verma are too busy sniping at each other to focus on little things like, oh, public health.  GOP members of Congress were waiting for him to tweet in favor of the relief bill before voting on it. 

It's just nuts.  These aren't good people who happen to be doing bad things, these are bad people.  They all have to be gone in November, not just Trump, but McConnell, Graham, Paul, Nunes, the whole toxic bunch. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on March 15, 2020, 07:50:20 AM
I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

Any article that begins by stating religious doctrine as fact loses credibility points very early with me. It loses a claim to even-handedness when it dismisses the pandemic response team as 'a bunch of bureaucrats appointed by Obama'. Not bureacrats, experts, advisors, people whose job it is to keep an eye on emerging disease outbreaks and come up with possibe countermeasures. Obviously they weren't a magic shield against COVID-19 but still, a useful resource that was slashed. As with your own comments about them, do you and the authors believe they just sat about waiting for a pandemic to be declared before leaping into action? Putting a few criticisms of Trump at the end of the article doesn't make it even handed, especially when it has a whole swath pf factually incorrect material in the middle.

The complaint that calling the virus Wuhan virus was racist and promoting xenophobia absolutely did not start when Trump and the Republicans started using it. It started very early when it became apparent that it was leading to people of Chinese descent who had never set foot in China, never mind Wuhan specifically, in their lives getting abused in the streets and turned away from places. By the time Trump started using the term the annoyance had become much more significant so people noticed it more.

As to the claim that calling it Wuhan virus is valid because it maintains a long-standing convention, when the most recent example of that naming system they can come up with is over 40 years old it is just possible that the convention has been changed, as indeed it has. This is COVID-19, as officially designated. Even calling it just 'coronavirus' has issues since it is one of many coronaviruses. I've seen people claim it's all a conspiracy because they've seen coronavirus mentioned on old medications, as if they think this is the first coronavirus ever.

It's also stretching a point to say coronaviruses like to mutate in ways that kill people but I won't get into that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 15, 2020, 12:51:14 PM
I'd also note that it's a naming convention that is often factually incorrect.  The example I tend to use is the Spanish flu, which neither originated nor was at its worst in Spain.  It's just that Spain wasn't one of the countries censoring news due to World War I, and active reporting from Spain was accurate, unlike that in, say, Kansas, a place that was a significant disease vector.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 15, 2020, 01:49:18 PM
I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

"Even-handed"??? Are you having a laugh or just trolling at this stage? It starts with a load of Bronze Age Christianity BS. It refers to a Chinese website as a "commie site". It's no wonder that you hold the views that you have if you think that this is "even-handed".

In other news, Trump has apparently been tested as negative. There is no justice in this world  ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 15, 2020, 01:53:36 PM
By the way, the virus is not called "the Wuhan virus" or "Wuhan coronavirus". It is called SARS-Cov-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). The condition that it causes is named COVID-19.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 15, 2020, 02:52:54 PM
I am sure some will disagree, but I like this even-handed (IMHO) assessment regarding COVID-19, and the political spin put on it and previous outbreaks by both Democratic and Republican viewpoints.
https://ewerickson.substack.com/p/truth-in-this-moment?r=3uwr9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3nwwvF8OcoSWvdV2QVz8-Z-qmReQQJHUBsxk2m6PKNFzbIwNA2gDrXa0M

"Even-handed"??? Are you having a laugh or just trolling at this stage? It starts with a load of Bronze Age Christianity BS. It refers to a Chinese website as a "commie site".

Why would you expect anything better from an ultra-conservative evangelical blogger

Lets have a quick review of Erickson's track record.

* In a 2013 interview in Fox News, he said that males dominate females in the "natural world" and it was only "science" for men to be the breadwinners for their family.
 
* In 2015, and in true Lindsay Grahamish fashion, he called Donald Trump a racist and a fascist and vowed he would never vote for him, then in 2019, endorsed him for the 2020 election.

* Also in 2015, he posted a picture of a bullet ridden copy of The New York Times that he had shot at, and edition that  contained a front-page editorial in favor of gun control.

* In 2017, he signed "The Nashville Statement", a Christian manifesto that condemned homosexuality and transgender identity as "not according to God's plan".

In 2018 he spread a false story that Marjory Stoneman-Douglas High School school shooting survivor David Hogg was not actually at the Parkland school when it was attacked.

In short, Erickson is a misogynistic, homophobic, gun-loving, conspiracy nut-job - in every way, a splendid example of a good, Southern Bible-Basher.

It's no wonder that you hold the views that you have if you think that this is "even-handed".

I'm astonished that anyone who believes themselves to be a skeptic would post such an obviously one-sided (pro-Trump anti-Obama) article full of religious claptrap and conservative political bollocks, and then dare to call it "even handed".
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 15, 2020, 03:31:55 PM
I'm astonished that anyone who believes themselves to be a skeptic would post such an obviously one-sided (pro-Trump anti-Obama) article full of religious claptrap and conservative political bollocks, and then dare to call it "even handed".
With the exception of the pro-Trump anti-Obama portion, all posted criticisms of that article and my ignorance on the subject are justified, so far.  A few correct words do not make up for all the incorrect ones.  I do thank the responding posters for any and all information and corrections.  My exception is because those portions of the link, as well as interpretations of it, are predicated on opinion, rather than demonstrable fact.

Now, please excuse me, as I am still in the process of choking down a healthy serving of humble pie...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 15, 2020, 05:56:49 PM

Why would you expect anything better from an ultra-conservative evangelical blogger


I had never heard of the dude mainly because I avoid the head-banging end of the Internet as much as possible.


I'm astonished that anyone who believes themselves to be a skeptic would post such an obviously one-sided (pro-Trump anti-Obama) article full of religious claptrap and conservative political bollocks, and then dare to call it "even handed".
I couldn't agree more. In my opinion, using such an extreme, obnoxious source tells me that not only is the quoter familiar with that type of cesspit of opinion, but also has normalised it to such a level that he feels that is even-handed. It couldn't be further from being even-handed if Alex Jones had spouted it.

As we say in Lancashire, "Nowt as queer as folk"!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 16, 2020, 06:32:39 AM
stay classy, Donald. Stay classy.....


https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald-trump-tried-to-buy-firm-working-on-coronavirus-vaccine/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 16, 2020, 08:07:34 AM
...As to the claim that calling it Wuhan virus is valid because it maintains a long-standing convention, when the most recent example of that naming system they can come up with is over 40 years old it is just possible that the convention has been changed, as indeed it has. This is COVID-19, as officially designated. Even calling it just 'coronavirus' has issues since it is one of many coronaviruses. I've seen people claim it's all a conspiracy because they've seen coronavirus mentioned on old medications, as if they think this is the first coronavirus ever...

To be fair, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome was so named in 2013. So the change to more appropriately neutral naming is actually fairly recent.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 16, 2020, 08:10:22 AM
stay classy, Donald. Stay classy.....


https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald-trump-tried-to-buy-firm-working-on-coronavirus-vaccine/

Okay, the Administration tried to buy the company. Reading the headline, I thought that Trump tried to buy it personally (but what does it say about me and Trump that I could think such a thing was believable...).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 16, 2020, 10:50:04 AM
Yee - and let me stress this - ha (https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/15/investing/stock-futures-global/index.html):

Quote
New York (CNN Business)US stocks opened sharply lower on Monday as investors grew concerned that the emergency policy measures by global central banks over the weekend meant the economy is in much worse shape than previously believed.

Instead of soothing the markets, another emergency interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve had the opposite effect.
The S&P 500 opened down 8.1%. The index hit a circuit breaker after falling more than 7%. Trading is now halted for 15 minutes.
The Dow opened 9.7%, or 2,250 points, lower and the Nasdaq Composite fell 6.1%.

And as soon as the market stands up again, bloodied and broken after falling off a 300 foot cliff, the sonafabitch will be right there to take credit in all caps.  Because that's just what he is. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on March 16, 2020, 11:31:52 AM

And as soon as the market stands up again, bloodied and broken after falling off a 300 foot cliff, the sonafabitch will be right there to take credit in all caps.  Because that's just what he is.

And his supporters and cheerleaders will whoop and holler about what a great guy he is. The cognitive dissonance is strong in them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 16, 2020, 11:50:28 AM
And Gods forbid the money they pump into the market could instead go to making sure low-income people can actually stay home without worrying about being starving and homeless--they're even planning to still go ahead with SNAP cuts.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 17, 2020, 07:19:56 AM
And Gods forbid the money they pump into the market could instead go to making sure low-income people can actually stay home without worrying about being starving and homeless--they're even planning to still go ahead with SNAP cuts.

Just to provide a point of comparison, one part of the Australian Government's stimulus program is $750 payments to people on benefits - unemployed, pensioners and carers. Sure, it's a small part in comparison to the part helping businesses to keep people employed. But it's hard to see what would happen with that $750 other than...it's going to get spent, and generally spent locally, which will help local businesses: by and large the recipients of this handout aren't people looking to top up superannuation accounts, they're people with essentially no savings and the money will help pay a few bills and let them top up the pantry. (And remember, Australia has an essentially conservative government.)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 17, 2020, 11:55:26 AM
I'm on Social Security disability.  There are two types, SSI and SSDI.  SSI is for people without much work history, and it's the version I'm on--and I get $750 or so a month myself.  Which is definitely not enough to pay for my expenses.  I forget what my share of the money would've come to, but I definitely could've used it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on March 28, 2020, 03:50:52 AM
Meanwhile in la la land.

(https://i.imgur.com/r1Dk4Bp.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on March 28, 2020, 09:42:37 AM
This upsets me. Up until this crisis, I've been mostly eye-rolling at the antics of Trump and his coterie, but now with his plans for "back to normal" (hah) by Easter he's basically planning to kill vast numbers of people - and I'm in Canada, one of the two the countries most directly affected by his madness. And his approval rating is high (well, for him, at around 46%). This is insane.

And in that picture, the people around the man (don't know him, I assume he's something like the Governor of Florida?) are not practising the social distancing required now.

:shudder:
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 28, 2020, 10:29:04 AM
And in that picture, the people around the man (don't know him, I assume he's something like the Governor of Florida?)...

It's a scene from the movie Jaws.  They've closed the beaches because of the shark, and the locals are anxious to get back to business as usual.  The man in the picture is the mayor.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on March 28, 2020, 12:30:10 PM
Ah. I wouldn't have known that, I've not seen the movie (and it's not the sort that would appeal to me). The ironic thing is that fictional mayor is actually saner than some of the idiots in power now; a shark doesn't exponentially increase the number of its victims over time. Trump's "packed churches at Easter" is basically "let's see how fast we can make it spread". :mad:
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on March 28, 2020, 12:32:51 PM
Ah. I wouldn't have known that, I've not seen the movie (and it's not the sort that would appeal to me).

The shark looks pretty fake.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 28, 2020, 12:40:32 PM
The shark is actually barely in the movie, because it didn't work very well.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on March 29, 2020, 06:20:19 AM
Ah. I wouldn't have known that, I've not seen the movie (and it's not the sort that would appeal to me).

The shark looks pretty fake.

Yeah, Marty McFly agrees...

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 29, 2020, 07:14:37 AM
Yeah, Marty McFly agrees...
True, in words, but then why was he cowering and screaming in terror?  Just sayin'...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 29, 2020, 04:50:13 PM
Ah. I wouldn't have known that, I've not seen the movie (and it's not the sort that would appeal to me).

The shark looks pretty fake.

It does now.  45 years ago it looked real enough to give me nightmares for weeks.

It is a damned good movie, though, and well worth watching.

Something that didn’t make it from the book to the movie is how mobbed up the town council was, and how that played a role.  IIRC, Mayor Vaughn was up to his eyeballs in debt, and Brody and his family were directly being threatened over his wanting to close the beaches.

Which feels strangely relevant now.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on March 29, 2020, 10:32:12 PM
How long before Trump boasts that they have more COVID-19 cases than anywhere else in the world?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 30, 2020, 12:18:35 AM
How long before Trump boasts that they have more COVID-19 cases than anywhere else in the world?
How long before Pelosi is more reviled than Trump?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on March 30, 2020, 02:54:43 AM
How long before Trump boasts that they have more COVID-19 cases than anywhere else in the world?
How long before Pelosi is more reviled than Trump?
I don't get all the news over here. What is she doing?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 30, 2020, 03:37:20 AM
How long before Trump boasts that they have more COVID-19 cases than anywhere else in the world?
How long before Pelosi is more reviled than Trump?
I don't get all the news over here. What is she doing?
Apart from all the wasted time and money investigating Trump for Russian election collusion, and trying to impeach him on other grounds (when the whole WORLD knew it was useless), she held up the COVID-19 aid bill for Americans to force non-essential green deal and socialist riders onto it.  Recently, she accused Trump of killing Americans with his COVID-19 policies, despite the fact his early travel bans undoubtedly spared hundreds, if not thousands of lives, yet were criticized at the time by the Democrats. 

Here is an example, albeit from a conservative source (you wouldn't expect the liberal media to honestly condemn her vile rhetoric, would you?), of a response to her hateful discourse -
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2020/03/29/graham-torches-pelosi-most-shameful-disgusting-statement-by-any-politician-in-modern-history-n2565939

Now, I know this topic is for Trump-bashing posts, but the absurdity of the lengths to which some people go, while abandoning their critical thinking abilities (if any) yet remaining silent on their own political representatives' failings, can be a real head-shaker.  I just like to point out that, if we decide to take unyielding sides in the current political environment here in the U.S., we are ALL residing in glass houses.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 30, 2020, 11:18:34 AM
Yeah, how dare she try to hold the President accountable to the rule of law?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 30, 2020, 11:19:08 AM
Also, you do know that the Republican version of the bill basically would've been writing a blank check to Trump's hotels, right?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 30, 2020, 01:01:22 PM
Also, you do know that the Republican version of the bill basically would've been writing a blank check to Trump's hotels, right?
An absurd projection of the original contents.
 
Now please re-read THIS carefully, as it is, and has been, my entire complaint:
"I just like to point out that, if we decide to take unyielding sides in the current political environment here in the U.S., we are ALL residing in glass houses."

Are you being blinded by the spider-webs in your structure?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on March 30, 2020, 03:43:09 PM
I want everyone to know I'm doing my absolute best to behave.  I have not engaged in this particular discussion directly because I do not want to get banned, but I can't let this one slide.  It just may take a couple of days to show up as I may have to edit (and re-edit, and re-re-edit) some ... colorful ... expressions, although I won't guarantee a total family-friendly rant.  I'm accustomed to being more direct on other forums. 

How long before Trump boasts that they have more COVID-19 cases than anywhere else in the world?
How long before Pelosi is more reviled than Trump?
I don't get all the news over here. What is she doing?
Apart from all the wasted time and money investigating Trump for Russian election collusion,

The bulk of the Mueller investigation took place in 2017 and 2018, when the GOP held the House majority and Paul Ryan was speaker and Devin "Mooooo" Nunes was the chair of the HPSCI.  The Democrats were not in power when the decision was made to launch the investigation in the House, nor were they in power when the bulk of indictments were issued, nor were they in power when Manafort and Cohen were convicted for real crimes (fraud, campaign finance violations) above and beyond lying to investigators. 

Nothing was directly tied to Trump thanks to a coordinated obstruction effort between the WH and Republican Congressional leadership (such as allowing witnesses to simply refuse to answer subpoenas).  Nothing about that investigation shocked me more than discovering Jeff "Weed Whacker" Sessions had the most integrity in the entire goddamned administration.

Yes, Nancy and the rest of the House Democrats pushed for the investigation, which was warranted based on the intel gathered to that point.  Hell, "Russia, if you're listening" was a GIANT RED FLAG that should have caused the GOP to drop Trump like a lump of hot plutonium all by itself (and would have, not that long ago).  Once the Democrats took power they should have used Congress' inherent contempt power to frog-march witnesses to the Hill. 
 
Quote

and trying to impeach him on other grounds (when the whole WORLD knew it was useless),


Impeachment isn't just about removing someone from office, although Trump should have been before things got this far

Trump withheld critical military aid from an ally against a shared geopolitical adversary in exchange for a political favor.  Not for an official policy position, not for a commitment to shared defense, not for one of a hundred other legitimate strings that we have tied to aid in the past, but for a political favor against a domestic rival.

There's a term known as "normalization of deviance" - the gradual acceptance of practices that were previously unacceptable.  As deviant behavior is repeated without catastrophic results, it slowly becomes the new norm.  The term comes up a lot in discussion of the Challenger disaster, and how NASA progressively let more and more previously unacceptable practices slide, until they needlessly killed 7 astronauts.  And then did it again a couple of decades later. 

Doing nothing accelerates that normalization.  By bringing up articles of impeachment, the Democrats were at least taking a stand to say that hey, this behavior is unacceptable, it has always been unacceptable, and it should be called out as such.

The fact that you think it was a waste of time means you are part of that normalization of deviance.  That you and so many others are just fine with a President using the resources of foreign governments (friendly or otherwise) to go after his domestic political rivals means that deviant behavior will become the new norm.  Which means you better keep your goddamned mouth shut when a Democrat starts doing it, because if you think it's acceptable for Trump, then it's just as acceptable for Biden. 

I mean, ask yourself honestly, would you have objected if Obama had used his power to pressure, say, the Saudis into announcing an investigation into Don Jr. or Eric for the purpose of embarrassing or discrediting their father?  For me, the answer is yes.  I would be genuinely surprised if your answer was no (if it is no, and you are cool with this regardless of who does it - we are so doomed). 

This is the horror of this (mal)administration.  So many lovely precedents are being set regarding the expansion of Executive power and behavior and the so-called party of small government is cheering it on loudly and enthusiastically, never considering for an instant that this same expansion of power can and will be used against them at the earliest opportunity. 

Quote
she held up the COVID-19 aid bill for Americans to force non-essential green deal and socialist riders onto it.

The primary objections to the relief bill as it was written were that it gave Mnuchin sole discretion to disburse $500 bn (yes, Virginia, half a trillion dollars) with no oversight, no guarantees workers would be retained, no assurance that it wouldn't personally enrich the Trumps, etc. 

Quote
  Recently, she accused Trump of killing Americans with his COVID-19 policies, despite the fact his early travel bans undoubtedly spared hundreds, if not thousands of lives, yet were criticized at the time by the Democrats. 

We have community spread in all 50 states.  We're still in the exponential part of the curve and nowhere near the inflection point.  We've hit over 155,000 confirmed cases, over 2800 deaths, and it isn't showing any signs of slowing down.  The travel bans did dick-all.  It's here.  It's entrenched.  It's not just killing the old and the sick.  The average rate of increase in deaths over the last 12 days is 1.3, based on the Worldometer numbers.  If that rate continues to hold (and I have no reason to doubt otherwise, people aren't practicing social distancing for shit), around 6000 people will be dead by the end of the week.  Beyond that things start to get ugly.  If that 1.3 rate holds for the entire month of April, then we could be looking at close to a million deaths.  While I think 1.3 will hold for the week, I doubt it will hold for the entire month.  If the average rate from here on out is, say, 1.15, then we're looking at "only" 225k dead by April 30. A drop to 1.1 will limit deaths to 54K.  But that only happens if a) people stay home, b) testing ramps up so we can more effectively target resources, and c) a viable treatment shows up in the next couple of weeks. 

There's still plenty of headroom in the S part of the SIR model.  50% of the US population lives in just 144 counties.  Over 150 million people are concentrated together in large, highly interconnected urban areas with lots of opportunities to infect each other.  With little to no testing, we have no idea who's sick, who's put other people at risk, or where new clusters are going to pop up. 

Had Trump listened to health experts and his own intelligence community, we'd have been ramping up testing in late December/early January, aggressively testing and tracking everyone entering the country from affected areas, and isolating and quarantining everyone who'd been exposed, and we could have kept the total number of cases in the dozens, maybe low hundreds, and it would be done. 

But thanks to his actions, his insistence on downplaying it as a hoax during the critical weeks it was gaining a toehold in the country, we're going to celebrate if we manage to keep the death toll to "only" 200,000 or so (best case scenario at this point), and we'll be in this mode for months

200,000 deaths is a failure.  An abject, wholly unacceptable, wholly avoidable failure.  And that failure will lie with the man who said, and I fucking quote, "No, I don't accept any responsibility". 

(https://media.giphy.com/media/1qRUMGKdnqDss/giphy.gif)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: MBDK on March 30, 2020, 05:40:55 PM
I'm accustomed to being more direct on other forums. 
I personally have no problem with that.
Yes, Nancy and the rest of the House Democrats pushed for the investigation, which was warranted based on the intel gathered to that point.
Your opinion, as well as that of many others, but ultimately one that was unfounded regarding its stated purpose.  NONE of your highly touted convictions had any direct links to Trump/Russian collusion.  But it sure seems to make you feel good to bring such irrelevance up, anyway.
Hell, "Russia, if you're listening" was a GIANT RED FLAG that should have caused the GOP to drop Trump like a lump of hot plutonium all by itself (and would have, not that long ago).
They are not so easily fooled,as others.
Impeachment isn't just about removing someone from office, although Trump should have been before things got this far
Agree with former, not latter.  This impeachment was all political.  A wish for earlier impeachment is just your prejudicial wish.
Trump withheld critical military aid from an ally against a shared geopolitical adversary in exchange for a political favor.
Yawn...previously discussed, and again, comes down to conjecture.  No matter how many times you whine otherwise, it does NOT change that fact.
There's a term known as "normalization of deviance" - the gradual acceptance of practices that were previously unacceptable.
True.  BOTH sides do it.  YOU, too, by defending Pelosci's actions, among other things.
Which means you better keep your goddamned mouth shut when a Democrat starts doing it, because if you think it's acceptable for Trump, then it's just as acceptable for Biden.
 
See?
I mean, ask yourself honestly, would you have objected if Obama had used his power to pressure, say, the Saudis into announcing an investigation into Don Jr. or Eric for the purpose of embarrassing or discrediting their father?  For me, the answer is yes.
Yes, for those stated reasons.  To speculate Trump was trying doing to do the same thing for the same stated reasons is only that.
The primary objections to the relief bill as it was written were that it gave Mnuchin sole discretion to disburse $500 bn (yes, Virginia, half a trillion dollars) with no oversight, no guarantees workers would be retained, no assurance that it wouldn't personally enrich the Trumps, etc. 
Only partially true.  I suggest you revisit that statement after you do a little better research.  It still does not justify Pelosi's unrelated demands.
We have community spread in all 50 states...
I am familiar with the statistics and various projections.
Had Trump listened to health experts and his own intelligence community...
If done perfectly, you could be right, but this is hindsight looking at a time when much of what we now know either wasn't proven, or had not yet come to light. 
we're going to celebrate if we manage to keep the death toll to "only" 200,000 or so (best case scenario at this point), and we'll be in this mode for months.
A very pessimistic outlook, and not shared by many leading experts.  Dr. Fauci's current "worst case" scenario is 100,000.  Still, that does not take away from the tragedy of this disease.
"No, I don't accept any responsibility". 
Yep.  A sad indication of his dismal leadership skills.  Where is Harry S. Truman when you need him?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 30, 2020, 06:25:36 PM
Hmmm, who was it who didn't see the problem with firing a pandemic response team earlier?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 30, 2020, 06:54:30 PM
I want everyone to know I'm doing my absolute best to behave.

I appreciate the effort it has taken you in this case.

Quote
200,000 deaths is a failure.  An abject, wholly unacceptable, wholly avoidable failure.  And that failure will lie with the man who said, and I fucking quote, "No, I don't accept any responsibility".

I agree, 100%. And you reminded me of this commercial that President Trump doesn't want people to see for some reason...

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 30, 2020, 07:10:32 PM
For MBDK:

(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech.png)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on March 30, 2020, 10:03:02 PM
I wasn't going to bother responding to this, but I might as well.

Apart from all the wasted time and money investigating Trump for Russian election collusion,

How on Earth is protecting national security a waste of time or money? If there was even the slightest possibility that Trump was being influenced by Putin it needed to be investigated. This is for your own good. Why don't you get that? Trump isn't royalty, he isn't a god, he isn't above the law, and he can be replaced with someone better. Why do people still protect and defend him? Throw him to the curb.

There were (and still are) concerns about Trump's loyalty, and his susceptibility to foreign influence. It would be foolish to not investigate him. Investigations aren't done only when all of the facts are known. You get the facts from the investigation. You don't ignore a serious threat to the country just because you don't know the outcome of the investigation ahead of time.

Quote
and trying to impeach him on other grounds (when the whole WORLD knew it was useless)

As someone who inhabits this world, I'll say that I don't think it was useless at all.

Sure, it didn't get Trump removed from office, but it exposed pretty much every Republican in Congress as corrupt. It showed that they were more concerned about staying in Trump's good books than they were in doing the right thing. It showed that they were willing to ignore his corruption to protect their re-election chances. It showed that the checks & balances that are supposed to protect the citizens of the United States from a dictatorship are powerless.

Quote
Recently, she accused Trump of killing Americans with his COVID-19 policies, despite the fact his early travel bans undoubtedly spared hundreds, if not thousands of lives, yet were criticized at the time by the Democrats.

Remember when you said you weren't here to defend Trump? Ha!

I didn't criticize Trump for banning travel from China. I criticized him for completely dropping the ball from that point on. I criticized him for trying to keep the number of infected people artificially low (by keeping people on cruise ships, or by not testing people) so that it wouldn't look bad for him. I criticized him for calling it hoax for two months when he could have been doing more to prepare for the oncoming pandemic. I criticized him for making this about him by vindictively punishing states who didn't praise him enough.

Quote
Here is an example, albeit from a conservative source...

I'm sure it will be totally unbiased then...  ::)

Quote
Now, I know this topic is for Trump-bashing posts, but the absurdity of the lengths to which some people go, while abandoning their critical thinking abilities (if any) yet remaining silent on their own political representatives' failings, can be a real head-shaker.

You are going to absurd lengths to polish the Trump turd. His ineptitude is going to cost many Americans their lives in the next weeks or months, and your lack of critical thinking skills has blinded you to that. And that hypocrisy is why I finally gave up on you. You are incapable of seeing the same behaviour that you criticize us for in yourself.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on March 31, 2020, 11:52:39 AM
I'm pretty sure literally everyone in this entire thread has been willing to acknowledge failings in their own leaders except the guy who wasn't going to defend Trump.  I and a lot of my friends are quite possibly going to be in a serious ethical bind come November--I believe only the Democratic nominee has a chance of genuinely beating Trump, and I believe there are credible accusations against Joe Biden--but that doesn't change what Trump is doing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on April 02, 2020, 02:26:09 AM
President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested that nurses and doctors in New York, the area in the U.S. hardest-hit thus far by the coronavirus outbreak, are stealing and selling facemasks and other protective gear meant to keep them safe as they handle an unprecedented influx of patients sick with the disease spreading across the country.

"Where are the masks going, are they going out the backdoor?" Trump said, implying that healthcare workers were smuggling personal proteective equipment (PPE) out of hospitals for resale on the black market.

"There's something going on. I don't think it's hoarding. I think it's maybe worse than hoarding," the president added, telling the assembled reporters to look into it.

Really? He is mentally unstable, surely?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 02, 2020, 04:52:04 AM
I don't know about that but - IMHO - he is un-presidential and not fit to lead a country.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 02, 2020, 11:42:00 AM
Worse than hoarding?  Like, you know, sending tons of gear to China just as the crisis was gearing up here?  Like he did?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 02, 2020, 11:59:12 AM
President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested that nurses and doctors in New York, the area in the U.S. hardest-hit thus far by the coronavirus outbreak, are stealing and selling facemasks and other protective gear meant to keep them safe as they handle an unprecedented influx of patients sick with the disease spreading across the country.

"Where are the masks going, are they going out the backdoor?" Trump said, implying that healthcare workers were smuggling personal proteective equipment (PPE) out of hospitals for resale on the black market.

"There's something going on. I don't think it's hoarding. I think it's maybe worse than hoarding," the president added, telling the assembled reporters to look into it.

Really? He is mentally unstable, surely?

I watched a video the other day of someone going around New York to show how deserted the streets and public spaces have become. And at one point he shows some guy selling face masks on a street corner for $1. Now, I am in no way saying that doctors or nurses provided the masks to that guy (that would be ridiculous), but it is suspicious that he had so many. Did they fall off the back of a truck?

Go to 2:14
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: AtomicDog on April 02, 2020, 04:52:14 PM
President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested that nurses and doctors in New York, the area in the U.S. hardest-hit thus far by the coronavirus outbreak, are stealing and selling facemasks and other protective gear meant to keep them safe as they handle an unprecedented influx of patients sick with the disease spreading across the country.

"Where are the masks going, are they going out the backdoor?" Trump said, implying that healthcare workers were smuggling personal proteective equipment (PPE) out of hospitals for resale on the black market.

"There's something going on. I don't think it's hoarding. I think it's maybe worse than hoarding," the president added, telling the assembled reporters to look into it.

Really? He is mentally unstable, surely?

I watched a video the other day of someone going around New York to show how deserted the streets and public spaces have become. And at one point he shows some guy selling face masks on a street corner for $1. Now, I am in no way saying that doctors or nurses provided the masks to that guy (that would be ridiculous), but it is suspicious that he had so many. Did they fall off the back of a truck?

Go to 2:14


Down here in Atlanta last night, a medical office was broken into. The only things stolen were masks and PPE.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 03, 2020, 05:51:15 AM
Here's an interesting article on how Trump could (technically but legally) steal the next election:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-01/coronavirus-can-donald-trump-cancel-the-us-2020-election/12105346
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 03, 2020, 10:44:01 AM
I'm not a religious person, but I hope Donald Trump burns in hell for eternity. With friends like him, who needs enemies?

3M says Trump administration has ordered end to respirator exports to Canada (https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/3m-says-trump-administration-has-ordered-end-to-respirator-exports-to-canada-1.4881032)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on April 03, 2020, 12:00:07 PM
That's the end result of his "America First" policy. 3M is objecting, pointing out that doing this may lead to retaliations (of course). Not that that's likely to move Trump, diplomacy for him is a club with rusty nails.

Not the only current issue in US/Canada relations either, the US border service is taking a different (and more relaxed) view of the border shutdown (specifically, that it only applies to vehicular/ground traffic; air and sea are OK). Canada views it as applying to everything, which to me makes sense.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 04, 2020, 11:25:55 AM
He literally does not understand the concept of compromise and sharing.  To him, there are winners and there are losers, and if you're going to win, someone else has to lose.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 04, 2020, 12:39:58 PM
He literally does not understand the concept of compromise and sharing.  To him, there are winners and there are losers, and if you're going to win, someone else has to lose.

Everything is a zero-sum game to this moron.
The real danger is the smarter people who are enabling him. Look at Kushner...a real estate magnate who's suddenly being trust into (and, I might add, utterly failing) all sorts of areas where he has no knowledge or perceived ability. He is smarter than Trump (to be fair, a half-eaten bowl of porridge meets that low criteria) but just as devious. Can you imagine him in the WH?

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/national-stockpile-website-kushner_n_5e876dbfc5b609ebfff09faf?ri18n=true&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS9jb2xsZWN0Q29uc2VudD9zZXNzaW9uSWQ9M19jYy1zZXNzaW9uX2Y0ZWNmZWE5LTU1NTktNGMyNS04YTdhLTZjZGY3YjA2ZTU5OSZsYW5nPWVuLXVzJmlubGluZT1mYWxzZQ&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFEC0iCLcqiOfyjo9aJXOQGunDWRpAVXf_DhTZIl8gIckcNMtHLouIipLvC130xJVPOwMfCIZvsDrfqYkJdxzr47A6A_4NDNIM8RFVPx89qmIMN_VPZruJiGvttKp3GUa0p_fGiQP7OqkY740eWDf33b0GPsatMvHE3QUjTThaVl
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on April 04, 2020, 05:23:39 PM
My family and I saw  this idiot who does president impressions, my wife, who is totally non political, watched with a dropped jaw as he made his comments about wearing masks. Or not as he emphasised.
I would like to know what presidents, kings and queens, dictators et al, will be having state visits to the White House in the near future?

The man is a joke.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on April 15, 2020, 11:23:58 AM
Could it get worse?
Yes, here you go

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/world-reacts-trump-withdrawing-funding-200415061612025.html

How does cutting the funds help in curbing the disease? How does punishment instead of dialogue and correction make the situation any good? Could it be that the economy is loosing and he wants to put the money "inside America" solely and he is taking advantage of the situation?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on April 15, 2020, 12:32:27 PM
Could it get worse?
Yes, here you go

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/world-reacts-trump-withdrawing-funding-200415061612025.html

How does cutting the funds help in curbing the disease? How does punishment instead of dialogue and correction make the situation any good? Could it be that the economy is loosing and he wants to put the money "inside America" solely and he is taking advantage of the situation?
The savings by cutting the funding are pretty insignificant compared to the US deficit and the current spending on dealing with the crisis.  I think his only motivation is to find someone to blame, and hope he can convince enough people to get re-elected.

His daily briefings are now basically just campaign rallies, playing to his audience.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 15, 2020, 01:34:00 PM
The U.S. contribution to the WHO amounts to approximately 15% of the organization's annual budget, according to CNN.  The claims I see in the right-wing circles are that WHO has little or no actual effect on world health.  Hence if the President believes this, then cutting its funding will have little actual detrimental effect on the global health crisis, since it would be consistent with that viewpoint to argue that any actual global effect is being accomplished by some means not affected by the funding.  However, effectively cutting its budget by 15% may compel the WHO to take steps that give credibility to the conspiracy the President has offered, that the U.S. response to COVID-19 was delayed by WHO mismanagement.  They may, for example, promise to investigate such a "delay" in return for immediate restoration of funding.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on April 15, 2020, 03:45:53 PM
I see.. thanks for the explanations..let us hope he will never be elected again
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Von_Smith on April 16, 2020, 12:10:08 AM

The savings by cutting the funding are pretty insignificant compared to the US deficit and the current spending on dealing with the crisis.
 

Sure, but think of all the hydroxychloroquine we'll be able to buy with that money.   ???

Quote
I think his only motivation is to find someone to blame, and hope he can convince enough people to get re-elected.

His daily briefings are now basically just campaign rallies, playing to his audience.

I continue to be both baffled and terrified that there is actually an audience for his performances at these briefings.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 16, 2020, 01:28:37 AM
I continue to be both baffled and terrified that there is actually an audience for his performances at these briefings.

It is actually frightening: he behaves how he does and a significant number of people think it is good?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 16, 2020, 02:30:44 AM
I continue to be both baffled and terrified that there is actually an audience for his performances at these briefings.

My father-in-law is a dyed-in-the-wool Fox-News-binging conservative.  For them it really rises no higher than "owning the Libs."  They don't really see this as issues of governance, human rights, etc.  it's really no more significant to them than, say, sports fandom.  And that's what scares me because it leads to a very shallow approach to important issues like public policy, electoral politics, and so forth.

The President's base really does see him as a person who would be an unqualified success if it were not for the perceived conspiracies of his political enemies.  The more I study his career, the more convinced I am that he's an abject failure as most of us would define the term, but is highly successful at excusing those failures.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 16, 2020, 03:04:16 AM
Could it get worse?
Yes, here you go

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/world-reacts-trump-withdrawing-funding-200415061612025.html

How does cutting the funds help in curbing the disease? How does punishment instead of dialogue and correction make the situation any good? Could it be that the economy is loosing and he wants to put the money "inside America" solely and he is taking advantage of the situation?

The thing to remember is that this is President Trump - the guy who can change his position on any issue on a day-by-day basis while simultaneously denying he's changed anything.

For all we know at the next briefing he'll say he has no plans to cut US funding to WHO and claim it's all a media beat-up. And meanwhile all his die-hard supporters, who've been cheering his toughness at standing up to WHO and China after this briefing, will turn around after the next briefing and point and laugh at all the "Progs" and "Libtards" who got all worked up over nothing after the first announcement.

In the meantime, here's another article about the issue from an Aussie perspective. What's worth noting is that the Australian Government agrees with Trump over many of his criticisms (for example, our Prime Minister and Health Minister were pretty much gobsmacked that WHO supported the reopening of wet markets), but is going to continue funding WHO because of the good work it does with the small Pacific nations in our part of the world: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-16/coronavirus-who-explainer-what-does-trump-funding-decision-mean/12151080

What it shows is something that I think a lot of Americans have forgotten - that it's possible to have a nuanced view on an issue: WHO isn't all good or all bad, and for all that Trump is an erratic narcissist he has valid criticisms of WHO.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on April 16, 2020, 07:49:04 AM
That's one of the problematic things about Trump, though: he doesn't do (or in my view, understand) anything but a gloves-off, confrontational approach to any and all issues.

He's also, apparently, announced Vince McMahon as the advisor to reopen the U.S. economy. They'll rassle that virus to the ground! (This is the guy who has continued WWE shows throughout the lockdown, albeit without audiences, unlike all other major sports and public entertainments.) Sigh.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 16, 2020, 10:20:00 AM
What it shows is something that I think a lot of Americans have forgotten - that it's possible to have a nuanced view on an issue: WHO isn't all good or all bad, and for all that Trump is an erratic narcissist he has valid criticisms of WHO.

I would be hard-pressed to pin down the point at which nuance left American politics, but there's little point denying that's where we are.  As I write above, I think the political discourse among ordinary Americans has devolved into little more than sports-like fandom.  Polarization naturally follows.

Similarly, I would be hard-pressed to name any international organization that wasn't affected in some visible way by geopolitics.  WHO is no exception.  A notable segment of ordinary Americans reflects an anti-globalist perspective.  Anything labeled a "world" organization is perceived to be governed by a brand of alien politics that they believe the U.S. should neither tolerate nor participate in.  The irony should be evident.  The U.S. meddles all the time in these organizations, just as they suspect other states do.  But somehow it's okay if the U.S. meddles, and does so according to comfortable American political strategies.

From the left-wing American perspective, it's easy to offer a knee-jerk rebuttal that sanctifies the WHO.  The President's critics realize that their base isn't any more open to nuance.  Hence the most effective framing is that of moral outrage:  how dare the President attack a wholesome and especially needful organization in a time of crisis?  It's certainly a persuasive argument, but not necessarily a very sound one.  The delayed U.S. response to an impending pandemic was due to causes we can easily determine to have nothing to do with WHO, so WHO's virtue is moot.  To be fair, the left has played both cards.  They argue both that the President is amoral for levying sanctions that benefit him politically, and that the President's argument is a non sequitur.

Stepping back, the larger American perspective on governance seems to be that everything is, and will always be, just fine.  The economy will self-regulate.  Nothing bad will happen.  And this gives rise to wholly unqualified governors, at all levels of the federal system.  Americans have become accustomed to the idea that politics and government are just games to be played, that have no meaningful effect on outcomes.  The entire American system seems to be thought of as "too big to fail," therefore, somehow, it won't, no matter what actions are taken.  I don't like where that's headed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 16, 2020, 11:47:56 AM
Stepping back, the larger American perspective on governance seems to be that everything is, and will always be, just fine.  The economy will self-regulate.  Nothing bad will happen.  And this gives rise to wholly unqualified governors, at all levels of the federal system.  Americans have become accustomed to the idea that politics and government are just games to be played, that have no meaningful effect on outcomes.  The entire American system seems to be thought of as "too big to fail," therefore, somehow, it won't, no matter what actions are taken.  I don't like where that's headed.

I recently read an interesting book about the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire by Peter Heather. Heather does a good job of working his way through the issues that led to the fall of the Empire and debunking the ones that don't work.

For example he shows that the ruling classes were neither decadent or religiously unworldly, and instead fought for the survival of the Empire almost to the end*. Rather than a popular image of Romans accepting the inevitability of the Empire's fall over the course of the 5th century, Heather instead suggests that the main attitudinal problem of the Romans was a cheerfully arrogant assumption that the Empire would survive - the Republic and Empire had fought their way out of several major crises in previous years, this was another major crisis, so they'd fight their way out of this one too. What the Romans didn't realise was that the world had changed in subtle ways over the preceding centuries, which was why methods which had worked in previous centuries failed in the 5th century.

Applying that to the current situation in the USA, it's enough to send a little shiver down the spine. Either the situation can be compared to the fall of the Roman Republic, in which case the USA survives but in a very different form; or the situation can be compared to the fall of the Empire, in which case the USA doesn't survive and the world undergoes a massive geopolitical shift. Either way the outcome will echo down the centuries.

And this is the thing: major realignments of geopolitical power not only cause major upheaval for the people living through them, but they often appear to occur with little warning as events which people think they've all seen before suddenly spiral in a different direction. The collapse of the Bronze Age civilisations in the early 12th century BC, the Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire, the rise of the Islamic Caliphate and the Russian Revolution are all examples that come to mind of times when the world changed massively in ways which probably wouldn't have been predicted a decade before they occurred.

* Heather fingers the year 468 (only 8 years before the Western Empire's final collapse) as the point of no return. That year the Eastern and Western Empires combined to launch an amphibious attack on the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa. Had it succeeded it would have returned the richest part of the Western Empire to Roman rule, giving it the resources to restore Roman rule in Spain and overawe the barbarian kingdoms in Gaul, and thus giving the Empire a new lease on life. Instead the invasion fleet was trapped by unseasonal winds and destroyed in battle.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 16, 2020, 09:30:12 PM
I was saying yesterday that my faire boss understands history, but the wrong history to be relevant to the points he's trying to make.  He's spouting a lot of talking points from "his familiarity with state and federal agencies" that are just wrong.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on April 17, 2020, 04:49:32 AM
“The curve is flattening, we can start lifting some restrictions now!” = “My parachute has slowed my rate of descent, I can take it off now!”
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Von_Smith on April 17, 2020, 09:54:35 AM
“The curve is flattening, we can start lifting some restrictions now!” = “My parachute has slowed my rate of descent, I can take it off now!”

There seems to be a lack of understanding that things like travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders are simply measures to buy time for a more robust public health response -which in the U.S. has yet to sufficiently materialize.  A lot of people still seem to think that COVID-19 will simply blow over on its own if they wait it out, which it eventually would -after millions of people die.  The Spanish flu and Black Death also eventually blew over on their own, but that's not a "resolution" sane people want.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 17, 2020, 10:59:27 AM
Doctor Oz apparently believes we can open the schools with no more danger than a 2-3% mortality rate!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 17, 2020, 11:11:05 AM
Doctor Oz apparently believes we can open the schools with no more danger than a 2-3% mortality rate!
And the supposedly "pro-life" Republicans will be okay with that because the economy (ie. making rich people richer) must come first.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 17, 2020, 11:32:09 AM
Doctor Oz apparently believes we can open the schools with no more danger than a 2-3% mortality rate!
And the supposedly "pro-life" Republicans will be okay with that because the economy (ie. making rich people richer) must come first.

Quote
In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson on March 23, 2020, {Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan} Patrick stated that he was willing to risk his life from the coronavirus pandemic if it would avoid an economic shutdown, which he stated would negatively impact subsequent generations. Patrick also stated that he thought many grandparents agreed with him on this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Patrick_(politician)#Coronavirus_pandemic

Yee-haw!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 17, 2020, 02:51:29 PM
Let's make a list of the economic policies advocated by this administration and the present Congress and evaluate them according to how much of an advantage they give to current and future generations.  How willing someone is to hypothetically die for another's economy pales in comparison to what that same person is unwilling to actually do to improve another's economy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 17, 2020, 02:58:17 PM
And the supposedly "pro-life" Republicans will be okay with that because the economy (ie. making rich people richer) must come first.

Our state legislature is in special session, virtually, to consider exactly this sort of question.  As you might guess, we have a GOP supermajority.  One of our local NPR reporters is also in the virtual meeting room.  She live-tweeted a couple hours ago that there is a proposal floated to officially shift the state's primary criterion for lifting quarantine restrictions from health to economy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 17, 2020, 03:39:31 PM
And the supposedly "pro-life" Republicans will be okay with that because the economy (ie. making rich people richer) must come first.

Our state legislature is in special session, virtually, to consider exactly this sort of question.  As you might guess, we have a GOP supermajority.  One of our local NPR reporters is also in the virtual meeting room.  She live-tweeted a couple hours ago that there is a proposal floated to officially shift the state's primary criterion for lifting quarantine restrictions from health to economy.

I hope voters remember that when round two of the virus begins.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 17, 2020, 03:52:26 PM
I hope voters remember that when round two of the virus begins.

Utah politics are ... "special," even when considered among some of the boneheaded things you see in other state governments.  Voting has never really been a factor in Utah politics.  We are heavily gerrymandered.  There is almost no chance of not having a GOP supermajority in the legislature and a GOP governor for the foreseeable future.  We are among the reddest of states, for reasons that would occupy an entire thread on their own.  There is hope in the fact that a friend of mine -- a professor at the law school -- is running for governor on the Democratic ticket.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on April 17, 2020, 06:50:35 PM
Doctor Oz apparently believes we can open the schools with no more danger than a 2-3% mortality rate!


That's 1 to 2 dead children/teachers per classroom.

In a grade school of 500 students, that's 10 to 15 dead children/teachers.

In a university like Georgetown that's 90 to 140 dead students/lecturers.

And the Doctor thinks this is OK?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Von_Smith on April 17, 2020, 08:18:45 PM
Doctor Oz apparently believes we can open the schools with no more danger than a 2-3% mortality rate!


That's 1 to 2 dead children/teachers per classroom.

In a grade school of 500 students, that's 10 to 15 dead children/teachers.

In a university like Georgetown that's 90 to 140 dead students/lecturers.

And the Doctor thinks this is OK?

"Studies" have shown that green coffee is high in zinc and hydrochloroquine.  I'm sure it'll be fine.

ETA:  Sorry if that's in bad taste.  Snarkiness and black humor is part of how I process this sort of crap.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on April 18, 2020, 02:03:40 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/0qn49cF.jpg)

The man is insane..
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on April 18, 2020, 02:30:32 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/ZwOG7zc.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 18, 2020, 11:48:57 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/0qn49cF.jpg)

The man is insane..
Yep.

(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200418/b94be4d833cf1c19b6c5df6e4db2984d.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 18, 2020, 12:03:09 PM
Is the President's reference to the 2nd Amendment really what I think it is?  It's being interpreted as suggesting armed rebellion, but has Trump said anything about what he might have meant instead?

As for the rest of it, it looks like he's encouraging the citizens of states whose governors he doesn't like to rebel against the orders of those governors.  It's one thing to urge political opposition to elected leaders via the social and political mechanisms, and another thing altogether -- sedition -- to incite disobedience.  And I supposed this has arisen because someone Trump trusts has convinced him he really doesn't have the authority as President to overrule them.  And it does no good to speculate about what laws the President may have broken or what consequences there can be for his actions, because the parts of the government that the GOP controls (save one Senator) have shown no intention of opposing him in the ways the U.S. Constitution provides for, if only to save themselves from embarrassment.

That's what baffles me.  Donald Trump's incompetence and instability have been on display long before Day One.  It should hardly surprise us anymore.  But not every Republican is as bat-crap crazy or as nefarious as Trump.  I keep asking myself at what point the rest of the party will say "Enough is enough."  I'm more than surprised to discover that this point hasn't yet been reached.  If not now, then at what point?  Peter B's post is spot-on.  America -- specifically, elected American officials, the wealthy, and the powerful -- seem to believe that any and all outrageous behavior on their part is sustainable because the institutions of the nation will somehow kick in and prevent any actual disaster, or at least insulate them from its effect.  They seem to consider it an infinitely exploitable system.  These institutions have an effect only insofar as the people they affect respect and uphold them.  Instead, people today are behaving as if there is some ineffable something about America that will magically prevent it from becoming no different than a banana republic and having all the problems that entails.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 18, 2020, 12:31:01 PM
I'm not sure if he's actively calling for civil war in the US, or if he's so terminally unaware that he's only focused on the November re-election. Either which way, what he is doing is incredibly dangerous given the powder-box mentalities of a lot of the US.

Putin's investment in Trump just keeps on returning paying dividends, doesn't it?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 18, 2020, 12:35:12 PM
Is the President's reference to the 2nd Amendment really what I think it is?  It's being interpreted as suggesting armed rebellion, but has Trump said anything about what he might have meant instead?

Like all bully boys his words leave enough wriggle room for the unhinged to interpret them whichever way they want and at the same time not specific enough so anyone can point the finger at Trump and nail him for it. Add to that that the man appears increasingly mentally compromised so he may not understand the impact of his words. He might just see all those MAGA hats and think that there's a group that he can motivate.

How the GOP can stand and not only ignore this dangerous buffoon's actions but actively enable them is beyond me. America is going to pay a heavy heavy price for Trump's failure to act against coronavirus and COVID-19.


(https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2020/04/Featured-Image-Template62.png?resize=865,452)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 18, 2020, 01:39:16 PM
I concluded long ago that Donald Trump quite literally does not care about anyone except himself.  He indulges others only to the extent he can exploit them for his own ends.  He sees the world only in terms of winners and losers, and in order for him to win in any way that has meaning to him, there has to be a clear loser.  In terms of good government, this means that the concept of compromise in favor of a greater good simply is not in his wheelhouse.  The only compromise he will entertain is the illusion of one where he sees a personal win at the end of it.  But the winner-loser mentality means he is skilled at creating the impression of losers.  And he's holding the GOP hostage by threatening to do that to its members by turning their electorate against them.  It's been the case in electoral politics for a number of years that you often succeeded only by endorsement from the highest elected official in your party you could access.  It likely never occurred to anyone that this could one day be a person so utterly unhinged from reality.  But it's too late to change that system.  That's my naive view of the world, anyway.  I don't profess to be a political scientist.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 18, 2020, 04:26:58 PM
It's funny how they all believe an out-of-control pandemic won't be damaging to the economy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 18, 2020, 07:01:03 PM
America is going to pay a heavy heavy price for Trump's failure to act against coronavirus and COVID-19.

Absolutely - the US is going to have to face second wave deaths that will make the first wave look like the odd few sick people.

Trump should be apportioned a large slice of the blame, with his incompetence and megalomania merging with complete disregard for human life, and actually encouraging people to break quarantine. On the other hand, there seems to be a significant number of people who actually believe him or hoax theories that have been floated. Is it schadenfreude to savor the irony that some of those same people will die from their own stupidity?

I still cannot understand why someone has not tried to knock off Trump; it could even be seen as justified!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 18, 2020, 07:11:27 PM
I'm sure plenty have tried.  All Presidents are threatened, and this one seems to be a magnet for hostility.  My cousin is a Secret Service agent.  The question, "How can you protect that awful so-and-so?" is the most asked.  When he was doing protective details, he made it very plain that the moral character, personal habits, or public policy position of the protectee are of absolutely no concern.  If a threat is successfully carried out on the protectee, they have failed professionally.  Full stop.  It seems hard to see these days, but there still are people whose commitment to their sworn obligations transcends everything else.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on April 18, 2020, 07:26:57 PM
Is the President's reference to the 2nd Amendment really what I think it is?  It's being interpreted as suggesting armed rebellion, but has Trump said anything about what he might have meant instead?
Trump goes back and forth like a clock pendulum on gun rights.  The Trump administration has required the seizure or destruction (or perhaps hiding) of more privately owned firearms than any other administration since FDR.

He is so often incoherent that I have given up trying to listen to him live and usually only read transcripts of what he says.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on April 18, 2020, 07:28:16 PM
Is it schadenfreude to savor the irony that some of those same people will die from their own stupidity?
I hope it is not.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 18, 2020, 10:56:37 PM
I'm not sure if he's actively calling for civil war in the US, or if he's so terminally unaware that he's only focused on the November re-election. Either which way, what he is doing is incredibly dangerous given the powder-box mentalities of a lot of the US.

Putin's investment in Trump just keeps on returning paying dividends, doesn't it?

Certainly appears to be. Though my impression is that Putin has been playing a much longer game than just Trump.

Back in the mid-1990s I remember having the impression that the senior American military leadership couldn't get over the end of the Cold War, and obsessed that Russia was as much of a threat as the USSR had ever been; by contrast to me Russia appeared to be in complete chaos and no threat to anyone.

But my impression has changed the longer Putin has remained in power. He seems determined to ruin the USA by whatever means possible, as revenge for the perceived humiliation of the USSR. And as Russia isn't anywhere close to a military threat to the USA he's using other time-honoured Russian techniques such as misinformation and misdirection and the employment of Useful Idiots. The classic example I remember is how Russian hackers used Facebook to organise competing protests at the same time and place in a city in the USA. And as an article pointed out a year or so ago, a room full of government hackers is cheaper than a single high-tech military aircraft. It's also more easily deniable and able to be applied to a much wider range of projects.

World War Two introduced people to the idea of Total Warfare. The Cold War introduced people to the idea of nuclear armageddon and proxy wars. This is just a new type of Cold War with even less direct military conflict, but there's certainly conflict happening. I'm just not sure many Americans realise the extent of it.

The frustrating thing about it is that it's hardly in Russia's best long-term interests to fixate on the USA. China is playing an even longer game than Russia, and it's going to be of little use to Russia to have fatally weakened the USA when China turns its attention on Russia.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on April 19, 2020, 03:36:32 AM
He is so often incoherent that I have given up trying to listen to him live and usually only read transcripts of what he says.
I hope they make more sense than trying to listen to him.  I general avoid hearing him speak (being in the UK makes it easier) but he comes across as illiterate, inarticulate, and with the mental development of an 8-year-old.
It baffles me that he still has the level of support that he does.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 19, 2020, 11:34:44 AM
...he comes across as illiterate, inarticulate, and with the mental development of an 8-year-old.

Yes, and he seems to have drawn out similar behavior among his supporters.  Political discourse with or among them rarely rises to any level higher than sports-like fandom.  They speak of political issues with no more articulation than cheering for their favorite team.  The farce that is the President's daily briefing illustrates my point.  As the President increasingly comes under fire from seasoned reporters on matters he is decreasing able to lie convincingly about, his base responds with things like:  "Watching Trump slam-dunk the lying lamestream media! #MAGA!"  They seem literally so caught up in the rhetoric of contention that they can't even tell you what the question was.

There is a reason Donald Trump's approval rating heavily correlates to education level.  He speaks to the uneducated in their own language.  And that language has nothing to do with any matter at hand.  It's just vague cheerleading.

Quote
It baffles me that he still has the level of support that he does.

He speaks the language of his based and doesn't burden them with overly taxing topics such as policy on trade, labor, commerce, foreign relations, constitutional government, etc.  He keeps their attention focused squarely on the designated enemy (the political left) and keeps them so stirred up in indignation that it becomes easy to lie about the facts.  Campaigning for office and executing an office require two entirely different skill sets.  Donald Trump is highly skilled at hyping a brand, but (it seems) little else.

What has baffled a lot of us, as you can see, is why the Republican Party not only endures it but also enables it and endorses it.  I think it might at first have been realizing too late that they were political hostages of an unhinged candidate.  Now I think it's a political Stockholm syndrome.  There's another hypothesis, and that's that the GOP playbook seems to include creating a diversion at some visible level of government while lesser-visible but ostensibly more powerful elements do nasty things while everyone's back is turned.  Donald Trump does a wonderful job of keeping the media focused on him.  Meanwhile you have people like Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky organizing the Senate to enact a longer-term Republican agenda.

For example, for the better part of a decade, the Senate under McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings on any of Barack Obama's appointments to the Federal bench.  In the end that amounted to something like 200 vacancies, more than half of which have now been filled by Trump appointees.  The Senate has abrogated nearly all its lawmaking duties in favor of confirming young federal judgeship candidates as fast as possible.  And it is reported that many of these are unqualified, but are confirmed anyway by the new simple-majority rule.  But those reports are buried on page 23 of the newspaper, while the President's often inconsequential antics get banner headlines.  This is perhaps more important than the prominent debate over Supreme Court nominees.  While the high court has a great deal of influence in shaping American jurisprudence, the vast majority of actual cases are decided by these rank-and-file federal judges and not reviewed by appeals courts.  Thus it is not hyperbole to say that McConnell's legacy will include a conservative takeover of U.S. courts.  And as the courts are increasingly relied upon to resolve disputes among the dysfunctional political branches of government, politicizing the judiciary in your favor is a sort of final straw.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 19, 2020, 11:59:13 AM
The classic example I remember is how Russian hackers used Facebook to organise competing protests at the same time and place in a city in the USA. And as an article pointed out a year or so ago, a room full of government hackers is cheaper than a single high-tech military aircraft.

According to my infosec friends, it's not even that sophisticated.  The exercise appears to follow a pattern of small, highly-trained groups using military-grade methods to compromise things like server farms and large numbers of fallow accounts, then turning the recovered credentials over to rooms full of relatively unsophisticated operatives to exploit.  Yes, it's still much cheaper to do that, but apparently even cheaper than you have hypothesized.  The people in the rooms are not hackers.  They're just people with the ability to point and click and follow a script.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 19, 2020, 12:41:04 PM
Absolutely - the US is going to have to face second wave deaths that will make the first wave look like the odd few sick people.

...which I'm sure will be dutifully blamed on Obama, Hillary Clinton, corrupt healthcare workers, China, the mainstream media, and all the other usual suspects.  The present administration seems perfectly content to suffer casualties as long as blame for it can be shifted.

Quote
...encouraging people to break quarantine. On the other hand, there seems to be a significant number of people who actually believe him or hoax theories that have been floated.

A rally was held in my city a day or so ago in which it is estimated a crown of 1,000 people gathered in a city park in defiance of the city's and county's stay-at-home order.  This was the "Live Free or Die" sort of crowd.  The photos of the event showed a fair number of the yellow colonial-era "Don't Treat on Me" flags.  (We have a large flag manufacturing company in the valley whose owner is emphatically on the political right.)  The excerpts of the speakers' statements reported in the newspaper included exactly the rhetoric you allude to:  the virus is a hoax, it was created in a lab in the U.S. or China, it's no more contagious or lethal than the common cold, the whole thing is a government power-grab, etc.

The Trump administration seems to have abandoned claims of hoax, at least in the sense of acknowledging now that it's a real phenomenon.  Their rhetorical has moved from "This is nothing to worry about" to "We're doing very well at addressing the problem," and blaming others for their having been slow out of the gate and for allegedly fabricating facts that dispute their self-congratulatory attitude.

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Is it schadenfreude to savor the irony that some of those same people will die from their own stupidity?

If the virus were harder to transmit, and its effects more immediate, then a moral evaluation would be simpler.  But since it's so easily transmissible and takes a long time to produce symptoms, it remains the case that irresponsible carriers will pose a risk to far more people than just themselves until they realize that they are infected.  The quarantine orders allow for essential public activity, but any public activity entails the risk of exposure.  If more people gather, becoming infected, and then move about in public among those who have limited their activities to the essential ones, they effectively raise the risk of necessary encounters for everyone.  Even repentant carriers won't fall ill immediately and then quickly know to quarantine themselves, hence we all have to stay quarantined until we know who's sick and who isn't.

So for me it's not Schadenfreude to imagine the far-reaching consequences of behavior like rallies.  Having endured one of the moderately nasty prior hCoV viruses myself, I don't want to repeat the experience or wish it on anyone else.  But here I just don't see it as a case of irresponsible behavior being limited in its consequences to those who engaged in it.  It's not Just Desserts, because the collateral effects of rallies and smaller-scale disobedience reach those who don't deserve it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on April 20, 2020, 10:04:32 AM
That's what baffles me.  Donald Trump's incompetence and instability have been on display long before Day One.  It should hardly surprise us anymore.  But not every Republican is as bat-crap crazy or as nefarious as Trump.  I keep asking myself at what point the rest of the party will say "Enough is enough."  I'm more than surprised to discover that this point hasn't yet been reached.  If not now, then at what point?  Peter B's post is spot-on.  America -- specifically, elected American officials, the wealthy, and the powerful -- seem to believe that any and all outrageous behavior on their part is sustainable because the institutions of the nation will somehow kick in and prevent any actual disaster, or at least insulate them from its effect.  They seem to consider it an infinitely exploitable system.  These institutions have an effect only insofar as the people they affect respect and uphold them.  Instead, people today are behaving as if there is some ineffable something about America that will magically prevent it from becoming no different than a banana republic and having all the problems that entails.

This is why I don't really care what happens to Trump himself.  He can't help it.  He's always been narcissistic and selfish, he's clearly in the grips of dementia (or substance abuse, or both), he's so far out of his league that not crapping his pants on live TV is an accomplishment.  He can go his merry way after the Presidency and totter off into antiquity, yelling at clouds and lawn boys, until he succumbs to old age (or one too many taco bowls). 

It's the enablers who need to pay.  It's the people who said, "yeah, that's fine, I can work with this."  It's the people who put any sense of honor and country and the greater good below "hey, I can benefit personally from this."  It's the people in Congress (Nunes, McConnell, Graham) and in the media (not just FOX news, but the "mainstream" media desperate for eyeballs) who need to lose their positions, their influence, their livelihoods, and learn how the other half lives. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 20, 2020, 11:30:19 AM
Oh, Lindsey Graham makes me angry.  Not that I ever had huge respect for him, but the way he's turned from fighting to enabling makes me so angry.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 20, 2020, 11:55:10 AM
He can go his merry way after the Presidency and totter off into antiquity, yelling at clouds and lawn boys, until he succumbs to old age (or one too many taco bowls).

I suspect that after Trump leaves office he'll become the next Rush Limbaugh and continue to spew lies and fan the flames of division. He will push conspiracy theories about Joe Biden etc. in order to give the Republicans a chance of regaining power. So unless he goes to prison or descends so far into dementia that he can't function, he will still be dangerous.

But yes, I agree that his enablers need to face some serious consequences. The United States also needs to shore up it's checks & balances so something like this can't happen again. One place to start is to make it clear that no one, not even the President, is above the law. That means they can't stonewall an impeachment investigation, and they should have no power over the investigators. And any Attorney General that aids the President in obstructing an impeachment investigation should be immediately removed from office.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 20, 2020, 07:08:40 PM
descends so far into dementia that he can't function,
How will we know?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 21, 2020, 10:55:14 AM
My firstborn's dad died yesterday morning of, among other things, dementia.  Believe me, you reach a point.  You can't string together a reasonable conspiracy theory after a certain point, for one.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on April 21, 2020, 03:53:17 PM
Trump isn't stringing together conspiracy theories himself, though; he's repeating what he hears on Fox (and other even more dubious places). One of the articles I was reading this week was talking about the Trump/Fox feedback loop. His language is quite simplified; it's not clear if this is because he's operating at a diminished capacity, or he's speaking to his audience, or (most likely) both.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 22, 2020, 10:20:16 AM
No, but if the dementia's extreme enough, you can't repeat them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 22, 2020, 12:50:20 PM
As long as we're predicting Donald Trump's post-Presidency career, and assuming he survives mentally and physically to have one:

It is customary for ex-Presidents of all parties to essentially withdraw from political life aside from the occasional smoke-blowing generalities that no one can disagree with.  I doubt Trump will do this.  He loudly criticized politicians before his term.  During his term he has violated every bit of his own criticism, as the masters of "Tweets that did not age well" have reminded us.  When he leaves office, I predict he will loudly criticize future office-holders, flipping back to contradict himself yet again.  He simply believes -- and has managed to convince an astonishing number of people -- that he is by far the best President of all time.  I think he will keep making sure that's what people think, long after it no longer matters to anyone.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 23, 2020, 10:04:10 AM
My firstborn's dad died yesterday morning of, among other things, dementia.  Believe me, you reach a point.  You can't string together a reasonable conspiracy theory after a certain point, for one.

My condolences on your loss. i've lost a parent to vascular dementia and the cognitive decline was awful to behold.

My post was in jest, as in how would we know the difference as he already is damn near as incoherent as possible. You are probably reading far more into it than my attempt at dark humour deserves.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 23, 2020, 10:09:56 AM
I'm just thinking about Reagan--after a while, it went beyond "I do not recall."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on April 23, 2020, 12:59:00 PM
I'm just thinking about Reagan--after a while, it went beyond "I do not recall."

While true, Reagan at least had the excuse of having been shot.  No matter how healthy you are, that's a hell of a thing to recover from, and I have no doubt that contributed to the cognitive decline we saw later on. 

Trump's issues are more likely the result of a lifetime of bad habits, but the end result is the same. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 23, 2020, 01:32:05 PM
I'm not sure if Trump has dementia or if his mental condition is declining. He is most likely just inherently stupid.

My grandmother had alzheimers, and it was a horrible thing to watch her slowly disappear. Every so often she would ask where my grandfather was, and we'd have to explain that he had died 10 years ago. I wouldn't wish that on anyone
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on April 24, 2020, 01:28:46 AM
“Inject disinfectant?” Really? The man is totally insane, the US is heading for an unprecedented catastrophe with this moron in charge.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on April 24, 2020, 06:36:57 AM
...Reagan at least had the excuse of having been shot.  No matter how healthy you are, that's a hell of a thing to recover from, and I have no doubt that contributed to the cognitive decline we saw later on.

I know the following is cruel now, but it was so bloody funny when I heard it back in the late 80s:
Quote
Have you heard about IBM's latest typewriter?  It's called the Presidential Selectric and has extra backspace keys, no colon and no memory.

Back to the subject, has everyone here heard "Vote Him Away - The Liar Tweets Tonight"? A marvellous version of a great song from my childhood, with up-to-date lyrics.




Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on April 24, 2020, 07:03:37 AM
“Inject disinfectant?” Really? The man is totally insane, the US is heading for an unprecedented catastrophe with this moron in charge.
Demonstrating yet again that he has little to no education, especially in scientific areas.  He also shows classic Dunning-Kruger tendencies, repeatedly claiming that "nobody knows <subject> better than me", despite obviously knowing next to nothing about it.

My biggest worry is that, as with his repeated pushing of chloroquine-related "cures", people will try these ideas and either become seriously ill, or even die.  Although he'll almost certainly deny ever saying this in a week's time...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 24, 2020, 08:06:48 AM

Demonstrating yet again that he has little to no education, especially in scientific areas.  He also shows classic Dunning-Kruger tendencies, repeatedly claiming that "nobody knows <subject> better than me", despite obviously knowing next to nothing about it.

When he says "Nobody knows..." this is a tell. What he is really saying is "I just found out...." See 2:58

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 24, 2020, 10:03:26 AM
I think it's beyond Dunning-Kruger.  I think it's pure narcissism.  He genuinely believes he's the best at everything, and the last four years have been example after example of how that isn't true.  Even Dunning-Kruger isn't that strong.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on April 24, 2020, 12:06:08 PM
Honestly?  I'm not sure he's really aware of what he's saying.  It's all dementia-induced stream-of-consciousness at this point, with no overarching train of thought.  I will bet real money he doesn't remember saying any of that today.  His brain is turning into Swiss cheese as we watch, which is a good bit more unsettling and dangerous than plain old D-K. 

But again, the problem isn't Trump, it's all the people who enable and support him, both in politics and the media.  It's the people twisting themselves into knots to defend what is essentially glossolalia at this point who are the problem. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on April 24, 2020, 02:01:45 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/AS66nmX.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 24, 2020, 03:53:45 PM
“Inject disinfectant?” Really? The man is totally insane, the US is heading for an unprecedented catastrophe with this moron in charge.

Quite likely.  And the same rampant exceptionalism that leads the rest of U.S. officials to believe they can essentially act however they want with no consequences to the nation is likely to lead ordinary U.S. citizens to believe they won't be affected by that catastrophe.  There is such overwhelming misplaced trust in the stability of the U.S. system that it will probably take a full-blown catastrophe to displace it.  And even then, I predict political divisions will continue to squabble over whose fault it was.  Tribalism will be the death of the United States as we know it.

It's quite amusing to watch Donald Trump's handlers and supporters try to spin this.  "What the President meant to say, according to his lawyers..."  Is Trumpsplaining already a word?  And it's even more fun to watch Trump try to explain that he was only joking and to blame everything, as usual, on the liberal media.  I wonder how long it will take for someone to trot out Dr. Phil and have him explain how you really can inject topical disinfectants.

Demonstrating yet again that he has little to no education, especially in scientific areas.

Which is quite likely why he ordered his schools not to release his grades.  I recall interviews with his former teachers who said he did quite poorly.  Scholastic achievement isn't for everyone, of course, but I would prefer a President who isn't overtly unintelligent.

Quote
My biggest worry is that, as with his repeated pushing of chloroquine-related "cures", people will try these ideas and either become seriously ill, or even die.

Yeah, I live in the land of snake oil salesmen.  This bothers me extra.  Back in March, when the President touted it as a miracle cure, the owner of a local chain of compounding pharmacies stockpiled millions of dollars worth of hydroxychloroquine.  Then the bubble burst when the French study was discredited.  Acting quickly, our state government did two things.  First it passed a new law absolving medical practitioners of liability for the consequences of using non-FDA-approved medicines during medical emergencies.  Then it arranged to purchase the pharmacy's entire stock of the drug using public funds, a deal ultimately worth $8 million.  That way, our local Trump-trusting businessman isn't out the cost of a useless stockpile.  And he compounded it with zinc, making it useless for treating auto-immune diseases.  I'm sure other states have similar stories.  For a state that wants to portray itself as the new Mecca for high-tech industry, Utah does a bang-up job of toeing an anti-cience, pro-Trump line.  We're one of the states whose governors did not issue a statewide stay-at-home order.  Contrary to the recommendations of health officials, he also reopened hospitals to elective surgery this week and is on course to reopen the state economy on May 1, as the President tried to mandate.

Here's a higher-altitude view.  We're in the middle of a global pandemic, a hundred-year event.  It's going to take the cooperative efforts of several disciplines to get us through this.  Naturally, healthcare providers are the tip of the spear.  It's encouraging and inspiring to see how dedicated some people can be in a crisis.  It may take more superhuman effort from the health sciences sector to avoid catastrophe.  But in addition to battling a highly contagious infection, these people have to expend extra effort to take down the offhand lies and bat-crap-crazy things that come out of the mouth of the President and his supporters.  It's like fighting a serious grease fire in your kitchen with a toddler clinging to each leg.

But it gets worse.  Imagine being one of the prominent trained professionals in the vicinity Trump.  You accept that you have a responsibility to the public that transcends any one political leader or the party he represents.  You realize that you're now in a position where exercising your responsibility has life-and-death consequences, possibly for many people who rely on you.  But this President tolerates no dissent or contradiction.  He allows no advice to be given without his endorsement.  He has proven himself perfectly willing to remove anyone from their position for crossing him.  So these professionals are in a one-and-done situation.  They literally have to choose the hill they're going to die on in order to correct the President for the benefit of all Americans, because after that they will no longer be in an visible and effective position.  After dispensing their one anti-Trump warning, they risk being replaced by some political lickspittle.

When he says "Nobody knows..." this is a tell. What he is really saying is "I just found out...."

I sent the video link to my friends who study linguistics and rhetorics.  I'm interested what they have to say.  One of the criticisms against Barack Obama was that his academic manner of address put some people off.  And in politics, this is a problem.  You can't really represent people or inspire them if you can't speak to them.  I would look to Harry S Truman as an example of someone who can be both plain-spoken and an effective leader.

As for the point, I seen this before in the conspiracy parts of the forum.  People just becoming aware of something seem always to assume that no one else knew about it and still doesn't.  "You guys don't seem to know that there's radiation in space!"  I think a lot of crackpot thinking proceeds from the assumption that the writer is a master of the subject and the reader can't possibly know more, even when the writer is clearly a novice.

I think it's beyond Dunning-Kruger.  I think it's pure narcissism.  He genuinely believes he's the best at everything, and the last four years have been example after example of how that isn't true.  Even Dunning-Kruger isn't that strong.

His brain is turning into Swiss cheese as we watch, which is a good bit more unsettling and dangerous than plain old D-K.

It's all three, if you ask me.  One can be narcissistic without being unskilled and unintelligent.  Donald Trump is certainly narcissistic.  The degree to which Dunning-Kruger can be displayed without narcissism is debatable.  But he's clearly unskilled and unintelligent, and either unable or unwilling to recognize superior skill and knowledge in others.  And I see what I interpret as signs of dementia.  Notwithstanding our language expert's learned analysis, I think a lot of what the President says is just lurching from topic to topic as they pop into his head.  Donald Trump has always rambled, but not nearly as incoherently as he's doing now.

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But again, the problem isn't Trump, it's all the people who enable and support him, both in politics and the media.

There it is.  As I wrote some days ago, I think now it's just a sort of political Stockholm syndrome.  Or maybe the operatives in the GOP really do believe they can continue to spin everything as a series of hoaxes and blunders by their political rivals.

At some point we have to talk about that reality TV show pretending to be a news network -- Fox News.  I've heard people who were, until recently, radical conservatives express the opinion that Fox News does more to influence the GOP base than the GOP does.  The President's special relationship with that travesty probably doesn't help.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on April 24, 2020, 05:24:38 PM
It amazes me how often people start to see institutions, companies, countries and systems of all kinds as some kind of nebulous entity that goes on whatever people do, when the reality is that these things are made up of people and are entirely dependent on how those people behave.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 24, 2020, 06:41:24 PM
Although he'll almost certainly deny ever saying this in a week's time...

And as predicted:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-25/coronavirus-australia-live-news-covid-19-latest/12183378
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 24, 2020, 07:31:52 PM
He used the same excuse when called on his comments about having the Russians spy on Hillary Clinton.  Nobody really bought it then, either.

If you listen to the whole briefing, the President did walk back his claim -- sort of.  When Sec. Bryan was asked to clarify whether topical disinfectants could be used in the way the President suggested, the President interrupted Bryan's answer to say he wasn't really talking about injections, but about a "cleaning, sterilization of an area."  He added, "Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work."  If you're going to interrupt the answer, that's the right time to say, "I was just kidding, folks."  Instead he let Bryan answer seriously, and gave every indication he was still being serious.  If you go back to the time he first made the suggestion, he was looking to his science experts.  One could easily interpret that as a nonverbal request to back him up.

The initial spin from the White House is consistent with this interpretation.  They did not claim the President had been joking.  They claimed instead he had been misinterpreted by the media.  The "misinterpretation" angle is consistent with the walk-back.  It is less consistent with the President's new claim.  The claim that it was a joke came only after the whole world laughed at Trump's apparent ignorance, and after the walk-back failed to satisfy commentators that he wasn't still talking about the medical use of topical disinfectant.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on April 25, 2020, 12:52:43 AM
I think Fox News is finally starting to push back a bit.  https://news.yahoo.com/wallace-president-says-something-people-194008634.html
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Von_Smith on April 25, 2020, 03:49:40 AM
“Inject disinfectant?” Really? The man is totally insane, the US is heading for an unprecedented catastrophe with this moron in charge.

Destroying the country with facts and logic!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on April 25, 2020, 04:05:12 AM
Back in March, when the President touted it as a miracle cure, the owner of a local chain of compounding pharmacies stockpiled millions of dollars worth of hydroxychloroquine.  Then the bubble burst when the French study was discredited.  Acting quickly, our state government did two things.  First it passed a new law absolving medical practitioners of liability for the consequences of using non-FDA-approved medicines during medical emergencies.  Then it arranged to purchase the pharmacy's entire stock of the drug using public funds, a deal ultimately worth $8 million.  That way, our local Trump-trusting businessman isn't out the cost of a useless stockpile.
It looks like they've withdrawn from that deal, at least according to current headlines, but they've already spent $800,000!  It doesn't look like a valid use of tax-payers' money, so there may be further enquiries into it.

Certainly, governments all over the world are helping businesses through difficult times, but I would have thought bailing out someone who was effectively looking to profit from the crisis might have been seen as a step too far.  Not that other govts. aren't doing similar dodgy deals - we have contracts being handed to party donors here, while small businesses are overlooked.

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One of the criticisms against Barack Obama was that his academic manner of address put some people off.  And in politics, this is a problem.  You can't really represent people or inspire them if you can't speak to them.  I would look to Harry S Truman as an example of someone who can be both plain-spoken and an effective leader.
Having watched or listened to briefings and press events by leaders from all over the world, three of them stand out, at least to me, as being able to get their message across clearly and concisely.  Angela Merkel in Germany, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, and dare I say it, our own Nicola Sturgeon here in Scotland (and I say that as not a Scottish Nationalist!).  Interestingly, all three are women, so it makes me wonder how Hillary Clinton would have handled this situation.  (And again, I wasn't a fan of her running as President, but things might be very different if...)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 25, 2020, 08:36:43 AM
He used the same excuse when called on his comments about having the Russians spy on Hillary Clinton.  Nobody really bought it then, either.

If you listen to the whole briefing, the President did walk back his claim -- sort of.  When Sec. Bryan was asked to clarify whether topical disinfectants could be used in the way the President suggested, the President interrupted Bryan's answer to say he wasn't really talking about injections, but about a "cleaning, sterilization of an area."  He added, "Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work."  If you're going to interrupt the answer, that's the right time to say, "I was just kidding, folks."  Instead he let Bryan answer seriously, and gave every indication he was still being serious.  If you go back to the time he first made the suggestion, he was looking to his science experts.  One could easily interpret that as a nonverbal request to back him up.

The initial spin from the White House is consistent with this interpretation.  They did not claim the President had been joking.  They claimed instead he had been misinterpreted by the media.  The "misinterpretation" angle is consistent with the walk-back.  It is less consistent with the President's new claim.  The claim that it was a joke came only after the whole world laughed at Trump's apparent ignorance, and after the walk-back failed to satisfy commentators that he wasn't still talking about the medical use of topical disinfectant.

This explanation is why I don't accept the idea that there's any mental deterioration in Trump - he's all there as far as I can see. That is, he's aware enough of how people respond to what he's said to shift his position, to blithely try another explanation until the ridicule dies down. In that sense he reminds me of my kids, who when caught out will try a cover story, then when that gets shot down by evidence shift to a second story, and maybe a third, depending on how much evidence we have against them. So in that sense, rather than being mentally incapacitated in some way, he comes across as mentally immature. (The obvious difference between our kids and Donald Trump is where the power balance lies - our kids are in a weak position relative to us, but Trump has no equivalent power stronger than him.)

I wonder, then, if Trump was somehow able to get away with poor quality fibbing as a young kid (perhaps lack of socialisation, or not facing any consequences for his fibs) and so never had to develop more sophisticated techniques for lying. So now, when people call him out for his hopelessly inept lies he responds with outrage - how could someone possibly catch him out, plus where do these people get off calling the most powerful man in the USA a liar?

On a related matter, I remember an old saying that the best way to make a small fortune in business is to start with a large fortune. Trump seems to be an exemplar of that, in that he seems to be constantly losing money as his businesses go bankrupt and then get re-enabled by some new finance deal or other which involves Trump losing a portion of his ownership of those businesses. And yet no matter how often these businesses go under he always seems to be out there sticking his finger into some new deal or business venture - an airline, a 'university', a talent quest, all sorts of endorsements. He also seems to have been involved in a lot of litigation, although I don't know how he compares to other businesspeople. I'd be curious to know who the people are who he's litigated against: are they people at his own level of wealth/power, or are they 'only' moderately wealthy people who potentially have a lot to lose (proportionately) if they lose a court case to him and so who are motivated to settle quickly and reasonably generously?

Combining his apparent ability to make a hash of so many businesses, his litigiousness, and his (to me at least) emotional immaturity make him look to me more like a bully full of bluster who's managed to get his own way for decades, and in the process convinced a lot of people that he's a lot more powerful and clever than he really is.

But, because he's managed to get his own way for so long, he's come to believe his own propaganda is the reality. In that sense that makes him like the charlatans who start out cynically exploiting people but repeat their li(n)es so often that they come to genuinely believe them.

So no, not mentally deficient, but emotionally immature, powerful enough to threaten a lot of people to back off, and with nothing internal and virtually no one external to tell him, 'No don't do that.'

ETA: Another image which came to mind was the Norse gods in Terry Jones's 1989 movie "Erik the Viking", who turn out to be petulant children - lots of power, no restraint.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 25, 2020, 11:22:11 AM
It looks like they've withdrawn from that deal, at least according to current headlines, but they've already spent $800,000!

Yes, that story broke after I put my computer away for the night last night.  It's very encouraging.  And yes, the initial purchase contract is under review and can be rescinded if necessary.  It appears the people responsible hoped it would fly under the radar, but we have a Pulitzer-winning local newspaper that tends to notice these things.

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Certainly, governments all over the world are helping businesses through difficult times, but I would have thought bailing out someone who was effectively looking to profit from the crisis might have been seen as a step too far.

I see this particular instance as a step too far.  Things like natural disasters -- cases where the proverbial tide raises and lowers all boats -- I think are good candidates for spreading public funds around judiciously.  It would be better if businesses learned to have some cash reserves, but how many smaller businesses can survive 2-3 months of lost revenue?  But the deal we're talking about has all the hallmarks of an unwise business decision motivated by greed.  The fact that it happened during a pandemic should not qualify him for a bailout.  Besides, there's some dramatis personae parts to the story.  But I don't want to turn this into a Utah politics thread except insofar as it relates to Donald Trump.

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Having watched or listened to briefings and press events by leaders from all over the world, three of them stand out, at least to me, as being able to get their message across clearly and concisely.  Angela Merkel in Germany, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, and dare I say it, our own Nicola Sturgeon here in Scotland (and I say that as not a Scottish Nationalist!).

I can assure you that we in America are watching these same leaders with not more than a little envy.  And I have a significant percentage of Scottish ancestry (Bell, MacFarlane, and MacLaren), so it's okay to tout Scotland around me, nationalistically or otherwise.  There are quite a number of Scottish ex-pats living in our city.

We also have Governor Cuomo of New York.  I wouldn't necessarily put him in the same category as, say, Merkel.  But he has the advantage of being entertaining in a characteristically New York sort of way.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 25, 2020, 11:44:42 AM
He can go his merry way after the Presidency and totter off into antiquity, yelling at clouds and lawn boys, until he succumbs to old age (or one too many taco bowls).

I suspect that after Trump leaves office he'll become the next Rush Limbaugh and continue to spew lies and fan the flames of division. He will push conspiracy theories about Joe Biden etc. in order to give the Republicans a chance of regaining power. So unless he goes to prison or descends so far into dementia that he can't function, he will still be dangerous.

But yes, I agree that his enablers need to face some serious consequences. The United States also needs to shore up it's checks & balances so something like this can't happen again. One place to start is to make it clear that no one, not even the President, is above the law. That means they can't stonewall an impeachment investigation, and they should have no power over the investigators. And any Attorney General that aids the President in obstructing an impeachment investigation should be immediately removed from office.

Boy, I'm just hoping he does that - leaves office, that is. One thing that worries me is that if the election is at all close (which it seems likely to be) Trump will claim there were electoral irregularities and that he was robbed, and refuse to accept the result. Then watch to see how many of his supporters come out and repeat that line, brandishing their rifles. I have a nervous feeling many of them will act a little more aggressively than Democratic Party supporters did in 2000.

Even worse if he wins a second term and decides at the end of it that he wouldn't mind a third.

The other thing that makes me nervous is from an article I linked a couple of weeks ago - a hypothetical in which Trump convinces a bunch of states with Republican governors to change their voting laws so the state governments allocate the Electoral College votes...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 25, 2020, 12:37:53 PM
This explanation is why I don't accept the idea that there's any mental deterioration in Trump - he's all there as far as I can see. That is, he's aware enough of how people respond to what he's said to shift his position, to blithely try another explanation until the ridicule dies down.

That's a good point.  I don't have children, but your analogy immediate makes sense.  I'm looking at instances where the President just rambles from point to point without necessarily making sense, or latching onto some minute irrelevancy.  Other instances where he iterates through a series of excuses for a single gaffe suggests ongoing cognition.

In this particular case, the President returned to the notion of injections, but only when reminded of it by a reporter's question.  The other spin I mentioned -- misrepresentation, and now blaming it all on Sec. Bryan -- were explanations provided by the White House, not devised by the President on the spot.  And other, different explanations were given by various media supporters the President.  His own explanation that he was joking came a day later after he had time to think about it and possibly be prompted by White House media operatives.  So he personally may not be as responsible as it seems for staying on topic, but let's consider it a serious possibility.

In sum, yes any hypothesis that the President is mentally deficient has to be able also to explain behavior that requires normal cognitive function.  Dementia sufferers can drift in and out, but with all things considered it may not be the most parsimonious explanation.

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On a related matter, I remember an old saying that the best way to make a small fortune in business is to start with a large fortune.

Tony Bruno is famous for saying that about aerospace engineering.  He obviously didn't invent the phrase, and it obviously applies to many lines of work.

What it means to me is that if you're too conservative with your seed investment, you probably aren't going to do anything that matters enough to bring in revenue.  So there is an element of risk in any profitable business.  The skill in business is managing and hedging the risk as best you can.  Fail at that often enough, and you lose all your money.  Disclosure:  other people run businesses for me because they're demonstrably much better at it that I am.

In engineering ethics we talk about avoid amoral calculation, the quantification of risk without considering the special nature or value of things like human well-being.  There's a related business concept, the moral hazard.  This is simply the straightforward concept of one person making decisions about risk where he reaps the profits of success and others bear the consequences of failure.  As you point out below, Trump seems to have conducted much of his business that way.

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Trump seems to be an exemplar of that, in that he seems to be constantly losing money as his businesses go bankrupt and then get re-enabled by some new finance deal or other which involves Trump losing a portion of his ownership of those businesses. And yet no matter how often these businesses go under he always seems to be out there sticking his finger into some new deal or business venture - an airline, a 'university', a talent quest, all sorts of endorsements.

Yes.  If you treat your brand itself as a commodity, you can ride a sort of Ponzi scheme of credibility that lets you lurch from one failure to another without ever really having to bear the responsibility for it.  If he loses a part of a business, he can just tell himself that other people whom he hired ran it into the ground and that if he had been more involved it would have succeeded.  Blaming others for his failures is Page One of the real art of Donald Trump's deals.

Hyping one's brand, buttressing one's reputation, and credibly claiming to be the victim of others' incompetence can work for a while.  That is, it can be the basis for attracting investors and securing credit.  It takes a long time to work one's way through the world's creditors with this strategy, especially if one simply lies all the time.  It is no secret that Donald Trump never expected to win the 2016 election.  It was all a strategy to boost the Trump brand.

Eventually in business all such bubbles have to burst.  There are all sorts of conspiracy theories about such things as the extent to which the President is personally in debt to, or compromised by, Russian interests as part of this bursting bubble.  Donald Trump was already a pariah among New York businesspeople and all the banks in the United States.  He was already having to reach farther afield, where his true reputation hadn't yet gone.

The problem for the nation is that he's at the pinnacle of risk.  Quite a lot can go wrong with the United States when its President has spent his whole life basking in the moral hazard.  A President who has consolidated the executive power in himself can't simply declare bankruptcy and walk away.  The stakes are much higher than simply business.

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He also seems to have been involved in a lot of litigation, although I don't know how he compares to other businesspeople. I'd be curious to know who the people are who he's litigated against...

My impression is that they are people of lesser means who have a claim against his business practices, chiefly cheating them or refusing to pay them for their services.  His money management skills seem to be the root cause of his difficulty in obtaining credit and contracting for further services.  He can't or doesn't want to pay his debts.

Remember where I suggested Trump sees the world largely in terms of winners or losers.  Defrauding people and thereafter being relatively immune to the legal consequences of doing so makes him a winner and them losers.  If they can't touch him, even via legitimate means for legitimate causes, then he is a powerful winner.  To that sort of mentality, lawsuits aren't about justice or equity, but simply about who has amassed the most influence that can be used to defuse threats.  It's just another business tactic that has nothing to do with right or wrong.

Now any large company is a target for lawsuits simply because they are perceived to have deep pockets and will settle lawsuits for a fraction of the cost required to defend agains them.  Very few of these are though to have much merit.  At a certain point it is just the cost of doing business.  Many of the suits I vaguely recall against Trump's business interests seemed to have merit.

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...more like a bully full of bluster who's managed to get his own way for decades, and in the process convinced a lot of people that he's a lot more powerful and clever than he really is.

But, because he's managed to get his own way for so long, he's come to believe his own propaganda is the reality.

I really can't disagree with this analysis.  I think it's been reasonably self-evident for most of Trump's business career, at least in the later stages of it.  It jives with the President's strenuous efforts to keep people from discovering the facts regarding his past.  I think this is a highly plausible alternative to Dunning-Kruger, dementia, and so forth.

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...and with nothing internal and virtually no one external to tell him, 'No don't do that.'

Especially now that the constitutionally nuclear option has been applied and failed.  This gets into a huge topic that touches on the architecture of American government and the style of its practice recently.  I have too much to do today to pontificate ignorantly on that.  As the kids say, the tl;dr version is that hyper-partisanship has seriously undermined the checks and balances that ordinarily would have given other branches of government more control over the Executive.

But this didn't start with Donald Trump.  He is merely the beneficiary of a system that began to break long before he even ran for office.

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Another image which came to mind was the Norse gods in Terry Jones's 1989 movie "Erik the Viking", who turn out to be petulant children - lots of power, no restraint.

The films of the ex-Pythons have made for wonderful quarantine viewing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 25, 2020, 12:49:26 PM
The difference I've always given is that my children can learn from their mistakes--but my children are young, and their brains are considerably more plastic than someone my mother's approximate age.  What he's learned is doubtless that he doesn't have to change and is just fine the way he is.  Which is both true from his perspective--he's never really had to change--and a serious problem for the rest of us.

It's interesting to me that Trump comes, at least ostensibly, out of a party that's made a great deal of hay in recent decades about the "flip-flopping" of its opposition, because the Democratic Party has shown an ability to change with the times that the Republicans either can't or don't want to.  But when you get someone like Trump, whose stance on any given issue depends on what time it is, how recently he's eaten, and who talked to him last, they don't call him on it and will still talk to you about his firm leadership and unchanging positions.  Now, there are some things he's very firm on--"losers" and so forth, and yes, those lawsuits do tend to have considerably more merit than those against, say, Disney--but by and large, he's even beyond "flip-flopping."  He's definitely beyond "changing your position based on additional evidence," which I support.  But he doesn't care about additional evidence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 25, 2020, 02:08:53 PM
Trump will claim there were electoral irregularities and that he was robbed, and refuse to accept the result.

This is plausible, considering that's how he characterized the election he won.  It wasn't enough that he won the electoral vote and secured the office.  He had to come up with some explanation for why the popular vote should also have been in his favor.  Not surprisingly, he claimed polling irregularity and refused to accept the popular votes report.

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Then watch to see how many of his supporters come out and repeat that line, brandishing their rifles.

This is no empty threat.  Consider what happened with Pizzagate, and that's a relatively small-scale claim.

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Even worse if he wins a second term and decides at the end of it that he wouldn't mind a third.

To do so legitimately would require an amendment to the Constitution, but we live in strange times.  I won't predict what three-fourths of U.S. States will do.

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The other thing that makes me nervous is from an article I linked a couple of weeks ago - a hypothetical in which Trump convinces a bunch of states with Republican governors to change their voting laws so the state governments allocate the Electoral College votes...

Interesting.  I'm not sure there are many States whose governors have that ability themselves.  I think the legislatures would also need to comply.  The U.S. Constitution specifies that each State is free to choose its electors in whatever way it desires.  In practice I want to say that's typically established in each State by statute, which needs a legislature to make changes.  That's the short version.

In Utah, presidential electors are chosen according to our statue 20A-13.  Each party that has registered its intent to field a candidate for U.S. President and Vice-President nominates candidates for electors.  Qualifications for registration as a party are established by statute.  Non-partisan candidates may qualify by collecting at least 1,000 signatures, paying the filing fee ($500), and completing the required paperwork at the Lt. Governor's office, including similar requirements for the associated candidate for Vice-President.  The independent candidate as a party per se simply chooses the appropriate number of persons as his candidates for elector.  I believe, according to the 12th Amendment, he cannot serve as his own elector.  In any case, there must be the proper number of electors as set forth in the U.S. Constitution -- for us, six.  And, of course, in order to really matter, the candidate must be on the ballot in more than one State, and will have to comply with that State's particular practice of choosing Electors.

Utah recognizes six national political parties and one state party.  The latter is pertinent to this discussion.  The United Utah party is trying to attract moderates from both major parties.  I don't think it is recognized as a party in any other State, so any candidate it would field for President would be effectively ineligible.

All elections in Utah are administered by the Lt. Governor and conducted by the county clerks.  The election of presidential electors is by a plurality of the general plebiscite.  The Lt. Governor certifies the results of the election to each elector.  If he certified a different elector, he would be in violation of state law.  If he failed to certify any or all electors, he would be in dereliction of his duty and susceptible to a judicial writ of mandamus and any punishment attached to disobeying that.  (We still have a number of Federal judges who aren't Trump appointees.)

If an elector refuses or is unable to vote, the relevant party appoints a substitute according to their by-laws, or the independent candidate names an eligible substitute by any means of choosing.  Although not required, it is customary for candidates and parties to submit and pre-certify a list of alternate electors.  Utah has a faithless-elector law; if an elector votes for any person other than the candidate for President who nominated him, he is considered no longer an elector, his vote is disregarded, and a new elector is selected by the customary means.

The electoral vote must take place in the State.  The statute names the Lt. Governor's office as the place of the election, and there is a formula established in statute for determining the date and time.  Again, if the Lt. Governor abdicates any part of that, he is personally liable in various ways.  Further, if the place becomes unavailable (e.g., the Lt. Governor locked the door), then statute provides that the U.S. Congress may designate a new time and place for the duty of elector.

If the Governor himself tried to interfere in any way, since he has executive authority over his lieutenant, then he would bear the consequence of suborning whatever illegal act he directed.

What if the Governor and the Utah Legislature conspire to change the laws?  The Utah Constitution has a voter initiative provision by which propositions that attain enough voter support can be placed on the general ballot and voted upon, whereupon if they pass they become law without executive assent.  This includes repealing laws passed by the legislature by anything less than a two-thirds majority vote.  Ironically this provision harks back to Utah's colonial days when, upon becoming a state, Utah feared that the Federal government would attempt to install legislators, governors, and judges of its own choosing.  It left nearly all ultimate power in the hands of the people.  So at least someone else was thinking about this possibility.

Typically the Secretary of State in each State prepares and certifies the electoral vote, and transmits it under seal to the President of the U.S. Senate in the manner prescribed in the Constitution.  Utah has no Secretary of State.  The Lt. Governor performs all the duties typically assigned to a Secretary of State, for federal purposes.  Conceivably he could certify a different vote fraudulently, but this could not happen without discovery or without remediation.  The electoral vote of each state is carried under seal into the Senate chamber by the State's delegation to Congress, unsealed, and announced in the presence of the entire Congress.

In the 2020 election, this duty will be performed by Vice-President Mike Pence, the nominal President of the Senate. Conceivably Pence could ignore the certified vote and fraudulently announce others.  But there is a provision in the counting of the electoral vote that allows any State's vote to be challenged.  This was actually done during one of the votes that elected Barack Obama -- it was a Birther claim challenging Obama's eligibility.  When this happens, the House meets to hear the challenge and vote on it.  Here again, presuming that the Trump organization and not any Utah agent was the guilty party, the Utah delegation to Congress could indeed raise an objection at this point to any shenanigans on Pence's part.  The House would then have to consider it.

This lengthy elaboration is meant to show how much tampering would have to occur before the operation of the Electoral College, as Utah is concerned, became so compromised as to elect a President by executive fiat.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 25, 2020, 02:52:45 PM
Which is both true from his perspective--he's never really had to change--and a serious problem for the rest of us.

I agree, and it's more than just being stubborn or being accustomed to getting one's way.  If not checked, that attitude can progress to failing to realize that change is even an option.  Suggestions that he's wrong or needs to do something differently will come across as nonsensical.

On the question of guzzling Chlorox, he walks it back to say, "Well, maybe it will work and maybe it won't."  But, in keeping with what we learned yesterday, the subtext is, "If I don't know it then it's unknowable."  When making the argument that the President is inflexible, you have to account for statements that seem to express flexibility or uncertainty.  That's when we get the "Nobody knew..." parachute.  If tomorrow doctors come out and say, "No, you can't cure this virus by internally applying household cleaning products," he'll accept that and then try to say we all just now found this out because he brilliantly directed others to go find that out.

I think he'll be flexible, but only if there's a way to make him look like a winner by doing it.  Or more to the point, if there's a way to make someone else look like a loser.  Donald Trump seldom wins, but he can blow a lot of smoke that makes others look like they failed by comparison.

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It's interesting to me that Trump comes, at least ostensibly, out of a party that's made a great deal of hay in recent decades about the "flip-flopping" of its opposition, because the Democratic Party has shown an ability to change with the times that the Republicans either can't or don't want to.

You can make the opposite case too, toward a different point.  You could say that the GOP used to be reasonable, even if you didn't agree with a conservative agenda.  But with the rise of the Tea Party, the Republicans have allowed themselves to be overrun by radicals.  They've certainly changed, at least along that dimension.  Conversely, I see the biggest problem with the Democratic Party as not having radicalized enough in response.  They still believe they can stand in the center and calmly portray themselves as the voice of reasonable centrism, and keep holding out olive branches for compromise.  The message isn't landing.  There is no more compromise.  Not that I want the left to radicalize.  I'm posing a cynical view, not the one I wish could be the case.  But I fear it's the only way the far-right agenda will be challenged on terms that people can see.

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[The President's supports] don't call him on it and will still talk to you about his firm leadership and unchanging positions.

And I think this is the Stockholm syndrome.  It's long been the case that you support your party.  You backed up the elected people from your party no matter what they said.  The problem is that "no matter what they might say" hasn't always been so egregiously wrong, or so discoverably inconsistent.  It was always politically motivated, and always factually murky to a certain extent.  But you could credibly offer support and chalk the rest up to interpretation or innocent political difference.  Now politicians simply don't know how else to behave, so they pretend it's all good.

All this is made easier by Fox News.  We have a President who is largely divorced from reality, and a political party that has squandered whatever credibility it may once have had on obtaining power, and a large media organization telling people exactly what needs to be heard as "news" in order not to see that any of this is happening.  Moreover, as I brought up earlier, no one seems to want to care about governance.  Politics these days is no longer a struggle between policies or even ideologies.  It's about raw tribalism.  The only thing politicians seem to care about these days is "owning" the other party as if it's some frat rivalry.

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But he doesn't care about additional evidence.

I don't think he cares about evidence at all.  He brazenly makes up "facts" all the time.  I think he goes almost entirely from his gut on everything.  I don't think he considers actual facts even one-sidedly.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on April 25, 2020, 06:22:45 PM
https://www.facebook.com/341163402640457/posts/3362782440478523/

why doesn't he try it himslef as a preventative measure 😆
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 25, 2020, 07:31:03 PM
I don't think he cares about evidence at all.  He brazenly makes up "facts" all the time.  I think he goes almost entirely from his gut on everything.  I don't think he considers actual facts even one-sidedly.

No, clearly not.  Which is why it was so frustrating to be called a conspiracist for not assuming the best of him and told I was moving goalposts to keep up my dislike of him.  Which, for the record, I have had since the late '80s, as soon as I knew he existed, and long before I knew or cared what his personal beliefs were.  He's an objectively terrible person.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on April 26, 2020, 02:41:16 PM
Which is another manifestation of two major annoyances when it comes to these things. The first is, as has already been mentioned, the notion that all of this is new. MBDK could not conceive of the thought that we had had these views on Trump for a LONG time, and this wasn't just a knee-jerk reaction to his presidency. The other is pervasive when calling out oppressors, which was his insistence that we had to be rational and detahced, and emotional responses somehow invalidated the argument. I never got a satisfactory response when I asked him when it was appropriate to get emotional in the face of a literal torrent of bullshit. But this is a tactic of oppressors everywhere. Ignore the rational arguments. Dismiss the sensible conversations. Then when the oppressed can finally stand no more and respond emotionally, dismiss that as invalid because it's not a calm and reasoned argument.

Trump is not a new phenomenon. He has been this way for a VERY long time. He just hapens now to be in a very public position and disturbingly the consequences of his dickish behaviour have worldwide repercussions. Now is a very apt time to get emotional and angry about that, I feel.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 26, 2020, 05:10:01 PM
Indeed, the "Are you serious?" reaction to Donald Trump being a candidate for President wasn't just because he was almost certainly unqualified, but also because his reputation by then as a failed businessman was hardly a secret.  He was a known credit risk, a known collaboration risk, and an obvious bully.  Multiple failed businesses, multiple failed marriages, and obvious ploy to sell his imprimatur and personality (e.g., his reality TV show) instead of creating anything of actual value -- these were warning signs long before he decided to enter politics.

Outrage is not intended to be an argument, nor is necessary presented in lieu of one.  Nor is outrage a necessarily improper response to other people's egregious behavior.  The same argument employed here (which I watched from afar and decided not to engage), is used against liberal members of Congress.  The outrage they express at the egregious conduct of their colleagues and other operatives in government is written off as emotional instability unbefitting the debate.  On the contrary, a measured expression of anger accompanying an otherwise cogent argument hits both sides of the equation.  It's rhetoric, but there's nothing wrong with rhetoric used properly.

Yes, a lot of us noticed Donald Trump's behavior a long time ago.  But it was not necessary to say anything because I didn't move in any sphere of influence he affected.  What he did on the East Coast, thousands of miles away, hardly concerned me.  I don't work in his industry, and I don't live anywhere near him.  The rest of the world must deal with the same things the New York real-estate, financial, and construction industries have known for decades.  It's newly relevant, but it's not new.

What is new, however, is that other people who are like him have been emboldened and liberated by his actions.  Not only do we have to deal with Donald Trump as an international travesty, we also have to deal with our own little petty local Trumps who receive new encouragement and support from his supporters.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 26, 2020, 07:15:35 PM
The story of Trump courtesy of The Dollop:

Part 1
https://allthingscomedy.com/podcast/the-dollop/300a---donald-trump-part-one-1

Part 2
https://allthingscomedy.com/podcast/the-dollop/300b---donald-trump-part-two-1
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on April 27, 2020, 06:44:42 AM
Yes, a lot of us noticed Donald Trump's behavior a long time ago.  But it was not necessary to say anything because I didn't move in any sphere of influence he affected.  What he did on the East Coast, thousands of miles away, hardly concerned me.  I don't work in his industry, and I don't live anywhere near him.  The rest of the world must deal with the same things the New York real-estate, financial, and construction industries have known for decades.  It's newly relevant, but it's not new.

This, exactly. I knew who Donald Trump was of course. But to me, being in the UK (and nowhere near Prestwick...) he was a punchline in sitcoms, a TV personality, someone who made occasional cameos in TV shows and movies, but not someone who had any real impact on my life. Now I can't go a single day without seeing his stupid smug face and hearing his incoherent ramblings, and he is having an impact because now my government has to deal with him. His actions have direct consequances for my country's economy and for the industry I work in. So now I weigh in to discussions about him. It's not an anti-Trump agenda kicked off by personal dislike of the man, it's an anti-complete-and-utter-narcissitic-f***wit-who-is-patently-unfit-to-run-any-country-and-is-possibly-going-to-screw-my-own-and-others-with-hisignorance-and-cult-of-personality-bullshit agenda, which frankly seems a reasonable one to have!

Quote
What is new, however, is that other people who are like him have been emboldened and liberated by his actions.  Not only do we have to deal with Donald Trump as an international travesty, we also have to deal with our own little petty local Trumps who receive new encouragement and support from his supporters.

And this. We saw the same thing here with the Brexit referendum. Once the 'leave' motion passed, racism and bigotry shot up here because now people felt it was OK because we were going to go back to a nationalist, Britain first course led from the top.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on April 27, 2020, 07:46:36 AM
Yes, a lot of us noticed Donald Trump's behavior a long time ago.  But it was not necessary to say anything because I didn't move in any sphere of influence he affected.  What he did on the East Coast, thousands of miles away, hardly concerned me.  I don't work in his industry, and I don't live anywhere near him.  The rest of the world must deal with the same things the New York real-estate, financial, and construction industries have known for decades.  It's newly relevant, but it's not new.

This, exactly. I knew who Donald Trump was of course. But to me, being in the UK (and nowhere near Prestwick...) he was a punchline in sitcoms, a TV personality, someone who made occasional cameos in TV shows and movies, but not someone who had any real impact on my life. Now I can't go a single day without seeing his stupid smug face and hearing his incoherent ramblings, and he is having an impact because now my government has to deal with him. His actions have direct consequances for my country's economy and for the industry I work in. So now I weigh in to discussions about him. It's not an anti-Trump agenda kicked off by personal dislike of the man, it's an anti-complete-and-utter-narcissitic-f***wit-who-is-patently-unfit-to-run-any-country-and-is-possibly-going-to-screw-my-own-and-others-with-hisignorance-and-cult-of-personality-bullshit agenda, which frankly seems a reasonable one to have!

Quote
What is new, however, is that other people who are like him have been emboldened and liberated by his actions.  Not only do we have to deal with Donald Trump as an international travesty, we also have to deal with our own little petty local Trumps who receive new encouragement and support from his supporters.

And this. We saw the same thing here with the Brexit referendum. Once the 'leave' motion passed, racism and bigotry shot up here because now people felt it was OK because we were going to go back to a nationalist, Britain first course led from the top.

IMHO, the biggest impact is because we have a pound/dollar store version of him in Boris Johnson, enabled by a bunch of clueless politicians who got their place in the Cabinet by jumping on the Brexit cause. Witness Priti Patel, a woman who was sacked for running a shadow foreign policy, for lying to her boss and for deceiving Parliament. The same woman is now in one of the most powerful roles in Johnson's cabinet. Last week she got up and boastfully told the public that our world-class police force had caused the numbers of shop-lifting, car and burglary crimes were lower than this time last year. Nothing to do with most shops being closed and people spending longer in their homes.  ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 27, 2020, 09:42:28 AM
What is new, however, is that other people who are like him have been emboldened and liberated by his actions.  Not only do we have to deal with Donald Trump as an international travesty, we also have to deal with our own little petty local Trumps who receive new encouragement and support from his supporters.

And this. We saw the same thing here with the Brexit referendum. Once the 'leave' motion passed, racism and bigotry shot up here because now people felt it was OK because we were going to go back to a nationalist, Britain first course led from the top.

Just to veer a little off course, I'd suggest the person who has to shoulder a lot of blame for this is Jeremy Corbyn.

I'd long wondered why Corbyn campaigned so little during the Brexit referendum, particularly as I'd assumed (yeah, okay, far side of the world, remember) he was pro-Remain. The conclusion I'd reached was that he wanted Labour to sit back and not draw attention to themselves during the referendum campaign while the Conservatives publicly tore themselves apart.

It was only during the weeks leading up to the last election that I discovered that Corbyn was a Brexiteer, and so presumably stayed quiet because he didn't want to be seen to be associated in any way with very public Brexiteer Boris Johnson (as well as the earlier-mentioned small target strategy).

The reason I mention Corbyn is because he's the polar opposite to Trump and Johnson in terms of being an ideological absolutist rather than ideology-free zone, but I think in his own way just as odious for that. It's easy to criticise Trump and Johnson for never being consistent on a policy, but Corbyn can be criticised just as much for stubbornly refusing to change views and policies that are just plain wrong.

There must be a sweet spot somewhere between these two extremes where politicians can be given the wriggle room to change their views, but have to expect to be challenged about both the things they won't change their views on and the things they have changed. (And it doesn't help that many in the media are obsessed with their "gotcha!" moments in interviews when uncovering some apparent inconsistency in a politician's views, leading to politicians in turn being obsessed with giving pre-planned non-answers to questions.)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 27, 2020, 10:18:03 AM
I firmly believe that the best thing we could possibly do to improve politics is to make it okay to change your mind in the face of evidence.  Changing your mind doesn't make you a liar or a hypocrite.  At least, not necessarily.  It's entirely possible to say, "Oh.  I was wrong."  But every time a politician does it, that's proof that they're just one of those flip-floppers, doing whatever it takes to get votes. 

It is also somehow the only job in the world where having experience makes some people think you're bad at it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Eventcone on April 27, 2020, 11:54:16 AM
I recall, many years ago, at an interview for a promotion I was asked what I would do in a certain hypothetical situation. I gave my answer. Then the interviewer changed some of the details of 'the situation' and asked what I would do then. I gave a different answer.

Apparently that was seen as a negative - and I didn't get the promotion.

My response on getting this feedback was "well, isn't it only sensible to modify one's opinion in the light of new knowledge"?

Apparently not.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 27, 2020, 02:14:18 PM
Then there are the people who think "I don't know" is an unacceptable response to a complex question. As if we're supposed to immediately take a stance on things before giving it a proper amount of thought or doing research first.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 28, 2020, 08:34:23 AM
I firmly believe that the best thing we could possibly do to improve politics is to make it okay to change your mind in the face of evidence.  Changing your mind doesn't make you a liar or a hypocrite.  At least, not necessarily.  It's entirely possible to say, "Oh.  I was wrong."  But every time a politician does it, that's proof that they're just one of those flip-floppers, doing whatever it takes to get votes. 

It is also somehow the only job in the world where having experience makes some people think you're bad at it.

At least it's an issue with pedigree. Theramenes was a politician in 5th century BC Athens who earned himself the derisive nickname Sock (the nearest understandable equivalent today) because he could go on either foot.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Eventcone on April 28, 2020, 10:41:49 AM
Quote
At least it's an issue with pedigree. Theramenes was a politician in 5th century BC Athens who earned himself the derisive nickname Sock (the nearest understandable equivalent today) because he could go on either foot.

Yay Theramenes! Maybe we need more like him.

After all, if politicians were truly supposed to "go on one foot or the other" couldn't we just replace them with some computer code or algorithm?

"Gangster politics". You've got to be in one gang or the other. You can't be somewhere in between, and you can't be in both at the same time. Join a gang and toe the line.

People need to know what you stand for! (Or so they say).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on April 28, 2020, 10:55:51 AM
Then there are the people who think "I don't know" is an unacceptable response to a complex question. As if we're supposed to immediately take a stance on things before giving it a proper amount of thought or doing research first.

And Gods forbid you ask experts for their opinions.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 28, 2020, 11:17:56 AM
And Gods forbid you ask experts for their opinions.

Yes, the attitude that having intelligence or experience makes someone untrustworthy is going to lead to idiocracy right when we need experts the most.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 28, 2020, 12:06:11 PM
Trump cuts U.S. research on bat-human virus transmission over China ties (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/trump-cuts-research-bat-human-virus-china-213076)

Quote
The Trump administration abruptly cut off funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people after reports linked the work to a lab in Wuhan, China, at the center of conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins.

Conspiracy theories are harmless, right? ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on April 29, 2020, 08:15:11 AM

I wonder if someone should approach Trump with this suggestion, shrink some scientists and inject them in a submarine to fight the Coronavirus inside the body.


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 29, 2020, 10:33:16 AM
Imagine how that would work in the era of Trump.  The submarine would be sole-sourced on taxpayer money, for ten times the real cost, on a no-bid contract given to a company with one employee.  Jared and Ivanka would be the crew.  Of course we don't have shrink technology.  But that's only because Obama didn't think to have it invented, so it's all his fault.  Any pictures you saw on TV of the unshrunken submarine and crew would be held up as examples of the media's hatred of America.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on April 29, 2020, 04:34:24 PM
^^^^^^^^^^

Gold!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 29, 2020, 04:38:51 PM
I think Trump would only be interested in a machine that could make things bigger.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on April 30, 2020, 05:15:54 PM
Then watch to see how many of his supporters come out and repeat that line, brandishing their rifles. I have a nervous feeling many of them will act a little more aggressively than Democratic Party supporters did in 2000.

So a heavily armed mob stormed the Michigan state capitol building today and tried to gain access to the legislature floor.  You're doing a better job than many psychics.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 30, 2020, 06:17:29 PM
A few years ago a gunman stormed the Canadian Parliament. It didn't end well for him because the Sergeant-at-Arms was armed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 30, 2020, 06:59:01 PM
Then watch to see how many of his supporters come out and repeat that line, brandishing their rifles. I have a nervous feeling many of them will act a little more aggressively than Democratic Party supporters did in 2000.

So a heavily armed mob stormed the Michigan state capitol building today and tried to gain access to the legislature floor.  You're doing a better job than many psychics.

Thanks for the endorsement! :-)

From news sites I read that the protestors were wanting their freedom back. Fair enough, the right to freedom is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, so I understand how it lies at the bedrock of what it is to be an American (plus the Governor's restrictions do seem odd). But if I remember the wording of the DoI correctly, it talks about inalienable rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". So what happens when one person's right to freedom comes at the expense of someone else's right to life? Or is that too subtle an argument for these patriots?

Also, and this is something that I've been thinking about since a discussion over at UM about gun rights a year or so ago, these people brandish their firearms in order to reinforce the point that they claim to be acting against a tyrannical government. Well, at first sight that seems reasonable - the people in theory should be able to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. But it raises two questions for me. First, seeing as the government isn't threatening them with weapons, the balance of power lies with the armed protestors and not the government, meaning the armed protestors theoretically have the power to impose their will on the government. And as the government is elected and the protestors aren't, then surely that means you have tyrannical protestors and not a tyrannical government. And second, in cases where the armed protestors are in the minority, what gives them the right to impose their view of how things should be over the rest of the population?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 30, 2020, 07:36:30 PM
So what happens when one person's right to freedom comes at the expense of someone else's right to life? Or is that too subtle an argument for these patriots?

It's too subtle an argument for Elon Musk. He doesn't understand that people's freedoms don't include endangering the lives of others.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on April 30, 2020, 08:45:54 PM
So what happens when one person's right to freedom comes at the expense of someone else's right to life? Or is that too subtle an argument for these patriots?

It's too subtle an argument for Elon Musk. He doesn't understand that people's freedoms don't include endangering the lives of others.

??

Sorry, context?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on April 30, 2020, 09:08:35 PM
So what happens when one person's right to freedom comes at the expense of someone else's right to life? Or is that too subtle an argument for these patriots?

It's too subtle an argument for Elon Musk. He doesn't understand that people's freedoms don't include endangering the lives of others.

??

Sorry, context?

Oh, sorry, I sometimes forget that not everyone uses Twitter.

Elon has been pretty vocal that the concern over COVID-19 is just overblown paranoia, and just recently expressed his belief that requiring people social distance is "de facto house arrest" and that it is fascism. He has also been retweeting conspiracy theories about how hospitals are supposedly inflating the number of COVID-19 cases in order to receive more funding. He basically believes that people should be free to go about their business even though that will endanger others.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 01, 2020, 10:05:56 AM
As opposed to many others in the aerospace industry, Elon Musk is a Silicon Valley billionaire.  As a rule, such types are (1) very libertarian, and (2) completely naive when it comes to workable politics.  Perhaps more importantly, he gets $600 million in stock options if Tesla Motors maintains a $100 billion market cap this period, which he stands to miss if his workers don't get back to work soon.  He may be a Silicon Valley billionaire, but he's still acting like he's thinking like a billionaire.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on May 01, 2020, 10:30:56 AM
Weird thing about money, the more people have the more they want. I'm not a whizz with finances, and I know business is complex and large sums can come and go very quickly, but why are so many billionaires always up in arms about loss of revenue and demanding government action to save them and their businesses? Richard Branson has been avoiding UK tax for years and is worth about £4.5 billion, but within a week of lockdown was demanding UK goverment (read: taxpayer) bailouts for his airline.

The number I always have in my head when I see billionaires going on about money, taxation etc. is 99.9%. Why that number? Because for most people the loss of 99.9% of their net worth is a disaster. I am OK financially but if I lost 99.9% of my net worth I would be homeless, carless and would only be able to buy food for a short time before I was reduced to begging, never mind afford transport to attend job interviews to get myself back on track. On the other hand, a billionaire who loses 99.9% of his net worth is still a millionaire! And yet, once they get to that top strata, they fly into paroxysms of panic at the possibility of dropping down to still significantly better off that the vast majority of people in the entire world. It would be almost impossible for a billionaire to be reduced to abject poverty, but you'd think to listen to some of them they are constantly walking the line between life and death.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on May 01, 2020, 10:40:22 AM
So what happens when one person's right to freedom comes at the expense of someone else's right to life? Or is that too subtle an argument for these patriots?

It's too subtle an argument for Elon Musk. He doesn't understand that people's freedoms don't include endangering the lives of others.

??

Sorry, context?

Oh, sorry, I sometimes forget that not everyone uses Twitter.

Elon has been pretty vocal that the concern over COVID-19 is just overblown paranoia, and just recently expressed his belief that requiring people social distance is "de facto house arrest" and that it is fascism. He has also been retweeting conspiracy theories about how hospitals are supposedly inflating the number of COVID-19 cases in order to receive more funding. He basically believes that people should be free to go about their business even though that will endanger others.

God love Elon for what he's doing with SpaceX, but he is a weapons-grade asshole with skin thinner than a grape's.  His vendetta against Unsworth was shameful, and lack of consequences from that has just emboldened him.  And then you have all the Muskrats venerating him like the MAGAts with Trump. 

I'm sure Musk isn't personally affected by the pandemic.  I'm sure that most of his peers are not personally affected. They don't give half a shit for "freedom" or "liberty" or "rights".  They just see empty factory floors and decide That's Not Right, People Need To Be Working And Making Money (For Me).  You wanna know why Millenials are increasingly socialism-curious?  Musk and his ilk are why Millenials are increasingly socialism-curious. 

Yes, the economic fallout from the lockdowns is real and grave and we're heading into a years-long depression with prolonged unemployment that will make the 1930s look like a non-stop party.  But if you send everyone back to work and two weeks later half of them are on their back and unable to work, how have you made the situation any better?  Everything will be shut down again, plus you will have blown up your hospitals and clinics because now more people are sick than can be dealt with.  That situation could be mitigated with extensive testing and tracking so you don't have to shut down the world, but that isn't happening and it isn't going to happen because the right people won't make money from it. 

What we Americans need to acknowledge is that we've blown it.  We've missed every window on containing the pandemic and the fallout from it.  And it's nobody's fault but our own.  The salt-of-the-earth "Real" Americans elected a demented, narcissistic, drug-addled man-baby to lead the country because they were tired of being looked down upon for being ignorant racist shitheads, and because of his actions during this crisis I'm not sure the Union will survive.  States are forming regional pacts because the federal government is unable and unwilling to act in the interests of its people.  GOP strategist and gadfly Rick Wilson coined the phrase (and wrote a book titled) "Everything Trump Touches Dies."  It's turning out to be literally true.  We will be a failed state by the time this is over. 

And I must reiterate, it's the enablers, the people who supported Trump through all of this, who will need to pay.  They will need to lose their positions and livelihoods.  Guys like McConnell and Hannity and Limbaugh need to lose everything and have to get by on Social Security benefits alone. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 01, 2020, 10:48:00 AM
As opposed to many others in the aerospace industry, Elon Musk is a Silicon Valley billionaire.  As a rule, such types are (1) very libertarian, and (2) completely naive when it comes to workable politics.  Perhaps more importantly, he gets $600 million in stock options if Tesla Motors maintains a $100 billion market cap this period, which he stands to miss if his workers don't get back to work soon.  He may be a Silicon Valley billionaire, but he's still acting like he's thinking like a billionaire.

Which concerns me. What other ways is he willing he risk the lives of his employees (or his customers) in order to increase his wealth? Is he going to cut corners when it comes to the safety of the Tesla autopilot system? Is he going to push the envelope too far with crewed SpaceX spacecrafts? I like Tesla and SpaceX a lot, and I've admired Elon... but his stance on COVID-19 cost him a ton of respect.

I understand that the shutdown is really hard for businesses. But without social distancing the effects on the economy would be much worse... it's going to be hard for Tesla employees to go to work when they're hooked up to a ventilator or dead.

My boss once joked (I think?) that if I died he would show up at my funeral, knock on the lid of my coffin, and say "Sorry... I just need you to answer a few questions."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 01, 2020, 11:32:13 AM
Yet I was told that I was believing things without evidence for expressing distaste for him here a few months back.  And this was after he called someone involved with that cave rescue a pedophile on no evidence.

Anyway, as to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," well, there's this.  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lockdown-protest-car-message/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 01, 2020, 03:55:09 PM
Or is that too subtle an argument for these patriots?

It might be.  They certainly seem to be acting like they don't understand balancing tests or a hierarchy of rights.  It's more useful to look at the Constitution than the Declaration of Independence.  The latter is certainly enlightening,  but it's intended as a statement of political aspiration.  The Constitution is what's trying to be working law.  And a lot of people point to the constitutional phrases to the effect, "...shall not be abridged," and try to read those as absolute inalienable rights.  They aren't.  No body of law -- even rising as high as the Constitution -- is perfectly contoured.  That's why the United States likes being a common-law country.  But more importantly, balancing one right asserted by one group against a competing right asserted by another group is simply not something that has an inherent, prescriptive solution.  My right inherently imposes a responsibility on you, which may burden your rights.  And vice versa.

What makes this case special and topical is that Michigan is one of the states Pres. Trump tweeted about, effectively encouraging them to rise up in rebellion.  And I understand he tweeted yesterday in support of the protesters.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on May 01, 2020, 05:05:04 PM
The Constitution is what's trying to be working law.  And a lot of people point to the constitutional phrases to the effect, "...shall not be abridged," and try to read those as absolute inalienable rights.  They aren't.

Indeed, this is common no matter how detailed the law as written is, someone will always take one line from it and treat it like an absolute right. There's no way to take something as short as the US Constitution and take it as the be all and end all of US law. It's surely supposed to be the underlying basis, not the final word. Spirit rather than letter. And do these morons really think that the people who wrote it all out honestly thought that there were no circumstances whatsoever under which exercising that right might be a bad idea, such as during a global pandemic of a disease that can be transmitted easily from person to person?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on May 01, 2020, 05:07:18 PM
My right inherently imposes a responsibility on you, which may burden your rights.

As I hear it phrased a lot here, your right to swing your fists ends at the tip of my nose.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on May 01, 2020, 11:03:38 PM
Weird thing about money, the more people have the more they want. I'm not a whizz with finances, and I know business is complex and large sums can come and go very quickly, but why are so many billionaires always up in arms about loss of revenue and demanding government action to save them and their businesses? Richard Branson has been avoiding UK tax for years and is worth about £4.5 billion, but within a week of lockdown was demanding UK goverment (read: taxpayer) bailouts for his airline.

The number I always have in my head when I see billionaires going on about money, taxation etc. is 99.9%. Why that number? Because for most people the loss of 99.9% of their net worth is a disaster. I am OK financially but if I lost 99.9% of my net worth I would be homeless, carless and would only be able to buy food for a short time before I was reduced to begging, never mind afford transport to attend job interviews to get myself back on track. On the other hand, a billionaire who loses 99.9% of his net worth is still a millionaire! And yet, once they get to that top strata, they fly into paroxysms of panic at the possibility of dropping down to still significantly better off that the vast majority of people in the entire world. It would be almost impossible for a billionaire to be reduced to abject poverty, but you'd think to listen to some of them they are constantly walking the line between life and death.

Same here in Australia. Virgin Australia was one of two airlines (with Qantas) which dominated the airline industry in Australia, and when things went pear-shaped VA asked for a government bailout of around AU$1.4 billion, with Branson supporting the call. The head of Qantas then said that if VA got a bailout, Qantas should too. The government said no, and VA is now in receivership.

Having said that, though, the issue is murky. On the one hand there is talk that VA's management had made some bad decisions which put the airline in bad financial shape. So there were some people saying that the government was right to not protect a (private and majority foreign-owned) company from it's own bad management. On the other hand the Australian airline industry is small enough that it can't support three major airlines, meaning that two are important for maintaining competitive pricing (even so domestic air travel in Australia is expensive). Back in 2001 the previous competition for Qantas collapsed, leaving Qantas with an effective monopoly. Surprise surprise, the cost of air travel shot up, and it didn't come down again until VA's predecessor Virgin Blue expanded its services. I find it hard to believe Qantas won't exploit its market control once air travel returns to normal.

So the problem is that if you leave the market to itself and an airline fails then the survivor gets a monopoly until such time as new competition can be arranged. But if the government acts to prevent that situation from occurring then there's the temptation to management to make irresponsible decisions in the knowledge that the government will save you from your mistakes. In each case the loser is the Australian air traveller - even before the pandemic the cost of flying within Australia was only a little less than the cost of flying to another country.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 02, 2020, 02:16:15 PM
There's no way to take something as short as the US Constitution and take it as the be all and end all of US law. It's surely supposed to be the underlying basis, not the final word.

While the Constitution may be short, the standard introductory textbook for law students on constitutional law has 1,900 pages and weighs just over 3 kg.  The U.S. Constitution does many things, but in terms of lawmaking it merely outlines the boundaries inside which laws can be made and enforced.  In fact, the country was several amendments in before it was decided whether the Constitution governed lawmaking by the States, or merely limited the national government.  (In all fairness, a substantial portion of the textbook I mentioned deals with such unique practical problems as our federalism, not with the lofty principles of civil governance.)

Our judiciary is a good example of how it's supposed to work.  Americans speak of an "Article III court," which refers to Article III of the Constitution describing the judiciary.  It mandates one supreme court and one justice.  All the rest is set up by Congress.  And the early efforts to structure a judiciary looked not unlike the way the U.K.'s judiciary evolved from an apparently baffling array of historical courts.  One of the first and most important cases started out as a simple petition for writ of mandamus -- poor Mr Marbury having been denied a certification of his appointment to a judgeship by James Madison's state department.  The case turned on the Judiciary Act of 1789 that was worded slightly -- but importantly -- differently than the Constitution.  The law -- Congress' initial attempt to create the "inferior courts" asked for in Article III -- defined a certain kind of court and over what cases it had original jurisdiction.  But it contradicted the direction given in Article III regarding the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

Mr Marbury never got his judgeship; the case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.  But in deciding that the U.S. Supreme Court did not have original jurisdiction over his petition for that specific writ, as the Constitution specified, the Court made a very important ruling.  It noted that the time-honored role of courts is, in part, to decide which of two contradicting laws should govern some set of facts, and stated brazenly that the Constitution -- being a very high law, but a law nonetheless -- should be subject to interpretation, construction, and analysis the same as any other law.  This includes the balancing of equities that render the law of the constitution malleable where necessary, not absolute and inviolable.  Judicial review of laws is not a power the Constitutional officially grands to courts in the U.S., but it's one of the most powerful things an Article III court can do.  Similarly, courts established in the States have the power to review state laws for conformance to state constitutions.  And there is a complicated set of rules to govern when U.S. district courts can test state laws against the U.S. Constitution.

Thither Michigan.  Perhaps coincidentally, the Michigan Court of Claims handed down a ruling on the same day upholding the likely constitutionality of the Governor's orders establishing the quarantine.  (Plaintiffs had asked for a preliminary injunction, which was denied on the grounds of the plaintiff's unlikelihood to succeed on the merits.)

We'll get to that.

Quote
And do these morons really think that the people who wrote it all out honestly thought that there were no circumstances whatsoever under which exercising that right might be a bad idea, such as during a global pandemic of a disease that can be transmitted easily from person to person?

Yes -- in so many words -- with a "but."  The "No stars in the photos!" version of the legal argument here comes from Ex Parte Milligan, a famous 1866 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the rights guaranteed in the Constitution (in this case, the right to due process) are not suspended just because the government is dealing with an emergency (in this case, the U.S. Civil War).  It is then argued (erroneously) that this establishes the supremacy of constitutionally-protected rights over such things as executive orders.

Plaintiffs in the Michigan case allege that the Governor violated the right of due process in quarantining everyone, not just the sick.  They argued further that the Governor had no right to issue such orders, because the state constitution hadn't granted her that power.

The second point was easily disposed of. As in nearly every State, there is a law in Michigan that governs when the executive may issue emergency orders.  It defines what constitutes an emergency.  It grants the executive certain additional powers, enumerated in the law.  (Restricting travel is a common provision.)  It limits the duration and extent of such orders.  And it reserves the power to review and overturn the orders, and the sole power to decide to extend them.  (Here in Utah the legislature wants to revise our emergency law to require the Governor to give the legislature 48 hours' prior warning before issuing an emergency order, but this is largely a political tussle.). So as long as the Governor exercises only the powers delegated to her, according to the law governing that delegation, no separation-of-powers question arises.

The due-process question requires more analysis, but the summary of it is that while Milligan precludes statements of the ilk, "There is an emergency, therefore your rights are suspended," it quite conspicuously fails to prevent emergency circumstances from being considered in the balance of equities.  Preventing exigency from being a supremely overriding concern does not stop it from being a concern at all.  Nearly all causes of action that allege government overreach cite Milligan in this same wrong way.

Infamously, American courts have little if any power to second-guess the wisdom of a legislature or the executive.  Those are considered policy matters, and therefore governed by the mechanics of political government, apart from which the judiciary ostensibly stands.  So the constitutionality of the Governor's order -- it having the ad hoc force of law and thus being reviewable -- has to clear only a very low bar.  An order within an officer's endowed duties simply has to be rationally connected to an evident emergency, and lack evidence of an ulterior motive.  In short, a court answers only two questions:  Does the officer have the power to make this law?  and, Is the law merely a pretext?  The court does not ensure wise government, only orderly and lawful government.  It is not permitted to question the wisdom of whether quarantining everyone is a good idea.

The order having been given pursuant to undeniable evidence of a global pandemic, its documented appearance and lethality in Michigan, and uncontested principles of epidemiology, it easily passes constitutional muster on the rational basis point.  Plaintiffs present no evidence that the steps it advocates have any other goal except the stated desire to prevent widespread infection.  Whether better or less burdensome restrictions would have been more desirable is outside the court's jurisdiction.

Political remedies for the wisdom of the order need to go a long way before armed rebellion is the appropriate remedy.  Here the political process has worked; the Michigan state legislature is controlled by Republicans, and they have declined to extend the Governor's emergency order -- the power they reserved for themselves and, by extension, for the people.  This is the advisable process for changing policy in the U.S. pattern of government.  It is highly flawed in practice, but it's design to try to keep the question of what should be done in the hands of the people, not of some judge.

The undercurrent of this movement flows over a solid bed of American individualism.  The attitude of many an average American is that no one can tell him or her what to do.  The Spanish Flu quarantine and subsequent focus on public health gave rise to many court cases testing the legal extent of individual sovereignty, and nearly all of them sided with public health.  The argument is presented that a person's health and the care of his body should always be his own business.  No decision by government should impose treatments or preventative measures upon people who don't want to be burdened by them.  They get to decide for themselves how to address the risk of illness or injury, and accept as much risk as they want in order to exercise their constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms.  It's the Nanny State argument writ somewhat smaller.

It's not hard to see the fallacy on which this is based.  Our ability to communicate deadly diseases amongst ourselves creates a duty of care that necessarily burdens the rights of assembly and commerce.  Most individualists don't disagree, but they advertise that the only acceptable remedy is to quarantine just the contagious.  The constitutionality of such a quarantine policy is undisputed, as it is a narrowly-tailored temporary policy based on the actual discovery of infection.  It raises little question of due process.  Here, however, we simply have no practical way to determine who is contagious and who is not.  For reasons we have lamented here, the U.S. was entirely unprepared to make that determination and thereby enact a more narrowly-tailored policy.  That doesn't make the public-health interest go away.  The political arms still have a responsibility to impose a reasonable duty of care on their citizens.  And as due process cannot here distinguish between the sick and the well, the ability to finely tailor a policy -- as desirous as that would be -- is denied the decision-maker.  The decision is then to apply it equally to all.  This doesn't do a whole lot to address rampant individualism, but you can't reason your way around an inherently unreasonable position.

But.

While some of the protesters are motivated solely by their misreading of Milligan, many more are simply more conspiratorial than the more obedient and trusting crowd.  Fed by a steady stream of propaganda from Fox News and others, they simply don't believe COVID-19 is as grave a threat as is being reported.  It's just the flu, they say.  Or they argue that the balance of equities should weigh more heavily toward commerce.  It's not so much that they deny the balance of equities as the governing rule as it is they say it's a pretext for eroding civil liberties because the power-grabbers are overstating one side of the equation.

Following the USA PATRIOT Act and similar legislation, and revelations of previously unknown actions of government, the American public has become highly sensitized toward questions of government overreach, especially accompanying declarations of threats to our safety.  So, for example, efforts to mitigate the pandemic by means of electronic contact tracing can be easily reconstrued as efforts to expand routine surveillance of every citizen.  If only all conspiracy theories could be as easily dispelled as some of the classic genres we have discussed here.  Our safety in situations that arise only every hundred years or so, like a global, deadly pandemic, requires trust in leadership.  I fear that trust has been squandered by nearly all American leaders in the pursuit of petty partisan or special interests.  And it has been tolerated by the electorate for far too long.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 03, 2020, 11:43:27 AM
It makes me very angry that I have no doubt that a lot of these protestors fully supported the PATRIOT Act and still would today, because it only impedes others' civic liberties in their opinion.  I opposed it then and continue to do so today, but I also have enough awareness of history to know what the US would look like right now if we hadn't taken these steps.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 03, 2020, 01:46:59 PM
...because it only impedes others' civic liberties in their opinion.

Right.  Extensive surveillance is only used to go after terrorists.  Oh, and child molesters -- they're bad people too.  See, you lowered the bar ever so slightly, and no one cared.  Then with that precedent in place, each successive administration or legislature applies incremental amendments according to their proclivities.  Xenophobes can routinely track border crossings and routinely surveil border towns because they're only looking for "drug runners" and "rapists."  Those are bad people too, so it's only a small step from terrorists to that.  Then the left can apply the same logic and track different groups of people because they're "illegally smuggling guns."

How does that get past the Fourth Amendment?  In the cases such as those revealed by Edward Snowden, it relies on information already ruled non-private via the so-called Third-Party Doctrine.  That is, information that is not inherently private, but which is revealed to a third party as part of doing business with them, is considered voluntarily disclosed.  If I send a letter to my mother, the fact that this happened, and the identity and location of the addressee, do not require a search warrant under the Fourth Amendment because I have voluntarily disclosed that information to a third party, namely a public or private courier.  The content of the letter remains private, I am "secure in my papers," as the Fourth Amendment details.

Smith v Maryland extended this to phone calls.  Phone companies did not routinely record what numbers were dialed from which other numbers.  The technology allowed that to happen, but it was difficult to do universally.  The Supreme Court ruled that if the executive wanted to obtain a register of what numbers were dialed from a particular phone, it did not need a warrant to do so.  All of this is so-called "metadata."

Nowadays, every American generates an astonishing amount of metadata, none of it with a reasonable expectation of privacy.  Nowadays it is possible to routinely harvest all or most of it.  Nowadays it is possible to mine the data in ways the Framers or even the Court in Smith could not possibly have envisioned.

Premises:  Tom receives a brief phone call from a number publicly listed as a doctor. A minute after hanging up, he phones a private number publicly listed as an older woman with the same last name as he.  Five minutes later he logs into a web portal operated by his healthcare insurance.  Then he sends an email to hartford.com, a company well known to provide life insurance.
Conclusion:  Tom has been diagnosed with a possibly terminal illness.

All that comes from metadata.  And with data-mining and information-science techniques, all of that can be automatically inferred for a large number of people.

Now in order to protect the Fourth Amendment rights, the laws that allow the gathering and analysis of such information for defense purposes is automatically inadmissible in a court.  But the principle of parallel construction applies.  This has been used by prosecutors for many decades.  While the information gathered for one purpose cannot be admitted as evidence, it can be used by prosecutors to focus their limited attention and resources on people of interest, and thereby acquire evidence for probable cause using methods the Fourth Amendment allows.  The defense can attack only evidence that is presented in court, not third-party evidence a prosecutor may have used to make its efforts more efficient.

The 2019 session of the Supreme Court contained a revealing case.  It is now relatively easy and inexpensive for police departments to install cameras that record the license plate numbers of every car that passes through its field of view.  Thus, police can routinely track the movement of any car through the city.

It gets worse.  If a police department has a real-time connection to any of its databases, or any public database, that indexes its information by license plate number, a fair amount of metadata analysis in real time.  In this case, a truck passed by a random police checkpoint.  A real-time metadata analysis identified the the driver to which the truck was registered as an individual whose license to drive was suspended.  The officer, without first identifying the driver of the vehicle, then inferred that the vehicle was being driven illegally and initiated a traffic stop.  (For you non-Americans, vehicles cannot be routinely stopped in the U.S. unless an officer has probable cause that the driver is breaking, or has broken, a law.). Only then did the officer ascertain the driver's identity.  Had the driver not been the registered owner, under prevailing law, the stop would have been unlawful.  The fruits of any subsequent search of the vehicle would have been inadmissible under the Fourth Amendment.

Thankfully, the Court ruled 8-1 that the officer violated the driver's Fourth Amendment rights and vacated his convincing for driving under a suspended license.  This case reveals the degree of surveillance and real-time processing that is possible, and the fact that it only comes to light in isolated cases.  Here in Utah, an extensive and little-revealed surveillance system called Banjo has just come under review and is presently discontinued because the owner of the very secretive company from which the technology was sole-sourced was discovered to have a checkered and problematic political past.

But these things are only used to catch bad guys, right?

So much has slipped through the cracks largely because the Framers didn't consider it possible to surveil the public activities of people to the degree we can now demonstrate possible.  It requires cases like Glover v Kansas (supra) to bring to light exactly what government is actually doing, and how easy it is to dragnet people committing minor offenses, or merely doing things that only seem suspicious according to their metadata.

For years the executive has asked people to trust that the information they collect will not be used for nefarious political purposes.  But insofar as review of FISA courts and their respective warrants has been possible, it has shown unauthorized searches and improper issuance of warrants.  This is what makes dismissing Pres. Trump's accusations of political machinations so hard to dismiss.  The courts, under both parties' administration, has misbehaved.  And so the whole notion of the police operating unsupervised, and courts making decisions that are unreviewable and unappealable, is inimical to American values.  But we only go after bad guys, right?

Here in Utah we have an odious law that allows prosecutors to issue "administrative subpoenas."  These are requests for private or privileged information that would ordinarily require a judge's order, here issued only upon the authority of the Attorney-General.  In other words, they blatantly violate the Fourth Amendment.  I've seen one of these "subpoenas."  They look very intimidating, threatening the receiver with prosecution under the relevant state law for failing to obey.  They bear official-looking seals and signatures.  The very few recipients who don't comply are never prosecuted.  Because a law that's never tested in court cannot be overturned.  But the vast majority of people who receive them turn over the information, because the effect of the law is to subject a third party to criminal prosecution for and act that previously didn't incur liability -- claiming privilege.

President Obama had no problem using the expanded executive he inherited from his predecessor to issue Executive Orders and circumvent a hostile and obstructionist Congress.  These orders were in turn challenged in court and upheld.  So now Obama's rivals are packing the judiciary to make sure that never happens again.  The executive is now effectively shielded both from the legislature and from the judiciary.  And with efforts toward voter suppression showing more promise, the GOP may more frequently obtain the White House, which, under Trump, is growing closer to becoming an effective monarchy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on May 09, 2020, 05:54:04 AM
So Trump now thinks the COVID-19 tests are maybe not reliable because someone tested negative repeatedly then their latest test was positive. Clearly there can be no other explanation for this....

I don't wish this illness on anyone, but I find myself fervently wishing that Trump does not get it, because if he gets it and recovers can you imagine what his deuded sense of self-importance would make of that?!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 09, 2020, 11:42:44 AM
The man has never let not knowing how anything works stop him from being a successful businessman and the best U.S. President in history.  I'm surprised his disclosure of the name of the staffer didn't violate our health privacy laws.  We all assumed it did, but it doesn't forbid employers from naming employees and detailing any health history they know about the employee.  It's unethical and in extremely poor taste, but not illegal.  I assume more civilized countries have stronger privacy laws.

And I'm sure Donald Trump would be a smug survivor.  But what has me worried is that now the entire West Wing has been exposed.  While I'm sure they'll all be tested, the problem is quarantining that many high-level people should any of them test positive.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 09, 2020, 11:51:42 AM
Oh, yeah, at least two people inside the White House have now tested positive.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on May 09, 2020, 11:56:16 AM
I don't wish this illness on anyone, but I find myself fervently wishing that Trump does not get it, because if he gets it and recovers can you imagine what his deuded sense of self-importance would make of that?!

 Hahaha

Dear all , what do you think of what The Independent wrote of Trump wanting a civil war? Is this true in yout opinion?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 09, 2020, 12:27:51 PM
I had to read the article twice before understanding that it's not so much that Donald Trump wants a civil war as it is that he doesn't care if one happens so long as he gets what he wants.  He's a narcissist above all.  He will say or do whatever seems expedient in the moment to keep adulation focused on him and blame for any objectively adverse consequences placed squarely on someone else.  He calls for the "liberation" of states whose governors didn't defer to him not because he wants the rebellion that would tend to foment, but because he simply wants to punish certain individuals for their public defiance.  I believe he literally does not care what the actual consequences would be to people in those states who suffer as a result.  Putting yourself in the President's likely mindset, It's easy to say those people suffer because of their governors' lack of cooperation.  He walks away blameless.

The author is an American -- a New Yorker, in fact.  We can presume she knows the person of Donald Trump well.  She points to all the traditional betrayals others have noted in the President's wake.  She is right about one thing we discussed a few pages ago.  While the President is clearly not an intelligent man in many ways, he has a New York brand of street smarts.  He's a very shrewd salesman, and speaks in the ways that get people to do things they probably would not do otherwise.  Up until now he has been able to squeak past the consequences of his many failures.  I mean all the times when the facts fail to correspond to his puffery.  He declares bankruptcy.  He shifts blame.  He changes tack.  But his all-style, no-substance puffery is why the President holds campaign rallies instead of press conferences.  (We've seen how badly he handles those.)  All he really knows how to do is keep a crowd riled up.  And as long as they're riled up in a way that strokes his ego, he simply does not care what that riled-up mob ends up doing, or how many of that mob ends up dying.  He firmly believes none of it will ever be his fault, and he will never be held accountable for it -- either in fact or in his own mind.

Ms Selinger predicts that civil war is inevitable in the United States.  I assume she means literally, but she doesn't say.  Clearly we're headed for a crisis of some form.  But in fairness, the U.S. has been headed in this direction for a long time.  Donald Trump as President of the U.S. is a symptom of tose forces, I believe, not the cause.  That is, I think the forces that are pushing the U.S. toward some sort of end game allowed such a man as Donald Trump to be elected President.  But to say that war is what Trump wants is, in my judgment, stretching the Seilinger's point.  I doubt he necessarily wants a literal war.  But he's okay pushing the buttons that may cause one as a side effect.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 09, 2020, 12:37:20 PM
if he gets it and recovers can you imagine what his deuded sense of self-importance would make of that?!

Both the President and the Vice President have been exposed by having someone test positive in their inner circles.  Imagine that both contract COVID-19 and neither recovers.  According to the U.S. Constitution's rules of succession, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would then become President.  The thought of that is sure to make both Donald Trump and Mike Pence want to hole up in a bunker about now.  It's not so much the smugness of biological survival, I think, as the sheer political need not to die.  One of them would pull through just out of sheer political stubbornness.

As a side note, I've started picking my way through Erskine May's book on U.K. government.  While the book didn't exist at the time the Framers form the United States, the long-standing traditions it codifies would have formed the backdrop of their work.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on May 09, 2020, 05:55:32 PM
I had to read the article twice before understanding that it's not so much that Donald Trump wants a civil war as it is that he doesn't care if one happens so long as he gets what he wants.  He's a narcissist above all.  He will say or do whatever seems expedient in the moment to keep adulation focused on him and blame for any objectively adverse consequences placed squarely on someone else.  He calls for the "liberation" of states whose governors didn't defer to him not because he wants the rebellion that would tend to foment, but because he simply wants to punish certain individuals for their public defiance.  I believe he literally does not care what the actual consequences would be to people in those states who suffer as a result.  Putting yourself in the President's likely mindset, It's easy to say those people suffer because of their governors' lack of cooperation.  He walks away blameless.

The author is an American -- a New Yorker, in fact.  We can presume she knows the person of Donald Trump well.  She points to all the traditional betrayals others have noted in the President's wake.  She is right about one thing we discussed a few pages ago.  While the President is clearly not an intelligent man in many ways, he has a New York brand of street smarts.  He's a very shrewd salesman, and speaks in the ways that get people to do things they probably would not do otherwise.  Up until now he has been able to squeak past the consequences of his many failures.  I mean all the times when the facts fail to correspond to his puffery.  He declares bankruptcy.  He shifts blame.  He changes tack.  But his all-style, no-substance puffery is why the President holds campaign rallies instead of press conferences.  (We've seen how badly he handles those.)  All he really knows how to do is keep a crowd riled up.  And as long as they're riled up in a way that strokes his ego, he simply does not care what that riled-up mob ends up doing, or how many of that mob ends up dying.  He firmly believes none of it will ever be his fault, and he will never be held accountable for it -- either in fact or in his own mind.

Ms Selinger predicts that civil war is inevitable in the United States.  I assume she means literally, but she doesn't say.  Clearly we're headed for a crisis of some form.  But in fairness, the U.S. has been headed in this direction for a long time.  Donald Trump as President of the U.S. is a symptom of tose forces, I believe, not the cause.  That is, I think the forces that are pushing the U.S. toward some sort of end game allowed such a man as Donald Trump to be elected President.  But to say that war is what Trump wants is, in my judgment, stretching the Seilinger's point.  I doubt he necessarily wants a literal war.  But he's okay pushing the buttons that may cause one as a side effect.

I see. Thnx for the input. He is anyway no better than a street thug ..
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on May 10, 2020, 02:33:59 AM
  The thought of that is sure to make both Donald Trump and Mike Pence want to hole up in a bunker about now.
Maybe not.  Both of them have resisted leading by example.  Pence was most noteworthy by refusing to socially distance or wear a mask per Mayo Clinic policy when he visisted.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on May 10, 2020, 03:59:51 AM
Well, Pence's Chief of Staff has been diagnosed with it as his press secretary, so we shall see how things proceed from here.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on May 10, 2020, 04:00:05 AM
  The thought of that is sure to make both Donald Trump and Mike Pence want to hole up in a bunker about now.
Maybe not.  Both of them have resisted leading by example.  Pence was most noteworthy by refusing to socially distance or wear a mask per Mayo Clinic policy when he visisted.

And this is surely where it is clear that fear is the driving force behind this US government. No-one, absolutely no-one, should have been permitted into the facility while blatantly and wilfully disregarding the health and safety measures put in place to protect everyone there. But apparently no-one was willing to stand up to the VP and tell him to do it right or get out.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on May 10, 2020, 10:52:21 AM
...Ms Selinger predicts that civil war is inevitable in the United States.  I assume she means literally, but she doesn't say.  Clearly we're headed for a crisis of some form.  But in fairness, the U.S. has been headed in this direction for a long time.  Donald Trump as President of the U.S. is a symptom of tose forces, I believe, not the cause.  That is, I think the forces that are pushing the U.S. toward some sort of end game allowed such a man as Donald Trump to be elected President.  But to say that war is what Trump wants is, in my judgment, stretching the Seilinger's point.  I doubt he necessarily wants a literal war.  But he's okay pushing the buttons that may cause one as a side effect.

A few years ago I saw a novel by Orson Scott Card called "Empire". It posits a civil war in a politically divided USA, from which emerges a bipartisan candidate. OSC was very obviously modelling the future of the USA as transitioning in some way similar to the way the Roman Republic transformed into an Empire, with that bipartisan president modelled on the first Roman Emperor, Augustus.

I don't see this as likely, simply because at the moment the supporters of the two main parties seem to be too opposed to each other to accept the idea of the parties agreeing on much at all, let alone something as significant as a Presidential candidate.

The model I see for the USA's future, rather more worryingly, is that of Spain in 1936. Spain had a democracy through the 1930s which more or less worked, except that the voting system favoured large coalitions, leading to steadily more extreme positions at each end of the political spectrum.

Then, four months after a left-wing coalition won power, the army attempted a coup which only partly succeeded. They captured a few cities in the south of Spain and had widespread support among the wealthier peasant farmers of the north. But the large cities and central and eastern Spain supported the government.

Both sides had foreign support, and both sides indulged in bloodshed at the expense of people in their own controlled territory who were suspected of supporting the other side. Over the course of three years of fighting the rebels gained control of the country, installing General Franco as the leader of Spain.

In the decades that followed, it wasn't a good career move to be known as someone who'd supported one of the parties of the Republican government. But on the other hand, giving Spain a generation with essentially no politics seems to have allowed the political parties to reset, meaning that since democracy was restored it has remained politically stable.

The problem is that I just don't know that the world can indulge the USA in a three year civil war followed by 30+ years of dictatorial rule to allow political passions to cool.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 10, 2020, 12:51:42 PM
The problem is that I just don't know that the world can indulge the USA in a three year civil war followed by 30+ years of dictatorial rule to allow political passions to cool.

That doesn't bode well for me.  The U.S. Air Force has a lot of practice bombing Utah.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 10, 2020, 01:07:40 PM
Well, Pence's Chief of Staff has been diagnosed with it as his press secretary, so we shall see how things proceed from here.

The White House uses the Abbott rapid-test method, which has a 15% false-negative rate.  I found the nasopharyngeal swab profoundly uncomfortable, so I'm not surprised they're opting for a less invasive method and a more frequent test.  However, if they're relying upon this to protect the White House, they're taking an awful risk.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 10, 2020, 02:30:25 PM
Both of them have resisted leading by example.

Donald Trump doesn't strike me as the kind of person who believes in leadership by example.  As a narcissist, he directs others but does not consider himself subject to direction -- even his own.  The socioeconomic class he grew up in is notorious for elitism and exceptionalism.  Only the "little people" have to obey the rules.

Quote
Pence was most noteworthy by refusing to socially distance or wear a mask per Mayo Clinic policy when he visited.

But apparently no-one was willing to stand up to the VP and tell him to do it right or get out.

A hallmark of a successful leader is demonstrating the willingness to follow when appropriate.  Mike Pence may be the Vice President of the United States, but when he enters a hospital, that's someone else's castle.  You show your respect for authority -- anyone's authority -- by deferring to them when you're in their territory.  And as the titular leader of the U.S. pandemic response, Pence had a special obligation to obey health and safety regulations.

I've seen a report that the Vice President required business officers to remove their masks when meeting with him.  That goes beyond his personal disobedience.  Deciding for yourself that you're not going to take customary precautions is one thing.  Admittedly a bad thing in a pandemic, where your choice may affect someone else.  However, when you decide for others that they don't get to take precautions they deem advisable, that's crossing a further line.  I have a hard time interpreting that as anything but a political statement.  The Trump administration keeps flirting with the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is not a serious illness and that mortality rates are being overstated.  I wonder if this behavior is a subtle suggest to the Republican base.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 11, 2020, 12:10:39 PM
It's pretty well acknowledged that, once Republicans start taking the pandemic seriously, they stop supporting the current administration.  Because if you take the pandemic seriously, you can't take their response seriously.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on May 12, 2020, 04:01:13 PM
The surest sign that the Republicans are preparing for a Trump loss is that they're making noise about the deficit.  They're prepping the field so that if Biden wins, absolutely nothing gets out of the Senate without massive cuts to SS and other social programs.  Oh, and even more tax cuts, because tax cuts are magic and fix everything. 

Remember kids, the deficit only matters when a Democrat is in charge. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on May 15, 2020, 02:39:03 AM
 "When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn't do any testing we would have very few cases."

Seriously? The man needs to be committed to an asylum.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 15, 2020, 09:37:54 AM
See, I took that ham-fisted remark to mean the only reason the U.S. sees so many cases compared to other countries is that, according to the President, we do so much more testing than other countries.  Which, of course, is demonstrably false.  The U.S. doesn't "lead the world" in testing, or even come within social distance of the podium.  But the President wants his followers to believe that he alone is saving the country while his predecessor whiled away uselessly and left us unprepared.  So it's more likely the U.S. infection rate is being underreported due to lack of testing.  But Donald Trump is trying to spin an alternate narrative that makes him look good as long as you don't look at all the facts together.

But I could be giving him too much credit.  Whether he realizes it or not, he's tapping into a habit that's all too common:  if you don't know the facts, then you don't have to deal with them.  It's why you have people showing up to the doctor suddenly with Stage 4 cancer, because they figured if they ignored all the previous warning signs then the problem would just go away on its own.  This is what the President seems to want to happen overall.  If not in this respect then certainly in others he is pressuring states to underreport the bad news.  He wants us to normalize to high infection rates, high mortality rates, so that we stop blaming him and accept that this terrible state of affairs was inevitable.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on May 15, 2020, 10:10:01 AM


"When you test, you find something is wrong with people."

Which is why he doesn't want his school records released. They tested him and discovered that he is a moron.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 15, 2020, 11:44:13 AM
Lots of people inside the White House are starting to test positive, and they're following all the precautions they insist the rest of us don't need to.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 15, 2020, 12:02:53 PM
Which is why he doesn't want his school records released. They tested him and discovered that he is a moron.

Almost certainly.  His former teachers have said he wasn't a good student.

This is what's so excruciatingly Trumpian.  It would be okay if he weren't a good student.  Harry Truman left college without a degree, mostly because he was too poor to pay for it.  But he has a reputation as being one of our smarter presidents because he did all the right things to compensate for a lack of formal education.  He read widely and often.  When he needed to know something, he would host private debates among suggested experts and then make his decision.

Donald Trump could have done something similar.  More specifically, he could have owned his poor grades and spun it to say he had street smarts instead -- the kind of stuff they don't teach in schools.  He could have drawn that as a contrast to Barack Obama (who had much academic success) and said that we need people of action to lead the country and not ivory-tower college professors.  The art of punditry has always suggested repackaging your weaknesses as if they were strengths.  And that's not to say that Trump didn't try something like that in his campaign.  But his overwhelming narcissism compels him to say that he is a "very stable genius," and that he got top marks in school.  He not only has to be good at everything, he has to be the best at it.  His whole branding business was based on the maxim that if you slap the Trump name on it, people will think it's the best of breed.  If it's possible to win or lose at something, Trump has to believe he won -- or would have won but for others' failure.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 15, 2020, 12:10:52 PM
Lots of people inside the White House are starting to test positive, and they're following all the precautions they insist the rest of us don't need to.

And even going so far as to insist that it's now acceptable for everyone else to return to work.  I wonder if a time will come when the present administration stops trying to just manage the optics of this crisis and starts taking it seriously.  At every step they seem to be doubling-down on the denial.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on May 15, 2020, 03:34:00 PM
Lots of people inside the White House are starting to test positive, and they're following all the precautions they insist the rest of us don't need to.

And even going so far as to insist that it's now acceptable for everyone else to return to work.  I wonder if a time will come when the present administration stops trying to just manage the optics of this crisis and starts taking it seriously.  At every step they seem to be doubling-down on the denial.

I think they're too far down the rabbit hole, and with that thundering cockwomble of a President, who is pathologically incapable of admitting any mistakes or accepting responsibility for anything not going well, I am very much afraid that until and unless he is removed the US is doomed to stumble through this crisis with no leadership whatsoever, regardless of the human cost. The thig that surprises me is that it seems obvious there is going to be an economic cost way over and above the lockdown, because if the current administration don't get their finger out, the rest of the world is going to socially distance itself from the US for fear of contamination.
[/quote]
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 16, 2020, 10:43:28 AM
At least some of the governors, including mine, are doing things right.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 16, 2020, 01:04:15 PM
I'm not sure about our governor anymore.  But it's more a topic for the COVID-19 thread, so I'll post it there.

Note how various states are forming regional coalitions and consortiums to pool their resources?  Absent a functional central government, the States are uniting in useful ways.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 16, 2020, 01:32:22 PM
I think they're too far down the rabbit hole...

And it's not like their constituents will hold them accountable.  Thanks to entertainment masquerading as news, some people are absolutely convinced that Trump's allies are helping him "drain the swamp."

The lawful ways to remove a President are painfully few.  There's no Thundering Cockwomble provision in the Constitution, and Donald Trump has already proven that impeachment is useless.  People are talking about the 25th Amendment, governing presidential incapacity, but that still requires Congress to act and agree.  There is no way that testudinate hemorrhoid of a Senate Majority Leader will let a vote happen that ousts Trump.  (I'm still trying to figure out how a people who hold an office that is not mentioned in the Constitution, and which is -- by definition -- a partisan office, can be allowed to wield so much power in the various Houses of Congress.)

Even Sen. McConnell tried to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the previous administration.  That indicates they are accepting the inevitable consequences of pandemic-level mortality across the country, and are trying to salvage their politics by finding someone to blame.  It's no longer "It's a hoax," or "We're doing great."  The message is, "Hundreds of thousands of people are going to die, and we want you to think it was our now-inconsequential political adversary's fault."  Statesmanship has devolved to politics, and politics has devolved to meaningless fanaticism.

Quote
The thing that surprises me is that it seems obvious there is going to be an economic cost way over and above the lockdown, because if the current administration don't get their finger out, the rest of the world is going to socially distance itself from the US for fear of contamination.

And if that happens, I'm worried that the Trump administration will keep spinning conspiracy theories wider to involve the rest of the world, and then threaten military action to force the lifting of restrictions and sanctions.  Countries with well-developed militaries, whose leaders blamed their own economic failures on others, haven't historically fared well.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on May 17, 2020, 06:58:06 AM
Well worth a read: https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

A Croatian once said (of civil war and mass graves due to genocide) "don't think that it can never happen in your country. I used to think like that".

Its also worth spending an hour listening to this interview: Yes, i know that the interviewer, Griffin is a nutjob, but some of the stuff talked about is remarkably prescient (and chilling).
"As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show
him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fan-bottom. When a military boot crashes his... then he will understand. But not before that. That’s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.

So basically America is stuck with demoralization and unless... even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating [a] new generation of American, it will still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality back to normalcy and patriotism.As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show
him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fan-bottom. When a military boot crashes his... then he will understand. But not before that. That’s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.

So basically America is stuck with demoralization and unless... even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating [a] new generation of American, it will still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality back to normalcy and patriotism.


The more i look at Trump in the US, Johnson in the UK, Brexit and the rise of populism, the more I am convinced that Putin is a stone-cold genius at this stuff.


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on May 18, 2020, 12:05:09 AM
Well worth a read: https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

A couple of good shout outs to the Australian situation regarding the pandemic. As I said over at UM, so often the Scandinavian countries are held up as an example to Australia, but maybe when it comes to the pandemic they (and others) might look to Australia.

Quote
A Croatian once said (of civil war and mass graves due to genocide) "don't think that it can never happen in your country. I used to think like that".

I can see where the sentiment comes from. All (all? ha!) you need to do is find the fault lines in a society and exploit them to the full. In Yugoslavia in the 1990s it was ethnicity and religion. In Spain in the 1930s it was politics. Dare I say it, in the USA in the 1850s and 1860s it was slavery.

Quote
The more i look at Trump in the US, Johnson in the UK, Brexit and the rise of populism, the more I am convinced that Putin is a stone-cold genius at this stuff.

He may be, but as I said earlier in this thread, Putin is naive if he doesn't think Russia is on China's to-do list, just a little further down than the USA. And just remember what happened to Russia the last time a Russian leader thought he had the measure of the neighbourhood's big bully.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on May 18, 2020, 10:18:00 AM
Sweden didn't take precautions, before it was too late, so they have suffered a lot of unnecessary deaths. Denmark closed all public assemblies - bars, nightclubs, music festivals, schools and prohibited public assemblies for any reason over 10 people right at the start, and we're doing quite well.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 18, 2020, 11:12:03 AM
I believe Sweden's goal is herd immunity.  Graham's sister lives there; apparently, her husband was already working from home, and she's on maternity leave, so they've been able to stay home anyway, though she says she's gotten quite a lot of "gee, I wonder if Margaret is alive or dead" messages.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on May 18, 2020, 11:16:41 AM
Well worth a read: https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

A Croatian once said (of civil war and mass graves due to genocide) "don't think that it can never happen in your country. I used to think like that".

Its also worth spending an hour listening to this interview: Yes, i know that the interviewer, Griffin is a nutjob, but some of the stuff talked about is remarkably prescient (and chilling).
"As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show
him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fan-bottom. When a military boot crashes his... then he will understand. But not before that. That’s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.

So basically America is stuck with demoralization and unless... even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating [a] new generation of Americans, it will still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality back to normalcy and patriotism.As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show
him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fan-bottom. When a military boot crashes his... then he will understand. But not before that. That’s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.

So basically America is stuck with demoralization and unless... even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating [a] new generation of Americans, it will still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality back to normalcy and patriotism.


The more i look at Trump in the US, Johnson in the UK, Brexit and the rise of populism, the more I am convinced that Putin is a stone-cold genius at this stuff.

Apologies...I don't know why some of the original post was in strikethrough.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on May 19, 2020, 06:39:04 AM
The lawful ways to remove a President are painfully few.  There's no Thundering Cockwomble provision in the Constitution

Well I think that motion should be table immediately. The Thundering Cockwomble Amendment is clearly desperately needed.

Quote
Even Sen. McConnell tried to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the previous administration.

Indeed, but at least he had the sense to say he was obviously wrong when so many people pointed out that the previous administration left them a playbook, a team of experts and showed it to the current administration during the transition, before the current adminstatration forgot the book existed, disbanded the experts and defunded the research.

It's terrifying that someone like Trump can display their total unhinged detachment from reality so blatantly and people will still think he's doing great.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on May 19, 2020, 10:06:04 AM
It's because we're obviously conspiracists moving the goal posts all the time.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on May 19, 2020, 01:39:33 PM
Well I think that motion should be table immediately. The Thundering Cockwomble Amendment is clearly desperately needed.

That function was supposed to be carried out by the Electoral College.  One of the duties the Framers envisioned was to prevent obvious cockwombles -- nevertheless elected by popular vote -- from attaining the Presidency.  Alexander Hamilton said it best in Federalist no. 68.
Quote from: Alexander Hamilton
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.
But over time, the various States undermined this function with the so-called faithless elector laws.  The States are free to determine how their electors are chosen, but more murk surrounds whether the States may direct how those electors should vote.  Requiring them to vote the directive of the plebiscite removes their ability to deflect the occasional thundering cockwomble.  The point was to make it so difficult to become President that the system would not need to allow casual means of removal that could be for political purposes.  Once sworn, the President is reasonably free from challenges to his authority.

There are calls to elect the President and Vice President directly.  That runs up against the statistical feature of the Electoral College.  Sparsely populated States have disproportionately more sway in the election.  In the modern popular mind, this violates the "One person, one vote" maxim.  And accidentally, the sparsely populated inner states tend to have more conservative politics than the heavily-populated coastal areas.  This means the Electoral College can presently be said to have a conservative bias.  The vote from it does not match the nationwide vote on the left-right spectrum.

Now throw in gerrymandering.  The Senate is elected by the States at large, usually by direct popular vote.  The House is elected by district, with each State being free to draw the districts as it sees fit, according to the apportioning of the seats to the State following the decennial census.  The only requirement in the Constitution is that the districts be equal in population, to a practical degree.  Subsequently, laws and court rulings have provided other criteria (e.g., race) along which House district boundaries may not be drawn.  But the Supreme Court has specifically declined to rule on whether political party is a disallowed criterion.

The Framers evidently felt that even if district boundaries were drawn by the political arms of the State governments, there would be enough checks and balances to prevent chaos or corruption.  They envisioned a more utopian process where different interests would be represented sufficiently in the various branches of local governments that district boundaries would be a well-considered compromise.  And they likely did not foresee a time when the evolution of information science and demographics would allow drawing boundaries with an almost certain knowledge of how it would vote until the next redistricting.  The redistricting that will occur in 2021 faces no legal obstacle in entrenching districts for whatever political party currently holds power in each State.

So the electoral features that were supposed to protect us from thundering cockwombles has now paradoxically enabled it.  Election was, of course, the first and foremost means envisioned to remove an errant President.  Yes, we have impeachment to deal with a President who acts blatantly contrary to law.  But it was supposed to prove difficult to wield, and it has so proven.  This is because the Framers were conscious of the abuses of the legislative powers of impeachment as exercised in Europe.  The relatively short term of the Presidency was supposed to limit the amount of damage a wantonly incompetent or undesirable President could do.  Because the Executive branch has grown into such a monster, U.S. government can effectively wreak a lot of havoc in four years.

Some people mention the 25th Amendment.  But this would be misapplied, unless President Trump manages to self-medicate himself into a hydroxychloroquine-induced heart attack.  The 25th Amendment cannot practically be used to sideline a President who is merely incompetent.  "Unable to discharge" is interpreted as being prevented by physical circumstances outside his control from fulfilling the office.  And since it can only be executed by the President himself or by his cabinet, it is presumed it won't be used politically.

Quote
Indeed, but at least [Sen. McConnell] had the sense to say he was obviously wrong...

To his credit.  He was probably legitimately unaware of the transition efforts and had simply assumed the President was telling the truth.  This time he chose to stick with the facts instead of merely parroting White House rhetoric.

Of course it didn't really amount to a reversal.  Despite Sen. McConnell's unqualified retraction, the White House has simply slipped down to the next rung on the ladder.  Yes, there was a playbook and yes, the incoming White House team was briefed and trained on it.  But now, supposedly, the White House rejected that plan early on as allegedly unworkable.  The White House now claims that they supplanted it with a better plan -- Trump's plan, referring to the published one as the "Obama-Biden" plan in an attempt to taint the Democratic candidate-presumptive in the process.

But of course that rhetoric doesn't fly.  First, the Trump plan was apparently to do nothing and hope it all blew over.  That's obviously less interactive than the Obama-era plan, which outlines quite a lot of things that should be done early and assertively.  So you can't blame the results of inaction on a plan that calls for action.  Second, if there was a Trump plan, why is it necessary to blame failure on the plan you rejected?  If we're following the Trump plan, then it's clearly the Trump plan that's failing.  If we're following the Obama plan, such that failure can be blamed on him, then why do we need mention of an (unused) Trump plan at all?  Finally, the Obama plan underscored that, at the time, the national PPE stockpiles were probably insufficient to respond to a large pandemic.  The Trump administration has made a big deal about this, saying that Pres. Obama "left the cupboards bare."  This is probably true, although an exaggeration.  But the outgoing Obama administration warned the incoming Trump administration of this three years ago.  It's now Pres. Trump's problem, and he did nothing to fix it.  In fact, he went so far as to dismantle even what Pres. Obama had managed to build in the time since dealing with the Ebola virus.  Even worse, it's something he could have addressed as a win-win, saying for example that he's putting Americans to work building up the national supply of medical equipment that his predecessor had let fall short.

Whoever said this administration sounds like children fumbling for excuses when caught misbehaving is spot-on.  There is no attempt to recount the facts of history.  There is simply an attempt to insulate the President from criticism -- and to enable his criticism of others -- at all costs.  This is the Trumpian pattern since the 1980s.  It's how he has failed at business time and again and earned the reputation among New York businessmen as a con-man and fraud.  It's why no American banks will lend him money.  He simply cannot deliver, and insists -- according to silly, toe-shuffling stories -- that his failure is someone else's fault.

Quote
It's terrifying that someone like Trump can display their total unhinged detachment from reality so blatantly and people will still think he's doing great.

Reality isn't what it used to be.  Fox News and others are ready with conspiracy theories to explain it all, with important-looking headines and talking heads to give it the illusion of legitimacy.  This is what I'm told the President had a Twitter meltdown over on U.S. Mothers Day.

That's how you get Attorney-General William Barr dismissing charges against a Trump ally, but it's okay because Gen. Flynn was just an innocent, naive guy railroaded by a Justice Department that Pres. Obama had weaponized against the GOP.  (Ironic, isn't it, that the Trump administration is doing exactly the things they accuse "Obamagate" of doing.)  And now this supposedly straightforward dropping of charges is being held up treasonously by an "Obama judge" who insists on letting legal scholars weigh in on the propriety and accuracy of A-G Barr's argument.  (Yes, there's an argument in the motion, and no, the judge doesn't have to accept it.)  Judges routinely grant a prosecutor's motion to dismiss, but the judge's higher calling is to ensure that justice is served.  Gen. Flynn is entitled to a fair process, not a favorable process.  That doesn't stop Fox News and others from blaming it all on the Deep State -- the "real" swamp that Pres. Trump vowed to drain.

Consider also the recent dismissal of an Inspector-General in the State Department.  Of course it was an Obama appointee, so that's just Trump draining out more of the Deep State that's "politically" harassing his dedicated public servants who are just trying to do their jobs.  One of the accusations the I-G was investigating was the approval of an arm's deal against the wishes of Congress.  That's mired in separation-of-powers questions.  But the other accusation was using official staff as personal assistants.  Pres. Trump's supporters are saying that's a bogus, inconsequential charge, made only to give the I-G a pretext to go after a Trump appointee.

No, it isn't.  The primary purpose of the Inspector-General system in the United States is to combat fraud, waste, and abuse.  As a Department of Defense contractor, I'm required to conspicuously post the I-G contact information and encourage workers to report any amount of fraud, waste, or abuse of taxpayer-provided resources, even if it's me committing the abuse.  Even small infractions count.  And while business executives often enjoy having their paid staff run errands and things for them, that's with essentially private money.  It's often acceptable in the business world to slush some money to keep executives happy.  You cannot do that with taxpayer money.  Anyone who is providing personal assistanceship services to a public employee has to be budgeted to do that as part of their job.  Slushing public resources for personal enjoyment is a major no-no at any level of government service, in any amount.  But of course for Trump's supporters, this is the first time they've heard of it.  So they see it through the lens of a Deep State Inspector-General using a flimsy excuse to go after a Cabinet Secretary.  It's all about the facts you leave out.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on June 01, 2020, 05:10:15 PM
Like I said earlier: Trump has no leadership skills at all. Instead of leading people and stopping this madness in the US, he reverts to character and simply attacks, attacks, attacks.

I think that a number of people are now seeing this, how he has failed to quell the riots and is in fact stoking them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 01, 2020, 07:59:55 PM
Like I said earlier: Trump has no leadership skills at all. Instead of leading people and stopping this madness in the US, he reverts to character and simply attacks, attacks, attacks.

I think that a number of people are now seeing this, how he has failed to quell the riots and is in fact stoking them.

...and yet this isn't turning into anything beneficial for Joe Biden. If Biden thinks that sitting back and letting Trump's obvious shortcomings speak for themselves will turn into votes for him, I think he's badly mistaken. For all the people who are galvanised to protest either against Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic response or police violence against minorities, there are just as many people who are frightened of what they see to cling to Trump ever more tightly. To those people Trump represents stability against, respectively, seemingly erratic/arbitrary state governors or lawless violence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: twik on June 01, 2020, 08:54:22 PM
You had a nice democracy while it lasted, Americans.

I wonder if Bob B. will return. I remember in 2016 how he stormed out after telling what a disaster a Clinton presidency would be, with illegal aliens taking all our jobs and taxes increasing. I wonder if he feels this is worth it?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 02, 2020, 03:28:25 AM
I am glad I'm not American right now. I keep seeing all these people calling on citizens to vote Trump out in November but I can't for a second imagine he will actually go willingly even if it's a landslide against him. He's already trying to de-legitimise the outcome, and now he has demonstrated that he is willing to turn the military on its own citizens. Gun control discussions are well and truly screwed now, because as I understand it this is exactly why the right for cvilians to bear arms was introduced: so they could defend against use of the military against them.  Of all the places to see a mentally deranged dictator springing up, I never expected it to be the US.

In only slightly lighter news, I went on Twitter yesterday and told our Prime Minister to take his disingenuous words of support for the LGBTQ community in Pride Month and shove them. How dare a man with such well-publicised homophobic views offer such words without even a hint of an apology for any previous comments?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on June 02, 2020, 06:19:32 AM
It has been America's misfortune to have the worst president ever in the White House at time when the country is facing one of the worst national and international crises - no competence, no leadership, no affinity for his fellow Americans, no effing idea!

At this time, I am eternally thankful every day that I do not live in the USA!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on June 02, 2020, 07:58:52 AM
Haha..It seems what I suggested some time ago of demonstrations against Trump started to happen. All the best
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 02, 2020, 08:53:23 AM
These were demonstrations agains police brutality, against systemic racism, against opression. They had damn all to do with Trump himself, but of course he has made it all about him, by doing a photo-op, by telling the governors of places where protests turned violent they are essentially failures for allowing it to happen, and by threatening to turn out the guard on his own people. Anything, anything at all, except a message calling for national unity, showing a willingness to listen, showing that he in any way gives a flying f**k about the country and citizenship he is supposed to be the leader of.

And the scariest part? There are still plenty of people who think this is somehow better than anything we'd have under anyone else.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 02, 2020, 11:08:59 AM
The pastor of the church where he had his photo op has already spoken out against him.  But yeah--honestly, I think this would be a good place for one of the other Democratic candidates to start really showing leadership and then forcing a brokered convention, because I have no confidence in Biden.  If need be, I'll vote for him in November anyway, but I was already displeased about having to do so.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 02, 2020, 01:24:09 PM
No, we never really had a good democracy.  The Framers copied the Westminster model and tried to adapt it to governing in the absence of an aristocracy.  All it did was allow a different kind of aristocracy to co-opt it.  The play my avatar comes from puts a wonderful line in Ben Franklin's mouth:  "Revolutions ... come into this world like bastard children -- half improvised and half compromised."  Tensions between slave-holding states and Abolitionist states have never been resolved, despite all that's happened.  Tensions between rich and poor have never been fully addressed.  Because Donald Trump is such an immoderate buffoon, it's tempting to lay all this at his feet, or even at the feet of his Republican enablers.  And there's plenty of fault to lay there, but what we're seeing happen to the United States right now has been brewing and bubbling for decades.  I've talked to some historians who say it started roughly 100 years ago.  Donald Trump's despotism and his party's complicity are just the most acute symptoms.

As much as we excoriate the Republicans for eviscerating what little dignity remains in the United States, I have no confidence either in Joe Biden or any Democratic front-runner.  That's because the Democratic party is fractured, disorganized, and politically incompetent.  The major parties really are polar opposites in so many ways.  Republicans are competent robber barons.  Democrats are altruistic bunglers.  It's for that reason that it takes only a little bit of conspiratorial rhetoric to make the Republican base believe that they would be so much worse off with Democrats in charge.  There is a dearth of leadership at the national level across the board, in my opinion.  Whoever is President next cannot just rest upon the laurels of not being Donald Trump.  That's way too low a bar to have to clear.

And yes, let me tell you what it takes for a President to make an enemy of the rector of St. John's.  Presidents who have even an iota of Christian observance have worshiped at St. John's since the time Washington was rebuilt following the War of 1812.  Donald Trump, of course, has never set foot in it.  Nor would any of his base, since the Episcopal church in America is seen as a liberal sect of Christianity.  At the time the President decided to stage his photo op, the porch of the church was being used as a first-aid station for people injured by police.  Yes, the area was cleared forcefully by DC police, including the use of tear gas and rubber bullets.  The President and his entourage barged their way onto the church grounds -- private property, I might add -- without even notifying the clergy ahead of time or acknowledging their presence.  I live across the street from an Episcopal church.  I know their clergy.  These are some of the most dedicated, longsuffering, "seen-it-all" kinds of people I've met.  It takes a very uncommonly high level of boobery to make an Episcopalian clergyperson speak out publicly against you politically, especially the rector of the parish the President traditionally worships at.

I've lived in places that could arguably be called war zones -- at least places where violence and civil unrest were common occurrences and fully-armed troops were a common sight.  Yes, my city is starting to look like one of those.  I live between Fort Douglas (ironically named after Lincoln's opponent) and the downtown area.  So I got to watch Humvee's rolling down my street Saturday carrying young Utahns in body armor, armed to the teeth.  I'm now under a dusk-to-dawn curfew for a week.  This is certainly not the America I was told to build, cherish, and protect.  Nor is it anyplace I want to live.

Second Amendment rhetoric is fraught.  Originally the plan was for the United States not to maintain a large standing army, for just the reason we're seeing.  The fear was that the might of the Federal government would be used to undermine or simply quash State sovereignty.  States were encouraged to form "well-organized militias" (a term that meant something quite different than how it's used today).  If needed, the U.S. government could raise an ad hoc army of substantial size by incorporating State militias.  The decision was made to have a standing navy because of the practical problems involved, and its low probability for effective use as a tool of domestic tyranny.

The overall aim was to keep weapons in the hands of the citizenry in order to prevent the government from being the only ones who are armed.  This was a sensible thing in 1780, when the major fear was a repeat of what the colonists had just been through.  But today it has been warped thoroughly out of proportion.  Moreover, the notion that those today who are amassing private arsenals are doing so against the threat of tyrannical government have had to show their true colors.  Egged on by the National Rifle Association, they have railed against Democrat leaders who are "coming for their guns" in order to disarm the population, when all that's being proposed is reasonable gun control rules.  But the rhetoric this weekend was that now these wannabe-soldiers should mobilize to protect police officers from protesters.  "Tyranny" is being defined along party lines, it seems.

This terrifies actual police officers.  The last thing they want in such a situation is a bunch of angry, heavily-armed, untrained, testosterone-fueled play-actors escalating an already problematic situation.  The President's reference yesterday to the Second Amendment is being interpreted by many as a dog-whistle call to do just that.  Police departments are quite capable of protecting their own officers when needed.  To my knowledge, there have been no injuries to police during these protests.  And local leaders -- nearly all of whom are far better leaders than Donald Trump -- are working hard to de-escalate violence.  We have a very capable mayor.  She doesn't need The Donald's help.  And unlike Pres. Trump, she actually cares about the people on all sides of the contention.  And people in general.  It seems that all Donald Trump cares about is how these protests are making him personally look "weak."

That's really what it still is.  We can read this President almost entirely by only a few personality traits.  He's still seeing this crisis only in terms of winners and losers.  Specifically of losers.  He doesn't believe in the win-win.  He doesn't accept when he loses.  His advice that governors and mayors have to "dominate" the problem is disastrous government and even not good business advice.  Trump's residency is in Florida precisely for the reason that New Yorkers ran the bum out of town.  He couldn't do business anymore in New York because he had so "dominated" the field that no one would lend him money or work for him anymore.  But he "won."  And that's all that mattered to him.

Now the fear is whether the President can use the Insurrection Act of 1807 to send Federal troops into the States to maintain his idea of order.  The Posse Comitatis Act of 1878 forbids the use of national troops to enforce civil law.  This was a legislative response to some questionable practices during the U.S. Civil War, addressed partly by the Supreme Court case of Ex parte Milligan.  I wrote previously about Milligan.  As long as the civil authority is intact and functioning, military authority may not be allowed to supersede it.  As recently amended, the Insurrection Act allows the President to deploy troops to restore order and put down rebellions.  It has actually been invoked several times, but either at the request of or with the permission of the relevant State Governor.  It has never been invoked to send troops to States that don't want them.  As such, there is no guiding jurisprudence regarding what the limits of the Act might be.  And the most recent amendment to it, following Hurricane Katrina, is so ineptly worded that it could possibly be read to support a number of actions.

In a larger sense, what's being protested here is the behavior of an already highly militarized police force.  As has been noted, well-equipped SWAT teams are patrolling U.S. cities while people fighting a dangerous infection -- remember that pandemic from a few weeks ago?  No, of course you don't -- are using makeshift protective equipment.  Not only is this an odd allocation of resources, the last thing you want to do to people who are protesting heavy-handed law enforcement is to make the hand heavier.  The horrific video of a man being slowly murdered by a policeman while his fellow officers stand by and watch is telling for more reasons than just the obvious human-rights atrocity.  Notice how the incident was filmed and commented upon by several bystanders.  This happened in full view of the public, overtly photographed.  The officers there had no reason to believe they would be held accountable in any way.  It didn't matter to them that evidence was being collected of their illegal activity.  They had every reason to expect nothing whatsoever to come of it, because it is very much the systemic problem that racial minorities in American have warned us about for decades.  The problem is not that it's suddenly starting to happen, but that it's being more routinely photographed and published.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on June 02, 2020, 03:50:51 PM
I am glad I'm not American right now. I keep seeing all these people calling on citizens to vote Trump out in November but I can't for a second imagine he will actually go willingly even if it's a landslide against him. He's already trying to de-legitimise the outcome, and now he has demonstrated that he is willing to turn the military on its own citizens....
Trump will not be president in January 2021 if he is not elected again even in the event the election does not take place.  The president-elect (Biden?) would be sworn in then he could direct the Secret Service to evict Trump from the White House if required.  If there is no election, someone in the line of succession will take Trump's place. 

Ranb
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 02, 2020, 07:59:48 PM
Indeed, the terms of the President and Vice President end unequivocally at a specific day and time prescribed in the Constitution.  Unless Donald Trump is re-elected to the office by the electoral college, he will automatically cease to become President without any other action.  His further physical presence in the White House as President will be unlawful.

There is a history of contesting the outcomes of elections.  Since Donald Trump has previously tried to litigate his way out of his problems, he might try that.  But his tactic previously has been to litigate his opponents into the ground, rarely arriving at the merits of any one case.  That won't work here.  His opponents would have deep pockets and skilled lawyers.  Undoubtedly the cause of action in such a case would be allegations of voter fraud.  But no one who has argued widespread voter fraud has been able to supply the slightest bit of evidence for it in amounts that would affect the outcome.

The President's willingness to deploy federal troops is a matter of rhetoric.  But the actual military commanders have discretion.  Pres. Trump may be the Commander-in-Chief, but he is still constrained to give lawful orders.  A military officer ordered to secure Trump's position unless Trump is the lawfully-elected President would be on the hook later to justify his obedience to a clearly unlawful order.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on June 03, 2020, 01:49:11 AM
I heard something the other day worth mentioning: Trump cannot believe how lucky he is.

First he had the impeachment but then COVID-19 came along and took everybody's minds off that.

Now there are the riots, and now people are focusing on that, and have forgotten COVID or impeachment.

A fair bit of truth in that, methinks.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 03, 2020, 03:05:10 AM
Well I hope that he does get the boot in November. If he doesn't I will despair for the future of the US and ther world. But one thing I think we can be pretty sure of: the end of this year and the start of the next in US politics is going to be a hell of a shitshow.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 03, 2020, 11:05:45 AM
I have to say, I'm hopeful about the Senate right now--I'm hopeful that it will change hands.  Because the majority of people have disapproved of how the Republicans handled the pandemic, and a majority disapprove of how they're handling the protests.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 03, 2020, 11:07:28 AM
Well I hope that he does get the boot in November. If he doesn't I will despair for the future of the US and ther world. But one thing I think we can be pretty sure of: the end of this year and the start of the next in US politics is going to be a hell of a shitshow.

I don't think the U.S. will survive four more years of lurching from one existential crisis to another.  And it's legitimately hard to imagine the political landscape being any worse than it already is.  Many of us have given up on the notion of a functioning national governmnent.  What's even more frightening is that we are all pretty sure there was no way George W. Bush would be elected to a second term.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on June 03, 2020, 11:14:50 AM
Do we have time to start building a wall on the southern border (of Canada)?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 03, 2020, 11:32:32 AM
Do we have time to start building a wall on the southern border (of Canada)?

With any luck you can get the U.S. to pay for it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on June 03, 2020, 05:10:15 PM
I have to say, I'm hopeful about the Senate right now--I'm hopeful that it will change hands.  Because the majority of people have disapproved of how the Republicans handled the pandemic, and a majority disapprove of how they're handling the protests.

I really hope you are right but my limited understanding doubts it. A number of my US friends are staunch Republications; whilst acknowledging (to some degree) Trump's poor performance, they look at electing a Democrat as possibly the worst thing they could do.

I remember when I was in Florida and ask a couple of them why they voted for Trump, the general consensus was that both candidates were bad but the country would 'recover' quicker under Trump than Clinton. I don't know if they still hold that view.
 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 03, 2020, 05:36:44 PM
It's not just Trump that needs to be voted out.

If Biden wins the Presidency and Mitch McConnell is still Majority Leader, then nothing changes.  It'll be a repeat of Obama's two terms with the Senate blocking all judicial appointments and threatening to shut down the government every other week (because of the deficit you see, which suddenly matters again).  No meaningful legislation gets passed.  No work gets done.  FOX News plays all your favorite propaganda hits, and in 2024 they get Trump Jr. elected and we're done as a functioning democracy.

But at least the libs got owned, so it was worth it.

McConnell, Graham, Cornyn, frankly everyone but Mitt needs to lose their offices, their influence, and their fortunes.  They need to suddenly find themselves retired with nothing to do but yardwork because nobody wants to touch them with a barge pole.  And I know that's fantasy because of the wingnut welfare circuit, but that's what should happen. 

There needs to be a housecleaning at all levels of government, federal, state, and local.  Meaningful police reform has to happen at the city level. 

The only way to purge the Republican party of the racist and fascist dipshits is for them to lose, massively, across the board. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on June 03, 2020, 06:21:19 PM
But this is what has me stumped: what should of been a Clinton victory became Trump's; he changed the landscape, became a disruptor.... but the Democrats fight back with the same old style of candidate that didn't work last time!

I agree with a lot of the comments here: I don't think Biden is much but - like Republican voters did with Clinton (and if I were a US voter) - I'd be not so much voting for Biden but rather against Trump.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 03, 2020, 08:16:52 PM
It's not just Trump that needs to be voted out.

If Biden wins the Presidency and Mitch McConnell is still Majority Leader, then nothing changes.  It'll be a repeat of Obama's two terms with the Senate blocking all judicial appointments and threatening to shut down the government every other week (because of the deficit you see, which suddenly matters again).  No meaningful legislation gets passed.  No work gets done.  FOX News plays all your favorite propaganda hits, and in 2024 they get Trump Jr. elected and we're done as a functioning democracy.

But at least the libs got owned, so it was worth it.

McConnell, Graham, Cornyn, frankly everyone but Mitt needs to lose their offices, their influence, and their fortunes.  They need to suddenly find themselves retired with nothing to do but yardwork because nobody wants to touch them with a barge pole.  And I know that's fantasy because of the wingnut welfare circuit, but that's what should happen. 

There needs to be a housecleaning at all levels of government, federal, state, and local.  Meaningful police reform has to happen at the city level. 

The only way to purge the Republican party of the racist and fascist dipshits is for them to lose, massively, across the board.

I tend to agree with the sentiments, but the way things are at the moment it's not going to happen because not enough people are actively engaging in grassroots political work.

Changing the political landscape of a country as big as the USA is going to take engagement by a significant portion of the population for a significant period of time, with the likelihood of no apparent change for a while too. In that sort of environment it's easy for people to give up and say nothing will change, and that it's better to exploit the system as it is than to change it. That will especially be the case when they get mocked and dismissed by Republican supporters, who seem to have mastered the art of the adolescent put-down.

The other things about this sort of work are that it takes a lot of time when so many people seem so much more busy than ever before, and that it involves working closely with people of different political views. The danger is that being seen as a compromiser can attract the ire of the ideologically pure who are theoretically on your side. (About ten years ago the Australian Greens sided with the conservative side of Australian politics to vote down a carbon pollution reduction scheme  because it didn't go as far as the Greens wanted; and thanks to that decision by the Greens we've pretty much since then had a far less effective alternative in place. The better is the enemy of the good...)

Yes, Biden isn't an ideal candidate, and he has questions he needs to answer about his past behaviour. But if Democrats insist on not voting unless they have the perfect candidate they're handing the White House to the Republicans for the next generation at least. Politics is the art of the compromise, and Sanders supporters in 2016 have something to answer for in this regard.

So what I'd suggest needs to happen in the next few months is a commitment from ordinary Americans to involve themselves in politics as much as they can at the local level, focused on the election rather than getting sidetracked (President and House and Senate). It would probably also help Democrat candidates to hear more from the people they're expecting to vote for them, rather than having everything filtered through the bubble of the party.

To that extent, that's one reason why I keep visiting the UM forum. The political discussions can get overheated at times, but at least it's a place where people of different political views engage with each other. Unfortunately a lot of the time it involves little more than repeating old slogans at each other, but at least it's an opportunity to see what people on the Other Side think and why they think it. I think of engaging with these people in much the same way as I'd engage with an Apollo HB - not to tackle their beliefs head on, but to stay calm and to plant a seed in their minds and those of the silent onlookers, to make them realise that the sort of changes being sought aren't as frightening as their politicians and commentators have been telling them.

Also, for all the appearance of hyper-partisanship in American politics I suspect there's still a decent-sized pool of people in the USA whose political beliefs sit somewhere between the two parties and so who are amenable to the sort of arguments from either side.

But once the election is done, there's obviously a lot more work to do at the state level too - that would allow the worse gerrymanders to be dealt with, for example. Otherwise, if ordinary people sit back and leave it to the party, not much is going to change.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 04, 2020, 12:55:23 AM
I note that Trump's former defence secretary has criticised him:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-04/jim-mattis-criticises-donald-trump-over-protest-response/12320210

Quote
Former US defence secretary James Mattis has slammed President Donald Trump's response to nationwide demonstrations triggered by the killing of George Floyd, accusing him of trying to divide the country.

The retired Marine General said he has watched this week's "unfolding events, angry and appalled..."

I wonder how much attention this will draw?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on June 04, 2020, 04:43:52 AM
I note that Trump's former defence secretary has criticised him:

Even his (probably not much longer) current secretary disagrees with Big Orange;

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/us/politics/esper-milley-trump-protest.html
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 04, 2020, 09:52:37 AM
But this is what has me stumped: what should of been a Clinton victory became Trump's; he changed the landscape, became a disruptor.... but the Democrats fight back with the same old style of candidate that didn't work last time!

But that's who Democrats voted for in the primaries.  "We" picked him (I didn't, I voted for Warren, but I was outvoted).  We can argue about the primary process all day, but under the rules we set for ourselves, Biden won this round. 

There are a thousand reasons I don't want Biden as the candidate - his age, his voting record, his age, his propensity to shove his foot into his mouth, his age - but he has the advantage that he was part of a popular administration, and he's not scary to the old white people who actually show up to vote.  And he's not a Clinton. 

Part of HRC's problem (aside from being loathed and a bad campaigner) was that she was having to campaign as kinda-sorta the incumbent.  It's really hard to follow a two-term President from the same party (just ask Al Gore, Hubert Humphrey, and Richard Nixon).  George H.W. Bush's election was a bit of a fluke, which came down as much to Dukakis being a bad campaigner (that goddamned tank) as anything else. 

The roles are reversed this time - Trump is the incumbent, and Biden is the challenger.   That automatically gives him an advantage HRC did not have. 

It's also hoped that Biden can win back the votes that Clinton lost in the EC by, let's face it, being an old white guy.  He can't count on flipping a big state like TX or FL (although either one in addition to NY and CA means he wins easily), he has to pick up those wins in the smaller rural states. 

Quote
I agree with a lot of the comments here: I don't think Biden is much but - like Republican voters did with Clinton (and if I were a US voter) - I'd be not so much voting for Biden but rather against Trump.

That's the argument I'm having to make to a lot of people.  You don't have to like Biden, and frankly he's not going to be in office more than one term.  But ya gotta get Trump out of there before we're permanently broken.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 04, 2020, 10:45:52 AM
You mean Ford, but the point is there.  I voted for Sanders despite preferring Warren; well, she'd dropped out of the race by my primary.  But Biden won our state anyway, honestly because a lot of people simply don't like Sanders and think that Biden has a better chance against Trump.  I think part of the problem was that we were all so determined to find a candidate "who could win" that we didn't consider putting in the work to make our candidate win.  Warren's unofficial slogan was "she can win if you vote for her."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 04, 2020, 11:21:47 AM
Indeed, the skill sets for winning an election to an office and for doing a good job in the office have continued to diverge since Douglas Adams facetiously used it as a premise in the Hitchhiker series.  Joe Biden as being more "electable" than other Democratic candidates is the same strategy that gave us the eminently "electable" Donald Trump.  While I think one will suck less than the other at being President, that's not the kind of choice Americans ideally want.  A Biden Presidency won't give us wage equality, civil rights, or restore our national prestige.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 04, 2020, 11:35:37 AM
Even his (probably not much longer) current secretary disagrees with Big Orange;

Secretary Esper will almost certainly lose his job and be replaced by some flunky who will simply do the President's bidding no matter how atrocious it is.  Convention wisdom is that Sec. Esper was advised by the Joint Chiefs and others that the professional military leadership draws the line at being casually deployed to keep the domestic peace.  As the political head of the military, Sec. Esper has the unenviable task of communicating that sentiment to the President and public.  As I wrote earlier, this is the same quandary that other conscientious officials face in this administration.  If you cross the President, you will be fired and replaced by a lackey.  Therefore you get one chance to fall on your sword, so you had better make it a good fall.

Sec. Esper called on States to send National Guard troops to Washington DC as peacekeeping forces.  As opposed to the full-time professional military, domestic peacekeeping is within the scope of the volunteer state militias when ordinary law enforcement is unable to cope.  DC having no state militia of its own, this was a justifiable call.  I don't object to that policy in principle, but I object to it in this case because the need arose from the DC Metropolitan Police force's unwillingness to be political pawns.  It's not as if the police were overwhelmed.  It's that they did not agree to follow the specific orders they were likely being given -- to suppress and "dominate" political dissent.  Sadly my State was one of the few who answered and sent troops to DC.  I've voiced my objection to our leadership for that action, but of course I will go unheard.

And now it seems we have a hithterto unknown secret police force standing guard in DC.  This is probably the most alarming development.  And stupid, from a leadership position.  Again, when the issue being protested is the accountability of policing forces, the correct answer to that is not to make the operative forces less accountable and more intimidating.  It's as if this President somehow always knows to do the opposite of the sensible thing.  It takes talent to be a failure at almost everything.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 04, 2020, 11:39:03 AM
You mean Ford, but the point is there. 

I'll argue that Ford was not running as Nixon's former VP, but as President seeking re-election (although technically it wouldn't be re-election). 

I was thinking about Nixon's loss to Kennedy in 1960, after having been Eisenhower's VP. 

It's just not common for us to keep the same party in the White House for more than two terms - Truman and GHWB are the only ones since WWII.  Nixon, Humphrey, Gore, HRC, all failed to succeed their Presidents in the WH. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 04, 2020, 12:08:40 PM
but the Democrats fight back with the same old style of candidate that didn't work last time!

And the same overall political strategy.  American swing voters really do vote for Democrats only after the Republicans have left a bitter taste.  The DNC is once more putting forward the "safe" candidate, lest any of the transformative ideas other candidates propose should offend the center.  They still have this nostalgic view that if they stand just left of center and portray themselves as reasonable and open to compromise, people will somehow see its natural appeal.

I'm of the generation where centrist politics and legislative compromise generally worked.  It wasn't ideal.  Nobody got everything they wanted.  But everyone got something.  But this is exactly what the Tea Party faction of the GOP disliked.  They co-opted the Republican Party under the banner that said you could get everything you wanted if you just played to win.  And that has proven largely true.  Centrism and compromise take two to tango, and the GOP has no further interest in dancing.  And this was happening long before Donald Trump.  Trump is a symptom; he's a Useful Idiot whom the GOP thought they could control, but have been wrong.  When I talk about this with the younger generation, they rightly see no future in centrism and compromise.  What they want from the Democrats are the "radical" ideas that scare the DNC core so much.  They want the DNC to stop trying to keep its clothes clean and instead fight the GOP tooth-and-nail for real reform.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 04, 2020, 08:20:42 PM
...Sec. Esper called on States to send National Guard troops to Washington DC as peacekeeping forces.  As opposed to the full-time professional military, domestic peacekeeping is within the scope of the volunteer state militias when ordinary law enforcement is unable to cope.  DC having no state militia of its own, this was a justifiable call.  I don't object to that policy in principle, but I object to it in this case because the need arose from the DC Metropolitan Police force's unwillingness to be political pawns.  It's not as if the police were overwhelmed.  It's that they did not agree to follow the specific orders they were likely being given -- to suppress and "dominate" political dissent.  Sadly my State was one of the few who answered and sent troops to DC.  I've voiced my objection to our leadership for that action, but of course I will go unheard.

A good thing that you did, because you can't know for sure that you'll go unheard. You don't know how many other people have done as you did, so that collectively you are heard - just think of "Horton Hears A Who"!

I remember reading somewhere that in pre-email days one letter from a member of the public to a politician was considered to represent the views of ten people. Presumably the ease of email devalues it in comparison to letters in this regard, but I think politicians ignore large volumes of email at their peril.

Quote
And now it seems we have a hithterto unknown secret police force standing guard in DC.  This is probably the most alarming development.  And stupid, from a leadership position.  Again, when the issue being protested is the accountability of policing forces, the correct answer to that is not to make the operative forces less accountable and more intimidating.  It's as if this President somehow always knows to do the opposite of the sensible thing.  It takes talent to be a failure at almost everything.

Sorry, what?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 04, 2020, 09:06:01 PM
A good thing that you did, because you can't know for sure that you'll go unheard.

I know a fair number of people in our state government personally, and I've typically known -- on average -- about half our Congressional delegation at any one time, including Sen. Romney.  His former company, Bain Capital, was at one time the sole owner of my company.  But in the grand scheme of Utah politics, I still rank far below the level of attention needed to have an individual effect.  So I'm baking on the Horton Effect.

Quote
Sorry, what?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/us/politics/unidentified-police-protests.html

Nobody knows who these people are.  If, as it is rumored, they are Corrections officers under the command of Attorney-General William Barr, this is a violation of federal law.  Corrections officers have very limited authority outside a federal penitentiary.  They have police power elsewhere only to the extent necessary to recapture escaped inmates.  Using them as a general police force is improper.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 05, 2020, 10:24:30 AM
A good thing that you did, because you can't know for sure that you'll go unheard.

Well, something worked.  The mayor of Washington DC has invoked the Third Amendment and evicted all the various states' National Guard troops from the city.  The Senator from Utah whom I don't know is having a hissy fit, of course.  He's the Tea Party guy, and I don't care to make his acquaintance.  This is noteworthy because nearly everyone considers the Third Amendment an anachronism.  To save everyone a bit of Googling, it's the amendment that prohibits the unconsented-to quartering of troops in peacetime.  No one in modern times has considered it still relevant until today.  Also, I was mistaken in saying DC has no National Guard troops of its own.  It does, commanded by the Secretary of the Army following the pattern than many of the functions of government in the District are directly administered by the Federal institutions.

There are exactly zero Supreme Court decisions involving the Third Amendment.  This will be interesting.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on June 05, 2020, 10:47:47 AM
I think it's going to be the hotel and home owners who are protected using the 3rd amendment instead of DC as a whole.
Quote
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 05, 2020, 11:47:35 AM
I think it's going to be the hotel and home owners who are protected using the 3rd amendment instead of DC as a whole.

Indeed, it's by no means an open-and-shut issue.  The authority of the Mayor to evict troops could be argued on grounds other than the Third Amendment.  However, while I said that no Supreme Court jurisprudence exists on the matter, there is lower-court jurisprudence, Engblom v. Carey in the 2nd Circuit, that applies.  It greatly expands the notion of ownership where rights of privacy are concerned, and allows mere control of the premises to suffice.  Further, it expands the notion of property to extend beyond the rigid (and bizarrely complicated) formulations from common law.  From this could follow an argument that the Mayor has this authority for the whole District considered as a form of property.

Granted it's still a stretch to say that all of DC is property, and that the Mayor has operative control.  It was obviously intended to protect domiciles -- even temporary domiciles like hotels, and probably not much else.  If any of the hotel proprietors consented to the quartering of National Guard troops in their hotel, the Mayor would clearly have little authority under the Third Amendment to banish those tenants.  She may have authority otherwise, however.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 05, 2020, 12:36:46 PM
As more information comes in, it's looking less like a constitutional issue.  The troops were being quartered in hotels at the District's expense.  That may be a lack of (eventual) consent from the Mayor's office, but it is not a lack of consent from the hotel owner.  In fact, consent is presumed.  So no Third Amendment question.  In most U.S. cities, mayors have plenipotentiary contracting authority on behalf of their cities.  So while a routine contract for lodging may have been executed by someone in the executive office, the Mayor has ultimate authority over whether the contract will be honored, and may, according to the terms of the contract, cancel it on her sole authority.  This does not remove the troops, of course.  But it does say that the District will not pay to lodge them.  While some news outlets are reporting that the Third Amendment was invoked, I cannot find any statement from Mayor Bowser's office making that claim.

I guess I should be grateful that it's a straightforward contract question and not a constitutional crisis.

BTW, the rights protected in the Third Amendment are not grounded in property law, but in privacy law.  Certainly if there is a contract for lodging troops, then that contract implies the consent required by the Third Amendment.  But such a contract may not be foisted.  That is, if some officer knocks on the door of anyplace where you have the right to control entry, and demands that you quarter his troops and promises a fair compensation, you are not obliged to accept the offer.  This differs from the seizure doctrine in which your property may be commandeered by the government without your consent so long as you are fairly compensated.  That's property law.  "No, you may not quarter your troops here under any terms," is privacy law.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 05, 2020, 05:30:27 PM
but the Democrats fight back with the same old style of candidate that didn't work last time!

And the same overall political strategy.  American swing voters really do vote for Democrats only after the Republicans have left a bitter taste.  The DNC is once more putting forward the "safe" candidate, lest any of the transformative ideas other candidates propose should offend the center.  They still have this nostalgic view that if they stand just left of center and portray themselves as reasonable and open to compromise, people will somehow see its natural appeal.

The DNC has little control over who wins the primaries.  They can certainly help candidates with funding and networking and exposure, they can pressure other candidates to drop out (or convince them to run for different office), but under the rules we've set for ourselves primary voters have the ultimate say, barring very exceptional circumstances.

Biden is the (presumptive) candidate because more voters selected him in the primaries than other candidates.  Not the DNC. 

We can argue about how Democratic primaries are structured all day - yes, the South is frontloaded, and Southern Democrats tend to be a bit more conservative than their Coastal brethren (which is why Sanders faded after New Hampshire and Iowa and Biden gained so much ground).  There are good arguments for shaking up the calendar and not always leading with Iowa and NH.  But right now, this year, this is how things worked out. 

Nothing's official until after the national convention, of course, and there's always a possibility that delegates could ignore the voters and pick someone else, although that's extremely remote and realistically would only happen if Biden physically could not finish the campaign. 

I voted for Warren, but more people (including my wife) picked Biden.  No, he isn't going to do anything radical, and honestly that's probably the way to win right now.  Nothing will fundamentally get better in a Biden term, but neither will it get appreciably worse.  If that translates into more EC votes than Warren or Sanders, then so be it, as long as it gets Trump out of office. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 05, 2020, 05:55:02 PM
The DNC has little control over who wins the primaries.  They can certainly help candidates with funding and networking and exposure, they can pressure other candidates to drop out (or convince them to run for different office),...

I'd say they have more than minimal control. I was involved with a colleague's (unsuccessful) campaign for U.S. Senate as a Democrat.  That may have more to do with state committees than the DNC.  But there was frankly more influence involved than I expected, along the lines you mention and more.  It could conceivably sway a close election on its own.

But in fairness I should agree more with you.  You have a better point.  The voters have the final say, regardless.  If the politicking -- whether overt or backroomish -- doesn't result in swaying votes, then it's ineffective.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 06, 2020, 12:14:25 PM
I mean, I'm pretty sure quite a lot of the DNC wouldn't have chosen Hillary Clinton.  The important factor as I see it is that they can't make candidates run, and they're stuck with who they get.  I think we can all agree that the RNC wouldn't have chosen Trump, even if they're with him now.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 07, 2020, 02:03:17 PM
Good point.  You can't make good candidates step up, but you can certainly work hard to make unwanted candidates fail.  I think both of you are right about the national committees.  It's unfair of me to lay blame for candidate choices or success at their feet.  Regarding the DNC, I recall something in the hacked emails that suggested they favored Hilary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, and acted on that preference.  But that's not the same as wanting someone over Clinton who, for lack of will, didn't run.  Once the voters had selected Clinton as the candidate, they were stuck with her and all the baggage she brought with her.

I think I'm soured over Utah politics and extrapolating that irrationally to the national level.  Briefly, the Utah GOP used to have a caucus/convention-only system for choosing candidates for the primary ballot.  When the Tea Party basically took over the state party leadership, they lobbied for far-right delegates to the convention.  Since then, the convention voting has skewed quite a bit farther to the right than the general GOP voting in the state.  Many Utah Republicans are surprisingly moderates, but they were given only arch-conservatives (cough, Mike Lee, cough) as credible candidates in the primaries.  Because of the circumstances of districting, it has become difficult to unseat these unrepresentative delegates.  Displeasure over this led to various initiatives resulting in, among other things, S.B. 54, a law that allowed candidates to qualify for any state-run primary by collecting signatures.  The Utah GOP literally bankrupted itself fighting this in court, losing finally when the Supreme Court denied certiorari for an appeal from the 10th Circuit.  Rank-and-file Republicans saw the law as one of only a few ways they could get popular moderate candidates like Mitt Romney on the GOP primary ballots.  (Romney came in second at the GOP convention but won the GOP primary in a landslide.)  Another result was the United Utah party, composed mostly of disaffected Republicans and a few moderate Democrats.

Sorry to bring up local politics so much.  It's where my understanding of politics comes from.  I realize this is a national-politics thread, centered on Donald Trump.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on June 07, 2020, 07:22:57 PM
Don't be sorry - I'm interested to hear how things run in the US; it's all been quite enlightening.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 07, 2020, 09:27:33 PM
Don't be sorry - I'm interested to hear how things run in the US; it's all been quite enlightening.

+1.

I mean, here in Australia we have the same sort of shenanigans when it comes to politics. And with state and federal governments formed in chambers with single-member electorates, our politics is similarly dominated by two parties (or at least, two party groupings). In the past this has led to the same sort of partisanship that is common in the USA.

So, in the second half of last year we had the sports rorts affair, in which the government came under a lot of heat when it was revealed the relevant minister had distributed millions of dollars to community sports clubs in marginal electorates in the months preceding the last federal election. In Australia the curse is to live in a safe electorate, whether controlled by the government or the opposition.

Likewise the Prime Minister was criticised for his behaviour during the Black Summer - going on an overseas holiday at the start of the crisis (and getting his office to keep it secret), forcing bushfire victims to shake his hand, and then posting to social media about the government's commitment of military personnel to firefighting effort.

But since the start of the pandemic things have changed considerably. He set up a National Cabinet featuring himself and the state and territory heads of government (who are of both parties), and the level of bipartisanship since then has been impressive. By contrast the amount of irritating partisan sniping and bickering has been at an all-time low.

And the PM has even been willing to listen to ordinary voters: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-04/man-tells-prime-minister-and-press-pack-to-get-off/12321544?nw=0
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 08, 2020, 12:29:57 PM
Here in Washington State, the Republicans actually showed more sense than the Democrats in one area--for at least a few election cycles, the Republicans had a Presidential primary and the Democrats had a caucus.  Blessedly, this year, the Democrats switched to a primary.  This was in part because all the passionate people at the caucus four years ago--largely Sanders voters, many of whom had never been as involved in the process before--realized that caucuses suck.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 08, 2020, 02:34:00 PM
Good point.  You can't make good candidates step up, but you can certainly work hard to make unwanted candidates fail.  I think both of you are right about the national committees.  It's unfair of me to lay blame for candidate choices or success at their feet.  Regarding the DNC, I recall something in the hacked emails that suggested they favored Hilary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, and acted on that preference.  But that's not the same as wanting someone over Clinton who, for lack of will, didn't run.  Once the voters had selected Clinton as the candidate, they were stuck with her and all the baggage she brought with her.

To be fair, the DNC had legitimate reasons to favor HRC over Sanders as a party nominee:


There were also not-so-legitimate reasons, but it's politics, you know?  There's always going to be dealing under the table and favoritism.
 
But yeah, regardless of just the general Clinton-ness and all that entails, she was an awful campaigner.  Awful.  Yes, she won the popular vote, but it's the electoral votes that matter, and her being an awful campaigner cost her states that Obama had won.  Twice.

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I think I'm soured over Utah politics and extrapolating that irrationally to the national level.  Briefly, the Utah GOP used to have a caucus/convention-only system for choosing candidates for the primary ballot.  When the Tea Party basically took over the state party leadership, they lobbied for far-right delegates to the convention.  Since then, the convention voting has skewed quite a bit farther to the right than the general GOP voting in the state.  Many Utah Republicans are surprisingly moderates, but they were given only arch-conservatives (cough, Mike Lee, cough) as credible candidates in the primaries.  Because of the circumstances of districting, it has become difficult to unseat these unrepresentative delegates.  Displeasure over this led to various initiatives resulting in, among other things, S.B. 54, a law that allowed candidates to qualify for any state-run primary by collecting signatures.  The Utah GOP literally bankrupted itself fighting this in court, losing finally when the Supreme Court denied certiorari for an appeal from the 10th Circuit.  Rank-and-file Republicans saw the law as one of only a few ways they could get popular moderate candidates like Mitt Romney on the GOP primary ballots.  (Romney came in second at the GOP convention but won the GOP primary in a landslide.)  Another result was the United Utah party, composed mostly of disaffected Republicans and a few moderate Democrats.

Heh.  Lemme tell you about a little state called Texas, or as Molly Ivins once called it, "The National Laboratory For Bad Government." 

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Sorry to bring up local politics so much.  It's where my understanding of politics comes from.  I realize this is a national-politics thread, centered on Donald Trump.

As Tip O'Neill once said, "all politics is local".  I think it's good for us to compare notes, because different states do things differently.  And, to keep beating the same drum, Trump is a symptom, not the disease. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on June 08, 2020, 04:36:19 PM
But yeah, regardless of just the general Clinton-ness and all that entails, she was an awful campaigner.  Awful.  Yes, she won the popular vote, but it's the electoral votes that matter, and her being an awful campaigner cost her states that Obama had won.  Twice.

Not having followed it, why do you say she ran an awful campaign?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 08, 2020, 08:52:48 PM
I note that Trump's former defence secretary has criticised him:

Even his (probably not much longer) current secretary disagrees with Big Orange;

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/us/politics/esper-milley-trump-protest.html

And now Colin Powell: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-08/colin-powell-endorses-joe-biden-democrat-republican-donald-trump/12332746

The thing is, watching commentary on the UM forum, there appear to be a few people so far down the rabbit burrow that any criticism of Trump is pretty much pre-emptively dismissed regardless of who it comes from. All critics in the media are Fake News and all critics in the Republican Party are RINOs. Therefore any criticism from either quarter can be immediately ignored as soon as these people open their mouths because these Trump supporters have already been vaccinated against them.

I'm trying to work out who's left that these Trump supporters might listen to as a critic of Trump. Perhaps Steve Bannon? But otherwise all it seems to take is for Trump to tweet against a critic and straightaway the well is poisoned.

About the only thing that's otherwise available is for Biden to grab a few Trump policies - specifically those which overtly help white working class males - in the hope that this might drag some voters away from Trump.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on June 09, 2020, 11:09:22 AM
I've been banned from two forums for my obvious dislike of Trump and cautioned on another.  I hate having to curb my comments on a forum.  When I point out that Trump is the most prolific gun grabber (on a gun forum) since FDR, I'm told that it's okay because Biden will be worse.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 09, 2020, 11:36:53 AM
Honestly, from what I could tell, the worst thing about Hillary's campaign was that she took certain things for granted--like that she'd win those states that gave the election to Trump.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 09, 2020, 11:43:26 AM
I'm told that it's okay because Biden will be worse.

That's very much a wash-rinse-repeat rhetoric.  Every fear spoken among Trump supporters seems to be based wholly on supposition or prediction for what some other leader would have done, and assurances that it would have been so much worse.  A Clinton presidency, it is argued, would have been a swampy disaster for the economy, for conservative interests, and in response to the pandemic.  A Biden presidency, it is proclaimed, will be just a terrible continuation of the war on honest, hardworking joes waged previously by the Obamagate suspects.  Biden's scandals, it is argued, are just as far-reaching and compromisory -- if not more so -- than Trump's.

Obviously you're in trouble any time you have to pit supposition against observation.  The Trump administration is objectively bad.  But what's more disturbing is that the rhetoric fully admits the Administration's visible crapulence.  The side-effect of any pivot is tacitly agreeing with the thing you're pivoting away from.  Whether you call it "whataboutism" or ad hominem to quoque, it's just the same bad argument.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 09, 2020, 01:05:03 PM
I'm told that it's okay because Biden will be worse.

That's very much a wash-rinse-repeat rhetoric.  Every fear spoken among Trump supporters seems to be based wholly on supposition or prediction for what some other leader would have done, and assurances that it would have been so much worse.  A Clinton presidency, it is argued, would have been a swampy disaster for the economy, for conservative interests, and in response to the pandemic.  A Biden presidency, it is proclaimed, will be just a terrible continuation of the war on honest, hardworking joes waged previously by the Obamagate suspects.  Biden's scandals, it is argued, are just as far-reaching and compromisory -- if not more so -- than Trump's.

Obviously you're in trouble any time you have to pit supposition against observation.  The Trump administration is objectively bad.  But what's more disturbing is that the rhetoric fully admits the Administration's visible crapulence.  The side-effect of any pivot is tacitly agreeing with the thing you're pivoting away from.  Whether you call it "whataboutism" or ad hominem to quoque, it's just the same bad argument.

Small note: crapulence, while it sounds like it should mean ‘crappiness’, actually refers to intoxication and drunkenness.

But to your point, the phenomenon you described hit its peak here in the UK at the start of the pandemic, when shops were cleared out by panic-buying. Someone put up a picture of empty supermarket shelves and said this is how life would be in a Corbyn-led Labour government. Never mind that it was in fact the current reality under a Johnson-led Conservative government....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 09, 2020, 01:45:14 PM
Not having followed it, why do you say she ran an awful campaign?

There are many opinions on this.  Unlike engineering, this is something that may not have a distinct right or wrong answer, and it's not my area of expertise.  Those disclaimers in place, here's my take.

Too much rainbow, not enough mainstream.  The Clinton campaign wrongly believed that they could assemble a coalition of demographically dissimilar liberals that could outvote a homogeneous conservative base.  They failed.  It's a bit tone-deaf for me to say so under prevailing circumstances, but you simply cannot win a national election in the United States without broad appeal to white, working-class males who don't have college degrees.  The campaign's decision to court one group over the other produced an image of Hillary Clinton as a coastal elitist.  That doesn't play in Peoria.  Promising to stand up for minority rights, and even having a history of doing it, are always things America likes to see and hear.  Especially this month, where the long-standing problems are once again boiling over.  But it simply doesn't produce voters in sufficient numbers by itself.  It's amazingly difficult to craft a credible message of equality and the breaking down of barriers that resounds well enough with both the BLM types and the Peoria types to result in an American majority.  I'm not sure I could do it.  The problem with the Clinton campaign is that they didn't even try.

Too much faith in Obama momentum.  Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton identified as big-city folk.  President Obama's apparent economic success came largely in the sectors that voted for him -- big cities.  The view from Peoria was that while the economy improved by some metrics, it was due to stimulus and bailout payments given to large banks and corporations at the expense of the working folk.  They perceived comparatively little relief themselves.  Middle America was still hopeful that the Obama promises would pay off when they voted to re-elect him.  But by the time Clinton got around to promising a continuation of the supposed prosperity, it was already clear to most people that the trickle-down was going to be limited or non-existent  Clinton had no real economic strategy of her own.  Everything she had came from the Obama administration.  After a while, the rhetoric ran thin and she just stopped promising any economic growth or improvement.  Against Donald Trump's (failed) promises of middle-class economic revival, she had no chance.

Too much science and not enough campaigning.  The 2016 Clinton campaign relied on very sophisticated data-mining and analytics models.  Now -- with expertise -- I can tell you that this is a giant growth sector and it will revolutionize the way we make decisions.  The problem was that the Clinton campaign's model was wrong.  Just because you are taking a scientific approach to focusing efforts doesn't mean your science is valid.  The analytics model badly mispredicted the outcomes of the GOP primary in several states.  Rather than accept that their approach didn't work, and return to proven-but-intuitive campaign strategies, they assured themselves that they would be able to refine the analytics to assure victory.  This did not happen.  Again the model failed to accurately predict the outcomes of the battleground states that fell to Donald Trump.  It was telling them one thing, and seasoned campaigners were telling them aother thing, and the seasoned campaigners turned out to be right.  Had Hillary Clinton simply campaigned the way her husband had, I believe she'd have had a better chance of winning.

Not enough distinction from Donald Trump.  Hillary Clinton was perceived by many to be just as tightly entangled with Wall Street interests as Donald Trump, and therefore not any more likely than he to represent the "little folks" over big business.  The Midwest and the South, which weigh more heavily according to the algebra of the Electoral College, will then vote according to morality.  They will pick the socially conservative candidate over the social liberal if they see no other difference.  But at the time, corporate campaign donations were seen as essential to funding the campaign, as opposed to a grass-roots funding model we've seen arise in backlash.  Hence Clinton didn't risk alienating big business by promising to reign in corporations.  Conversely, they botched the Steele dossier.  By all means the Democrats should have raked as much muck on Donald Trump as they could -- because there's a lot of it.  But the Democrats are still trying to paint themselves as the last bastion of civility, so they really don't know how to do the kind of serious opposition research that would have more credibly distinguished Clinton from Trump.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 09, 2020, 01:51:07 PM
Small note: crapulence, while it sounds like it should mean ‘crappiness’, actually refers to intoxication and drunkenness.

True, but this historical etymology was almost entirely unknown to Americans, who today use it exclusively as defined in The Simpsons along with such other supposedly contrived words as "embiggen" and "cromulent."  Along your lines, "pissed" is also something you want to say carefully on different sides of the Atlantic.

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Someone put up a picture of empty supermarket shelves and said this is how life would be in a Corbyn-led Labour government. Never mind that it was in fact the current reality under a Johnson-led Conservative government....

Ditto.  I mentioned my Fox-News-addled father-in-law.  On the first, worst night of BLM protests, we got a text message saying, "Welcome to Bernie Sanders' America."  Except, of course, that it was literally America under Donald Trump and largely his fault.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 09, 2020, 02:17:36 PM
To be fair, the DNC had legitimate reasons to favor HRC over Sanders as a party nominee:

No argument there.  In fact, you could argue it's the job of a party's governing body to apply political expertise that members might lack.  It's the leadership's fiduciary duty to do what they can to produce the best candidate from their party that can be elected.  Not that they'll always be right, or honest about it.  But they're there for a reason.

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Heh.  Lemme tell you about a little state called Texas, or as Molly Ivins once called it, "The National Laboratory For Bad Government."

Yes.  I've been to Texas.

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As Tip O'Neill once said, "all politics is local".

He's right.  But local politics are often also idiosyncratic.  Utah's especially so, for obvious reasons.  So I continually fall into the trap of interpreting national politics in the Utah idiom.  I've actually lived in several other states, and several other countries.  I just wasn't as politically involved there as I am here.

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Trump is a symptom, not the disease.

Right, that's the banner concept.  All this started before Trump, and sadly much of it will persist when he's gone.  Donald Trump is a terrible president and a horrible person, but he's merely the nucleus around which a lot of criticism of modern American government must be leveled, and currently the figurehead of a larger corrupt body.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 09, 2020, 04:14:54 PM
Small note: crapulence, while it sounds like it should mean ‘crappiness’, actually refers to intoxication and drunkenness.

True, but this historical etymology was almost entirely unknown to Americans, who today use it exclusively as defined in The Simpsons along with such other supposedly contrived words as "embiggen" and "cromulent."

A fair point. Honestly, the way you colonials mangle the mother tongue... ;)

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Along your lines, "pissed" is also something you want to say carefully on different sides of the Atlantic.

Indeed. Over here we use it to mean 'drunk' (this is why 'Brahms and Liszt' is the cockney rhyming slang phrase for drunk, Liszt rhyming with pissed). We say 'pissed off' to mean what I gather from TV shows most Americans mean when they say 'pissed'. 'Fanny' is another one to be very careful with....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on June 09, 2020, 04:54:35 PM
If I may offer my 2 cents on why I agree that Hillary ran a poor campaign, I would expand on what Jay wrote.  She definitely didn't pay enough attention to the middle of the country, either in time spent on the ground or in her speeches and approach. As Jay said, she was speaking the language of 'city-folk' and not the blue collar workers. This just emphasized how "elite" she was seen to be by those voters. 

She also failed to provide details of her plans, at least not in a way that the average voter could relate to or understand. She had details on her websites, but in terms of "I'm going to do A, B, and C" type language, it was often lacking in her speeches and platform. There are a lot of people with the TL/DR mentality today, and making them go to a site to read what she was going to do for them backfired. 

The last thing I will say is that she spent too much time using the "You can't vote for him. Can you just imagine what a nightmare that would be?" approach. Instead of putting out a positive message, she relied too heavily on just saying that it was obvious that Trump would be bad, that anyone who backed him was bad (read: deplorable), and so of course people should vote for her. And many people didn't buy that. A number, for example, assumed that taxes would go down if Trump was elected, that controls and regulations on business would be relaxed, that we would toughen up on crime, immigration, drugs, trade, etc., and that would improve the quality of life. And she wasn't really giving them a good answer as to why that wouldn't happen, or why Trump was the wrong person to have in place even if such things did happen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on June 09, 2020, 05:05:24 PM
And now he has put out that ridiculous Tweet about Martin Gugino, the 'information' of which he got from OANN (One America News Network). I would love to point out to him how ironic it is that a president who complained some time ago about the media using unnamed sources and not fact checking is, himself, one of the biggest perpetrators when it comes to unsubstantiated information and the use of innuendo. However, I don't think he has the capacity to see past his own narcissism to recognize the hypocrisy.

I also noted that almost to a person, every Republican in Congress that was approached for reaction about the tweet ran away from giving comment or gave some lame excuse if they did reply. Even with such a softball question as that one, they couldn't show any kind of moral backbone. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on June 09, 2020, 05:40:04 PM
A fair point. Honestly, the way you colonials mangle the mother tongue... ;)

I sometimes watch Coronation Street with the subtitles on... so I'm not sure we're the ones mangling the language. ;)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 09, 2020, 06:24:53 PM
A fair point. Honestly, the way you colonials mangle the mother tongue... ;)

That's freedom for ya!

All seriousness aside, my penance as an actor is often having to perform English stage literature using the proper vocabulary and pronunciation.  Pygmalion doesn't really work with an American accent.  Conversely I have friends and acquaintances who are notable actors in or from England, who have also at times done American characters quite well in film and television.  According to them, the hardest word to say in properly rhotic English is "rural."  I proposed also "juror," and got no disagreement.  I'm told that prior to Received Pronunciation, the present Cornish accent is closer to what English used to sound like.  This may explain American.

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this is why 'Brahms and Liszt' is the cockney rhyming slang phrase for drunk, Liszt rhyming with pissed...

Ah, Cockney rhyming slang: the last bastion of utter incomprehensibility to anyone who's not from London.  Or Fred Dibnah to anyone not from Yorkshire.

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We say 'pissed off' to mean what I gather from TV shows most Americans mean when they say 'pissed'.

We use both interchangeably to mean angry.  In American in never means drunken.

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'Fanny' is another one to be very careful with....

Yes.  Most Americans have no idea why a fanny pack is worn in the front.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 09, 2020, 06:37:10 PM
However, I don't think he has the capacity to see past his own narcissism to recognize the hypocrisy.

I don't think he has the capacity to judge anything from an non-autocentric perspective.  If it favors him, it's trustworthy.  If it opposes him, it's fraudulent.  That's the sole criterion.  He isn't concerned with whether objective fact agrees with him.  He doesn't believe in objective fact.  So the concept of hypocrisy doesn't even arise in this case.  From a deeply narcissistic point of view, it's perfectly rational to do what he does.

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I also noted that almost to a person, every Republican in Congress that was approached for reaction about the tweet ran away from giving comment or gave some lame excuse if they did reply. Even with such a softball question as that one, they couldn't show any kind of moral backbone.

Agreed.  The excuse that it's just Trump being Trump doesn't fly anymore because the President has so clearly gone off the deep end.  They can't credibly tell us to just ignore him, because he's now taking extreme and dangerous measures to insure he is not ignored.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 09, 2020, 07:58:32 PM
Not having followed it, why do you say she ran an awful campaign?

There are many opinions on this.  Unlike engineering, this is something that may not have a distinct right or wrong answer, and it's not my area of expertise.  Those disclaimers in place, here's my take.

Too much rainbow, not enough mainstream.  The Clinton campaign wrongly believed that they could assemble a coalition of demographically dissimilar liberals that could outvote a homogeneous conservative base.  They failed.  It's a bit tone-deaf for me to say so under prevailing circumstances, but you simply cannot win a national election in the United States without broad appeal to white, working-class males who don't have college degrees.  The campaign's decision to court one group over the other produced an image of Hillary Clinton as a coastal elitist.  That doesn't play in Peoria.  Promising to stand up for minority rights, and even having a history of doing it, are always things America likes to see and hear.  Especially this month, where the long-standing problems are once again boiling over.  But it simply doesn't produce voters in sufficient numbers by itself.  It's amazingly difficult to craft a credible message of equality and the breaking down of barriers that resounds well enough with both the BLM types and the Peoria types to result in an American majority.  I'm not sure I could do it.  The problem with the Clinton campaign is that they didn't even try.

This was something which happened in our Federal election last year. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) tried to appeal to both urban progressives and blue-collar coal workers in regional areas. In retrospect it was a noticeable problem for well over a year as ALP leader Bill Shorten was caught between mixed messages or upsetting one of these two demographics. What made it worse for the ALP was that it had been losing the urban progressives to the Greens for close to a decade.

Quote
Too much science and not enough campaigning.  The 2016 Clinton campaign relied on very sophisticated data-mining and analytics models.  Now -- with expertise -- I can tell you that this is a giant growth sector and it will revolutionize the way we make decisions.  The problem was that the Clinton campaign's model was wrong.  Just because you are taking a scientific approach to focusing efforts doesn't mean your science is valid.  The analytics model badly mispredicted the outcomes of the GOP primary in several states.  Rather than accept that their approach didn't work, and return to proven-but-intuitive campaign strategies, they assured themselves that they would be able to refine the analytics to assure victory.  This did not happen.  Again the model failed to accurately predict the outcomes of the battleground states that fell to Donald Trump.  It was telling them one thing, and seasoned campaigners were telling them aother thing, and the seasoned campaigners turned out to be right.  Had Hillary Clinton simply campaigned the way her husband had, I believe she'd have had a better chance of winning.

This was also something which happened to some extent in Australia. Or at least, independent pollsters missed the mark by a few percentage points. The most (typically Australian) miss was by an online betting agency which offers to Pay It Out Early: two days before the election they allowed ALP backers to claim their money, then had to pay out to Liberal Party backers (apparently at odds of 6-to-1).

But my understanding is that professional pollsters also made a hash of the 2016 Presidential election result, so presumably any problems with the Democrats' modelling also apply to those pollsters?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 09, 2020, 08:13:10 PM
Someone put up a picture of empty supermarket shelves and said this is how life would be in a Corbyn-led Labour government. Never mind that it was in fact the current reality under a Johnson-led Conservative government....

Ditto.  I mentioned my Fox-News-addled father-in-law.  On the first, worst night of BLM protests, we got a text message saying, "Welcome to Bernie Sanders' America."  Except, of course, that it was literally America under Donald Trump and largely his fault.

Again, reminds me of things I see over at UM.

Some Trump supporter makes a speculative comment about what some Prog (how they love to use that term, as though they're convinced it triggers progressives) might do. Then another Trump supporter treats the first comment as something that Prog has done, and then criticises the Prog's morality on the basis of that entirely fictional action.

The other behaviour which irks me is the way some Trump supporters demand polite treatment but indulge in name-calling themselves. Then, when they're called out for their name-calling, demean or sneer at their critics as being cry-babies.

Now to be fair, there are probably Progs who indulge in these sorts of behaviours with regard to Trump supporters too. But in their defence, as has been pointed out, Trump's behaviour is real while the progressive alternative's behaviour is entirely speculative.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on June 10, 2020, 12:08:57 PM
Some Trump supporter makes a speculative comment about what some Prog (how they love to use that term, as though they're convinced it triggers progressives) might do. Then another Trump supporter treats the first comment as something that Prog has done, and then criticises the Prog's morality on the basis of that entirely fictional action.

This is a common thing among humans in general, it seems: the tendency to create a straw man argument, whether that be an entirely made up situation or else, more commonly, the creation of an entirely fictitious meaning to an event or statement. Most prevalent at the moment, of course, is the statement 'black lives matter'. That should not, in itself, be a controversial statement. Without fail, every single person I have seen arguing against the motion is responding as if it has the word 'only' appended to the front. JK Rowling is getting a lot of stick currently for her transphobic views, and all of her arguments seem to stem from the absurd conclusion that acknowledging the existence of trans people somehow means sex (gender) is 'not real.' Of course it's real, it's just not as binary as she imagines. Just for myself, I am a heterosexual male, genetically, physilogically, psychologically. I have been so since birth. Because a number of people in the world don't fit into the binary XX=female, XY=male bins doesn't in any way affect my 'maleness', for want of a better word. Not that long ago on this very board we had a conpiracist arguing about the words on Wernher von Braun's gravestone, and talking about the intepretation of the verse in Psalms cited thereon, and he could not understand that the flaw in his entire argument stemmed simply from the fact that von Brauns' gravestone literally says on it: "Psalms 19.1". That's it. The wording he was arguing about wasn't even on the stone itself.

The problem is, for most if not all cases, that getting these people to acknowledge that their flawed reasoning is the basis of why they are wrong, and so in fact the argument falls apart before we get into things like evidence, is incredibly difficult or actually impossible.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 11, 2020, 09:44:40 AM
But yeah, regardless of just the general Clinton-ness and all that entails, she was an awful campaigner.  Awful.  Yes, she won the popular vote, but it's the electoral votes that matter, and her being an awful campaigner cost her states that Obama had won.  Twice.

Not having followed it, why do you say she ran an awful campaign?

Jay answered it beautifully, but I'll add that the major mistakes as I saw it were 1) spending too much time trying to placate the progressive wing of the party (a quantum impossibility IMO) and 2) actively alienating the people she needed to win in the EC.  The "basket of deplorables" statement, while cathartic and not inaccurate, was a major tactical blunder (in hindsight - full disclosure, I didn't see it as such at the time). 

And the campaign simply did not read the mood of the country correctly.  The fact that Trump was the Republican nominee should have been a wake-up call (for all of us), and all these well-connected and well-paid consultants simply ignored it. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 11, 2020, 11:47:49 AM
I will say it's been interesting seeing the protests work on my older Facebook friends.  Almost all my friends my age or younger are progressive to a greater or lesser extent, but I do have a few friends' parents and things among my Facebook friends.  The wife of a BAUT member (I don't care; I still call it that) went from responding to my post about talking to Simon about racism with "I hope you're teaching him the difference between protesting and rioting" to "the police have no right to act the way they're acting."  In no small part because one of her own parents died of a brain bleed from falling down, and seeing what the police did to that man in Buffalo was extremely painful to her.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 22, 2020, 10:03:41 AM
AOC's tweet praising K-pop stans was taken by a pundit as support for North Korea because that's the world we live in.

Now, I don't actually believe the people requesting tickets are why that rally had terrible attendance; the number of tickets supposedly issued was several times the size of the venue, after all.  But it is interesting to see where alliances are forming.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on June 22, 2020, 11:02:42 AM
Now, I don't actually believe the people requesting tickets are why that rally had terrible attendance; the number of tickets supposedly issued was several times the size of the venue, after all.  But it is interesting to see where alliances are forming.

I believe that it could have discouraged people from attending if they heard the indoor venue had reached capacity. Even without the pandemic being a factor, I suspect a lot of people wouldn't want to go if it meant they'd be outside and only see Trump on a monitor, especially since a lot of Trump's supporters are older.

But I also do believe Trump just can't attract the crowds he used to.

John Oliver had an interesting segment on "Last Week Tonight" last night about how the K-Pop fans / TikTok users have been flooding Twitter hashtags started by right-wing groups with K-Pop videos. It makes those hashtags useless for their intended purpose (organizing rallies, spreading misinformation and hate, etc.). It's basically negating the right's use of social media to influence the election, and I love it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 22, 2020, 02:44:01 PM
I firmly believe that the small crowd was due almost solely to COVID-19 concerns.  That may have been amplified by the expected crowd size, but in a non-pandemic world I don't think crowd size on its own would be that much of a turn-off (I'd expect it to have the opposite effect, in fact). 

The bigger thing the kids did was wreck the Trump campaign's voter database.  Parscale kinda gave the game away when he bragged about the "biggest data haul" ever.  This was about getting contact info for targeting GOTV efforts in November, and now their database is full of garbage - fake names, fake email accounts, fake phone numbers, etc.  Whether it was envisioned that way or not, this was a strategic blow as much as a tactical one. 

So everybody's been putting soundtracks over Trump's dejected walk from Marine 1 back to the WH (of which "Everybody Hurts" is still the best), but my wife noticed something and I see it too - that's the most normal he's looked doing, well, anything.  He's not tottering or otherwise acting enfeebled, he's standing up normally, his gait's fairly natural, hopped down the stairs from the chopper like a champ. 

My wife's theory is that he has a real phobia about falling, and without a handrail or someone to hold on to his brain just goes into overdrive so even a slight 3 degree grade is like looking at a cliff. 

We already know Trump is a giant ball of neuroses and phobias already, so it kinda fits.  That, and we're reasonably certain he has lifts in his shoes which explains the way he stands like a centaur, and you know that has to play hell with his balance as well. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 23, 2020, 11:03:32 AM
John Oliver had an interesting segment on "Last Week Tonight" last night about how the K-Pop fans / TikTok users have been flooding Twitter hashtags started by right-wing groups with K-Pop videos. It makes those hashtags useless for their intended purpose (organizing rallies, spreading misinformation and hate, etc.). It's basically negating the right's use of social media to influence the election, and I love it.

I'm very proud of them.  Turns out the campaign isn't tech savvy, to the surprise of . . . no one, I expect.  It never occurred to them that you can fake those things, I guess.  The campaign's going to be sending fake e-mails to Oliver Clothesoff for months.

The way he drank water was pretty unsettled, though.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on June 23, 2020, 11:26:57 AM
Turns out the campaign isn't tech savvy, to the surprise of . . . no one, I expect.  It never occurred to them that you can fake those things, I guess.

In 2016 they had the help of Russia, Cambridge Analytica, and Facebook. Now CA is gone, Facebook is under more scrutiny, and people like the K-Pop stans are using social media more powerfully than the Trump supporters ever could. I still worry about what Russia is up to though.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on June 23, 2020, 01:56:48 PM
John Oliver had an interesting segment on "Last Week Tonight" last night about how the K-Pop fans / TikTok users have been flooding Twitter hashtags started by right-wing groups with K-Pop videos. It makes those hashtags useless for their intended purpose (organizing rallies, spreading misinformation and hate, etc.). It's basically negating the right's use of social media to influence the election, and I love it.

I'm very proud of them.  Turns out the campaign isn't tech savvy, to the surprise of . . . no one, I expect.  It never occurred to them that you can fake those things, I guess.  The campaign's going to be sending fake e-mails to Oliver Clothesoff for months.

This is why you have an army of volunteers to gather and verify contact information through callbacks or emails.  Nothing goes into your database until it's confirmed as valid.  Even though we live in the future, you need bodies to properly manage a campaign, and a lot of them. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on June 23, 2020, 01:58:59 PM
I've heard they could be facing a huge fine for not having a "I am over 18" confirmation box on their ticket form.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on June 24, 2020, 11:00:06 AM
They're facing a cease and desist letter from the Petty family, and they used "You Can't Always Get What You Want," which I thought they already had a cease and desist letter about.  Surely, regardless of their feelings aside from that, Mick Jagger's economics education would be enough to shy him away from Trump!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on June 28, 2020, 04:59:27 AM
The reason you are having so many heatwaves in the US, is because you have so many thermometers. If you stopped looking at your thermometers, you would have many more cool days and no heatwaves. 😂
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Britmax on June 28, 2020, 04:10:27 PM
The reason you are having so many heatwaves in the US, is because you have so many thermometers. If you stopped looking at your thermometers, you would have many more cool days and no heatwaves. 😂
It wouldn't be as cold in Alaska either! Who says Donald has no great ideas?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on June 29, 2020, 07:15:29 AM
It wouldn't be as cold in Alaska either! Who says Donald has no great ideas?
[/quote]

And more important, it could completely solve illegal immigration... much cheaper than his wall.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on June 29, 2020, 10:40:05 PM
Russians paying bounties to the Taliban for killing American soldiers?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lawmakers-want-answers-on-russia-paying-taliban-to-attack-us-troops?fbclid=IwAR2X55lbO-RZuwVdjI_PXkvswy1N4r5BTvkLbB4O1sKoFC4KvMVzYZcNuuM
Quote
The White House, however, said Saturday that Trump was not briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence, but didn't confirm or deny the underlying reporting that Russia was giving out rewards to attack U.S. soldiers.
It has been two days now.  I guess Trump is trying to decide if he likes his military as much as he does Putin.

Perhaps Trump cares as little for his military as he does POW's.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 30, 2020, 06:35:11 AM
Russians paying bounties to the Taliban for killing American soldiers?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lawmakers-want-answers-on-russia-paying-taliban-to-attack-us-troops?fbclid=IwAR2X55lbO-RZuwVdjI_PXkvswy1N4r5BTvkLbB4O1sKoFC4KvMVzYZcNuuM
Quote
The White House, however, said Saturday that Trump was not briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence, but didn't confirm or deny the underlying reporting that Russia was giving out rewards to attack U.S. soldiers.
It has been two days now.  I guess Trump is trying to decide if he likes his military as much as he does Putin.

Perhaps Trump cares as little for his military as he does POW's.

A few weeks ago and a couple of pages up I speculated about which Republican critics of Trump might be listened to by Trump supporters over at UM. Following this story, I can see they've crossed John McCain and John Bolton off the list (yes I realise McCain is dead!).

Thanks to this article we can see if they'll listen to Lindsey Graham or Mike McCaul.

My other concern is that some of these UM Trump supporters are now so wound up in their certainty of a Trump victory in the election that I'm starting to wonder that they'll think that any Biden victory short of a landslide must somehow have been obtained by voter fraud.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on June 30, 2020, 07:37:28 AM
I've read three different versions of the bounty presentation attributed to the White House now:
* He wasn't presented with anything. No other comment.
* He was presented, but it was said to be not credible.
* They didn't present it to him because it wasn't credible.

While I would accept that it might not be credible, I would not be surprised at all if he discounted it primarily because he likes Putin.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on June 30, 2020, 08:14:16 AM
A few weeks ago and a couple of pages up I speculated about which Republican critics of Trump might be listened to by Trump supporters over at UM. Following this story, I can see they've crossed John McCain and John Bolton off the list (yes I realise McCain is dead!).

Thanks to this article we can see if they'll listen to Lindsey Graham or Mike McCaul.

My other concern is that some of these UM Trump supporters are now so wound up in their certainty of a Trump victory in the election that I'm starting to wonder that they'll think that any Biden victory short of a landslide must somehow have been obtained by voter fraud.

And here's a curious thing - maybe they'll listen to Trump himself...

There's a thread over at UM about why Trump would want to slow down the testing. It's coming up on six pages long, but most of the posts are by Trump critics. The usual Trump supporters rock up, post a message along the lines that Trump was joking when he made that comment about slowing down the testing. Then someone replies by posting a link to some video of Trump from the day or so after saying he wasn't joking about slowing the testing down.

So far three or four Trump supporters have posted "Trump was joking in Tulsa" comments, and after the "I wasn't joking" comment is posted in reply the Trump supporters either say nothing more, or reluctantly accept that he meant what he said and that he's wrong.

Perhaps this may be the way to detach a few rusted-on Trump supporters...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on June 30, 2020, 11:13:09 AM
Perhaps this may be the way to detach a few rusted-on Trump supporters...

Sure.  Now all we have to do is convince Donald Trump himself to do the right thing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on June 30, 2020, 11:35:08 AM
I've read three different versions of the bounty presentation attributed to the White House now:
* He wasn't presented with anything. No other comment.
* He was presented, but it was said to be not credible.
* They didn't present it to him because it wasn't credible.

While I would accept that it might not be credible, I would not be surprised at all if he discounted it primarily because he likes Putin.

I've been thinking that there's a 4th option, and it relates to the way you phrased things here. I think that they may well be playing word games, parsing the meaning of the word briefing. For example, if the information were presented to him, but not in an "official briefing" (however that is actually defined) then even if later it is shown that the information was given to him, they will be able to claim that their statement was still factually correct - he was never briefed on the topic. It's double-speak, of course, but i could see it happening.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on June 30, 2020, 09:11:05 PM
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/politics/former-intelligence-scoff-white-house-denials-trump-briefed-russia-bounty/index.html
Quote
But a US official familiar with the latest information told CNN on Monday that intelligence about the Russian bounty was included in the President's Daily Briefing (PDB) sometime in the spring. The written document includes the intelligence communities' most important and urgent information. On Monday night, the New York Times reported that the information was included in a written briefing to the President in late February.
Trump is not known to read his daily briefing, and instead prefers an oral briefing a few times a week.

Quote
The President receives a copy of the PDB every day, as does Vice President Mike Pence, but Trump is notorious for not reading it. Even after intelligence analysts added more photos and charts to make it more appealing, the document often goes unread, according to people familiar with the matter.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on July 01, 2020, 11:32:28 AM
I'm sure his supporters have some defense for why that's okay.  Now, personally, I believe he's functionally illiterate and simply can't read it, but still.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on July 01, 2020, 12:19:39 PM
I'm sure his supporters have some defense for why that's okay.  Now, personally, I believe he's functionally illiterate and simply can't read it, but still.
You should see the gymnastics they go through to justify his gun grab and other anti-gun stuff.

1.  No one needs a bump stock. (exactly what the gun control zealots say)
2.  Bump stocks aren't guns (Trump and the ATF say they are)
3.  Trump did not follow through on his desire to take away guns without due process.
4.  No one needs a silencer.
5.  C-Span is fake news.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on July 02, 2020, 11:07:08 AM
I'm sure his supporters have some defense for why that's okay. 

First line of defense : It's FAAAKE NEEEEWS

Second line of defense:  "They got shot. True american heros dont get shot. A hero like Trump would not of been shot. Must have ben Democrrats. Would of voted for Biden. I do not like people who get shot"   

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on July 06, 2020, 01:42:14 PM
To quote President Arnie from The Simpsons Movie: "I was elected to lead, not to read."*
*I would say he fails in both roles, but I digress
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on July 25, 2020, 07:15:55 PM
It's quite something. I watched the collapse of the USSR, and now I am watching the USA descend into civil war and, I suspect, collapse.

It's circumstances that I'd rather not happen at all.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on July 26, 2020, 04:06:19 AM
I don't think we're going to see collapse just yet, and there really isn't a rallying cry for a civil war, , but we are definitely seeing some cracks, more blocks coming out of the Jenga tower.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on July 26, 2020, 04:34:51 PM
I have to disagree.

Here is a possible scenario: Trump is deliberately fueling the fires of unrest anywhere he can, and will use COVID-19 and the riots, etc, to "delay" the November elections, probably trying to invoke some type of emergency powers. This will be supported by die-hard Trump people but rejected by the majority. This will cause the civil war: some some government forces remaining 'loyal' to Trump, believing it to be the correct & legal thing to do, whilst other sections will see it as an illegal action. There will be lots of people who will arm themselves up and support Trump, and just as many will arm up and try to remove Trump. There will be clashes and mass bloodshed.

Sure, there will be pockets of calm in this sea of madness but overall the country will break apart into 'zones'.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on July 27, 2020, 06:05:59 AM
Now that's a horrifying thought.
I'm not so sure it will go that way, though All knows the man has dictatorial tendencies to put it mildly, several have which have set bad precedent for down the road.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on July 27, 2020, 02:59:13 PM
Here is a possible scenario: Trump is deliberately fueling the fires of unrest anywhere he can, and will use COVID-19 and the riots, etc, to "delay" the November elections, probably trying to invoke some type of emergency powers.....
I'm sure someone has explained to Trump that his term ends (along with the VP's and House Speaker's) on January 2021 unless he is re-elected.  The constitution provides for a new president (Pres of the Senate?) if the election does not happen or there is some other reason for the office to be vacant. 

The only way for Trump to remain in office without an election is for the constitution and other liberties to be suspended.  If he does not depart the White House, then I'm certain no matter who the new president is, he or she will have the Secret service arrest trump and take him away.   
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on July 28, 2020, 06:40:11 PM
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-28/us-election-donald-trump-deep-divisions/12477786
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on July 29, 2020, 07:42:44 AM
I'm sure someone has explained to Trump

I guess there is a lot of stuff that has been explained to the Orange One... about as successful as explaining Vacuum to moonman.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on July 30, 2020, 11:28:50 AM
The constitution provides for a new president (Pres of the Senate?)...

Speaker of the House of Representatives, then the President pro tempore of the Senate (because the nominal President of the Senate is identically the Vice President).  The offices of President and Vice President may be vacant, precisely because of the circumstances that may arise in how they are filled.  But because the leaders of the respective houses of Congress are elected by their members, and that election can sustain the absence of some number of members, the line of succession is especially resilient.

Unlike in the U.K., the Speaker of the House in the U.S. retains his party affiliation.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi's term as a Member ends at the same time Donald Trump's term as President, hence also does her speakership.  But she is predicted to be re-elected, and the Democrats are predicted to retain their majority in the House.  In any case, it is highly likely that the Speaker of the House in 2021 will be a Democrat, and will have full authority to evict Donald Trump, by force if necessary.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on July 30, 2020, 01:50:13 PM
Uk press.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53597975
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on July 30, 2020, 04:20:29 PM
Uk press.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53597975

That's the first step. Now Trump supporters will be saying "Yeah! This election is rigged! It needs to be delayed!" Of course, people are going to point out that the Constitution says he can't do that.... but this is where he'll get himself "...extraordinary powers for extraordinary times...".
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 02, 2020, 04:28:51 PM

That's the first step. Now Trump supporters will be saying "Yeah! This election is rigged! It needs to be delayed!" Of course, people are going to point out that the Constitution says he can't do that.... but this is where he'll get himself "...extraordinary powers for extraordinary times...".

They'll also have to conveniently ignore the states (not to mention countries) that already use mail-in voting, and don't have problems with it. Just like they had to with the "lots of cases" of voter fraud that were claimed, and yet almost none were ever found, including by Trump's own commission.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on August 02, 2020, 10:16:32 PM
Neither Trump nor his supporters let facts get in the way of their assertions (and unfortunately that includes quite a few Republicans, I believe). While here in Canada we're have our own scandal - the WE charity issue - politics in Canada seems to be well above that in the U.S. - so far.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on August 03, 2020, 05:03:52 PM
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's term as a Member ends at the same time Donald Trump's term as President, hence also does her speakership.

I don't think so.  The new congress comes in on January 3rd, the new president (assuming there is one) comes in on January 20th.

In fact, the electoral votes that officially determine who is and who is not president, will be counted by the new congress, not the old one.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 03, 2020, 05:29:35 PM
I don't think so.  The new congress comes in on January 3rd, the new president (assuming there is one) comes in on January 20th.

In fact, the electoral votes that officially determine who is and who is not president, will be counted by the new congress, not the old one.

Ah, yes.  We do get a new Congress before we get a new President.  So whoever is elected Speaker by the incoming House of Representatives will be the successor should the office of President be vacated on Jan. 20, however that may occur.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on August 04, 2020, 12:16:11 AM

That's the first step. Now Trump supporters will be saying "Yeah! This election is rigged! It needs to be delayed!" Of course, people are going to point out that the Constitution says he can't do that.... but this is where he'll get himself "...extraordinary powers for extraordinary times...".

They'll also have to conveniently ignore the states (not to mention countries) that already use mail-in voting, and don't have problems with it. Just like they had to with the "lots of cases" of voter fraud that were claimed, and yet almost none were ever found, including by Trump's own commission.
A good demagogue never lets something as insignificant as facts get in the way of their spiel and narrative.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on August 04, 2020, 04:10:08 AM

That's the first step. Now Trump supporters will be saying "Yeah! This election is rigged! It needs to be delayed!" Of course, people are going to point out that the Constitution says he can't do that.... but this is where he'll get himself "...extraordinary powers for extraordinary times...".

They'll also have to conveniently ignore the states (not to mention countries) that already use mail-in voting, and don't have problems with it. Just like they had to with the "lots of cases" of voter fraud that were claimed, and yet almost none were ever found, including by Trump's own commission.
A good demagogue never lets something as insignificant as facts get in the way of their spiel and narrative.

Aint that the truth!


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 04, 2020, 10:26:55 AM
A good demagogue never lets something as insignificant as facts get in the way of their spiel and narrative.

Indeed, but what I find infuriating is that there are significant numbers of people who will continue to believe the narrative.  I can point to people who now believe that mail-in ballots are fraught with fraud, and who will defend that belief to the death simply because the demagogue said it.

My state is a Republican stronghold.  We've voted almost exclusively by mail for the past several election cycles.  I can't remember the last time I actually visited a polling place.  In the last general elected we had one instance of voter fraud.  Utah law allows for members of the Mormon church serving full-time missions outside the state to vote as absentees in Utah elections.  (The law is sensibly worded to extend this to all Utah residents similarly situated, without regard to religion, but its intent is clear.)  However, the ballot must be mailed to them directly.  Not all such residents made the appropriate arrangements, so they instructed their parents in Utah to complete the ballot on their behalf.  This is illegal, and it was detected.

Prior to the last primary election, a computer glitch caused a small number of ballots to be mailed to minors.  Utah law allows 17-year-olds to preregister to vote if they will have turned 18 prior to the general election for which the registration is to be considered valid.  The computer checked the date of the general election, but failed to check the date of the primary election.  The clerk's office caught the error and simply invalidated the ballots by a few keystrokes in the computer.

I realize this degree of electoral fidelity is common in more well-developed countries, but it is an example of what has been achieved in some parts of the U.S.  There is simply no truth to the claim that a U.S. election conducted by mail would be more susceptible to fraud than any other method, and Republicans know this.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 04, 2020, 12:26:51 PM
Our primary is today.  I was going over the Progressive Voters' Guide for our precinct, and one of the reasons they don't support our current Secretary of State for reelection is that she is a Republican who has for years presided over a vote-by-mail state and is not pointing out how vanishingly rare voter fraud is here.  Hell, if Democratic voter fraud were as common as all that, she wouldn't be in office, because goodness knows we'd have put a Democrat in her job if we were controlling offices that way.  But she won't publicly speak out about it, which they consider her responsibility.  I don't disagree.  It may not be her job, but I believe she's morally obligated.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 04, 2020, 12:47:18 PM

I realize this degree of electoral fidelity is common in more well-developed countries, but it is an example of what has been achieved in some parts of the U.S.  There is simply no truth to the claim that a U.S. election conducted by mail would be more susceptible to fraud than any other method, and Republicans know this.

But, but, dead people voting in Chicago!  But, but, Trump said it was a problem!   ::)

I've also seen people claiming that the reason there isn't more widespread voter fraud (even though it has never actually been an issue) is because of all of the efforts of Republicans, including the restrictive ID checks and registration laws. (Which any sane person knows have primarily been a way to disenfranchise minorities) They use a lack of the problem to prove that the problem needs to be addressed even further.  And people buy it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on August 04, 2020, 02:54:40 PM

I realize this degree of electoral fidelity is common in more well-developed countries, but it is an example of what has been achieved in some parts of the U.S.  There is simply no truth to the claim that a U.S. election conducted by mail would be more susceptible to fraud than any other method, and Republicans know this.

But, but, dead people voting in Chicago!  But, but, Trump said it was a problem!   ::)

I've also seen people claiming that the reason there isn't more widespread voter fraud (even though it has never actually been an issue) is because of all of the efforts of Republicans, including the restrictive ID checks and registration laws. (Which any sane person knows have primarily been a way to disenfranchise minorities) They use a lack of the problem to prove that the problem needs to be addressed even further.  And people buy it.

And I still want to know when election fraud or campaign fraud became voter fraud (rhetorical question, don't bother answering).  All past examples of election shenanigans were on the parts of election or campaign workers, not voters.  All those dead people didn't vote for LBJ by walking into a polling place with fake IDs. 

You're correct, "voter fraud" is an excuse to systematically disenfranchise specific groups of voters.  It's ballot box stuffing by other means. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on August 04, 2020, 03:12:37 PM
I'm more concerned about mail-in ballots that vote for Biden mysteriously disappearing or being declared invalid for some reason (eg. signatures not matching records precisely). Trump has a history of accusing the Democratic Party of crimes that he is guilty of himself.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on August 04, 2020, 05:52:41 PM
A good demagogue never lets something as insignificant as facts get in the way of their spiel and narrative.

Indeed, but what I find infuriating is that there are significant numbers of people who will continue to believe the narrative.  I can point to people who now believe that mail-in ballots are fraught with fraud, and who will defend that belief to the death simply because the demagogue said it.
Quite so. The basic demagogue narrative is irritatingly simple: take one group, remind them of what they don't have, and blame another, disenfranchised minority group why they don't have it.
It's sickeningly effective.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on August 04, 2020, 06:49:57 PM

I realize this degree of electoral fidelity is common in more well-developed countries, but it is an example of what has been achieved in some parts of the U.S.  There is simply no truth to the claim that a U.S. election conducted by mail would be more susceptible to fraud than any other method, and Republicans know this.

But, but, dead people voting in Chicago!  But, but, Trump said it was a problem!   ::)

I've also seen people claiming that the reason there isn't more widespread voter fraud (even though it has never actually been an issue) is because of all of the efforts of Republicans, including the restrictive ID checks and registration laws. (Which any sane person knows have primarily been a way to disenfranchise minorities) They use a lack of the problem to prove that the problem needs to be addressed even further.  And people buy it.

Ah, the old conspiracy theorist standby: if there's evidence of a problem then there's a problem. But if there's no evidence of a problem that means the evidence has been suppressed. Heads I win, tails you lose.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 04, 2020, 07:02:21 PM
You know, there is something else I didn't consider which may play into this whole scenario: China.

Now, full disclosure: I don't like how the PRC disregards any international laws or conventions whenever those rules are inconvenient to them. I think China needs to play by the rules, or be contained.

Anyway.... what's takes people's attention away from domestic politics? An overseas conflict. If the US went into a (limited, regional) war with China, there would be some unifying effect for the US people, and it WILL distract them.

Normally this would be a CT scenario but this IS Trump we are talking about, and he has shown a shocking disregard for the health & well-being of US citizens if it conflicts with his political agenda.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on August 04, 2020, 07:50:10 PM
Hell's bells, his personal agenda, anything that lines his or his cronies pocketbooks.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 05, 2020, 11:58:11 AM
Hot take: I don't think Trump, personally, has political agendas.  It's all personal to him.  It crosses into political when he needs it to get what he wants.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on August 05, 2020, 02:15:57 PM
Hot take: I don't think Trump, personally, has political agendas.  It's all personal to him.  It crosses into political when he needs it to get what he wants.

I agree, although I'm sure he has Evangelicals, the NRA, etc. whispering in his ear and convincing him to do things he wouldn't otherwise care about.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 06, 2020, 10:43:18 AM
I agree, although I'm sure he has Evangelicals, the NRA, etc. whispering in his ear and convincing him to do things he wouldn't otherwise care about.

Oh, definitely, and they get him to do it by flattering his ego and doing things he wants done.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on August 07, 2020, 10:29:28 PM
I agree, although I'm sure he has Evangelicals, the NRA, etc. whispering in his ear and convincing him to do things he wouldn't otherwise care about.
What do you think the NRA is whispering?
 
Ban the bump stocks.
Take the guns 1st, due process 2nd.
Keep silencers regulated.
We don't need CCW reciprocity.
Don't reverse the Hughes Amendment.
Keep restricting gun imports.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 08, 2020, 12:12:47 AM
Putting aside what type of weapons are legal to sell & own, why is there such opposition to a national firearms database?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on August 08, 2020, 10:12:08 AM
In the USA, all types of small arms are legal to own.  There are strings attached with some of them though

Part of the reason is that when the government decides to make a gun contraband, it is easier for them to find the newly minted criminals who own them.  Some people don't like that. 

There is already a database for various NFA firearms.  It could be expanded to cover all firearms and some politicians have suggested that we do.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 08, 2020, 11:00:37 AM
If the State of New York has its way, the NRA won't be influencing anyone much longer.  Maybe instead of getting someone who represents the gun manufacturers, there'll be an organization that represents gun owners after that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 08, 2020, 12:50:24 PM
If the State of New York has its way, the NRA won't be influencing anyone much longer.  Maybe instead of getting someone who represents the gun manufacturers, there'll be an organization that represents gun owners after that.

The funny thing is, when I was young, that's exactly how the NRA operated in my area - promoting gun safety, responsible hunting, etc. I don't recall (it's possible it was happening and I just don't remember it) anyone talking about or pushing the 2nd Amendment during those courses or seminars. It was always, "if you're going to own a gun, you need to know how to do so properly."  Of course, it could be that because I'm from a rural area it was more of a foregone conclusion that people would own guns, so there was no need to talk about the Constitution, but my memory is of safety being pushed, not an agenda. It's also possible that the adults were talking about things we kids weren't.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on August 08, 2020, 10:28:09 PM
Putting aside what type of weapons are legal to sell & own, why is there such opposition to a national firearms database?

Fear of a policy change.

To take a different example, there are a lot of people in the US who are illegal immigrants, but were brought there when they were quite young.  So what to do about them?  Their presence in the US is definitely illegal, there is no question about that.  But they were brought as children, sometimes as infants, so clearly the decision to enter the US illegally was someone else's.  You sometimes hear them referred to as the "dreamers", although this term would usually only be used by those more sympathetic to their plight.

So the Obama administration began a programme that allowed them to register, which would make them ineligible for deportation for two years, and allowed them to work.  Basically, they would still be illegal immigrants, but the government would simply ignore their illegal status.  The registration could be renewed.  There were some strings attached, if you have a serious criminal conviction, you're not eligible.  The programme was called DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.  The "Action" that is "deferred" is deportation.  You're still illegal, but the government won't do anything about it for a while.  This programme was not a law passed by a congress, it was an administrative action by the executive branch of the government, headed by the president.

Sounds great, doesn't it?  If you're one of these people, instead of having to live an undercover, illegal existence, concerned that at any moment, your illegal status could be discovered, and the government could deport you, you could stand up and be proud, live openly, find a job, etc.  You can't become a citizen, and you can't vote, but most of the ordinary everyday things citizens can do, you can do.  Why would anyone not want to sign up for that?

The trick is, you had to register.  If you weren't registered, and the government found you, you could be deported.  And you couldn't just work a job whenever you wanted - you had to register first for the job to be legal.  So you had to go to the government and identify yourself to be eligible.  Then, there was a presidential election, and Donald Trump became president.  Your name is now on a handy list of illegal immigrants in the possession of the government, whose head states openly that he wants to end this programme, and who in fact did attempt to end the programme.  The courts ruled in June that the Trump administration has acted arbitrarily and capriciously in its effort to end this programme, but it did not rule on the merits of the programme, so we have the possibility that the Trump administration will try again to end it, in a way that will pass muster in the courts.  (A similar thing happened with the so-called Muslim bans - the first two attempts were blocked by the courts, but Muslim Ban 3.0 was engineered to remedy the defects the courts found in versions 1.0 and 2.0.)  Donald Trump's term is up in five months, but he might win reelection.

So you have the possibility that a president will no longer "defer" your deportation, and force you to go back underground.  Except you can't go underground, because you went and identified yourself to the government as an illegal immigrant when you registered for this programme under the Obama administration.

So I think a lot of the gun people are concerned about something like that happening.  Maybe there is no reason to fear being in a national registry right now, but if a future administration changes policies (and the courts allow it to happen), then registration means they have a nice handy list of everyone who has guns.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 09, 2020, 01:26:42 PM
That's an excellent summary and example, Luther.  The philosophy of American government is predicated on the presumption that a particular government agency's motive in any instance is untrustworthy.  From this follows that if personal information is susceptible to misuse, it simply should not be information the government has readily available.  Even when a greater good suggests information be routinely collected and kept (e.g., photographs on driver licenses), we try to put safeguards in place to prevent it from incidentally being used for other purposes, such as statewide surveillance and routine tracking of everyone's movements via face recognition.

Legally nothing prevents my state government from using whatever information I have provided to it as a requirement for licensed activity, and whatever other technology it can obtain, to routinely track everyone's movements everywhere in public at all time, and to retain this information indefinitely against some legitimate unforeseen need.  Previously it didn't need to be outlawed because it was impracticable to achieve.  The database couldn't be misused because it didn't exist.  It didn't exist because it was prohibitively difficult to create.  Now that such data can be collected, we have to think carefully about how to guarantee against misuse.  And the American philosophy to date has generally been that misuse is precluded if the data continue not to exist.

(And now there is a great struggle to reign in American law enforcement, which we have discovered is often collecting and retaining such information on the sly, without telling anyone that it exists.  We don't object to its existence if a need can be shown, but we object to its secret and unregulated existence.  American government strictly rejects the notion, "Trust us, we won't misuse this information.)

So yes, people who would have registered in good faith as firearms owners have a fear of direct action should policy change -- as it inevitably will.  But there is also the fear of indirect action in the form of parallel construction.  This is a prosecutorial technique called "parallel construction" by which information that would be inadmissible by itself can nevertheless be used to obtain admissible evidence by informing enforcement efforts.

Generally, being convicted of a felony disqualifies one from legally owning a firearm.  If a prosecutor who, for political reasons, wanted to reduce gun ownership in his district, having a handy list of gun owners would let him focus investigative efforts on those people.  Investigators are typically scarce resources, so a prosecutor must exercise discretion in what cases to pursue.  The existence of such databases can inform that discretion to nefarious ends.  Even if we take steps to make that information privileged, there is generally nothing to prevent a prosecutor from misusing the privilege so long as no part of that misuse is evident in what he actually presents in court.  The defense can inquire into the prosecutorial operation only insofar as it is was present in the complaint.

Hypothetically, Tom may be prosecuted on felony charges, whereas Dick and Harry are not.  And Tom's charges don't need to have anything to do with firearms; he can be charged, for example, with money-laundering.  And Dick and Harry can have equally or more evidently heinous felonious lifestyles.  In this case the only reason Tom was charged was because the prosecutor had the resources to prosecute only one of the three cases referred to him, and he chose Tom because he discovered Tom owns a gun and he wants to deprive him of it.  There is no valid defense to be found in the notion that Dick or Harry should have been investigated and charged instead.

The executive has long used directly inadmissible information to focus surveillance or investigation on politically or socially undesired parties, and thereby put their lives under more scrutiny than others, and thereby preferentially obtain a greater number of legitimate prosecutions among them for the same level of misconduct as found elsewhere.  Thus where enforcement-related information has the potential to create a politically vulnerable class of people, it is often better that it simply not exist, especially where misuse is so difficult to detect and root out.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 09, 2020, 01:48:08 PM
Of course, it could be that because I'm from a rural area it was more of a foregone conclusion that people would own guns, so there was no need to talk about the Constitution, but my memory is of safety being pushed, not an agenda.

This was identically my experience too.  Via various youth groups and activities, I was introduced to hunting-style firearms and indoctrinated with near-religious fanaticism on the responsibilities and dangers of owning and operating a firearm.  And yes, maybe the adults were talking about something more nefarious, but I never caught wind of it.  I moved out West in my early 20s, so I think I would have started to hear something about it.  And my opinion is that the people who taught me would be thoroughly appalled at these armed "militias" that are suddenly springing up to "protect" everyone's rights.

My high school civics teacher was a legend in our school district, so we had gun control debates.  And I had an excellent political science teacher who made us read the Federalists.  The NRA never really formed a part of those debates.  So I'm not surprised that recent events have exposed the gun-rights activists as being less motivated by Constitutional concerns and more likely motivated by far-right politics.  The thing they warned us about is literally happening:  the citizens are rising up against what they perceive to be heavy-handed, armed oppression on the part of government.  And they're siding with the government in that struggle.  So the people who are legitimately interested in how we should read the Constitution don't seem to care what the NRA says.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 10, 2020, 11:03:32 PM
So I'm not surprised that recent events have exposed the gun-rights activists as being less motivated by Constitutional concerns and more likely motivated by far-right politics. 

Indeed.  In Florida (where I live) after the school shootings, it was proposed that they would arm select teachers, giving them training, and requiring them to keep current on their qualifications by re-certifying either every year or every other year. I remember Trevor Noah (I believe) stating that this sounds like a great requirement, but that they should remove the word teacher and replace it with citizen. Completely logical, and in keeping with the actual meaning of the text of the Second Amendment referring to well-regulated. (having a firearm in proper condition and have proficiency in its use) Yet those same activists you mentioned would never go for such a thing, and I don't recall the NRA supporting the idea either.  Funny that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on August 11, 2020, 04:34:22 AM
So I'm not surprised that recent events have exposed the gun-rights activists as being less motivated by Constitutional concerns and more likely motivated by far-right politics. 

Indeed.  In Florida (where I live) after the school shootings, it was proposed that they would arm select teachers, giving them training, and requiring them to keep current on their qualifications by re-certifying either every year or every other year. I remember Trevor Noah (I believe) stating that this sounds like a great requirement, but that they should remove the word teacher and replace it with citizen. Completely logical, and in keeping with the actual meaning of the text of the Second Amendment referring to well-regulated. (having a firearm in proper condition and have proficiency in its use) Yet those same activists you mentioned would never go for such a thing, and I don't recall the NRA supporting the idea either.  Funny that.

Acknowledging that my view on guns is very different being a Brit, where we have very strict gun control laws (that were toughened up after a school shooting), that just seems to be solving the wrong problem.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on August 11, 2020, 06:49:05 AM
So yes, people who would have registered in good faith as firearms owners have a fear of direct action should policy change -- as it inevitably will.  But there is also the fear of indirect action in the form of parallel construction.  This is a prosecutorial technique called "parallel construction" by which information that would be inadmissible by itself can nevertheless be used to obtain admissible evidence by informing enforcement efforts.

Generally, being convicted of a felony disqualifies one from legally owning a firearm.  If a prosecutor who, for political reasons, wanted to reduce gun ownership in his district, having a handy list of gun owners would let him focus investigative efforts on those people.  Investigators are typically scarce resources, so a prosecutor must exercise discretion in what cases to pursue.  The existence of such databases can inform that discretion to nefarious ends.  Even if we take steps to make that information privileged, there is generally nothing to prevent a prosecutor from misusing the privilege so long as no part of that misuse is evident in what he actually presents in court.  The defense can inquire into the prosecutorial operation only insofar as it is was present in the complaint.

Hypothetically, Tom may be prosecuted on felony charges, whereas Dick and Harry are not.  And Tom's charges don't need to have anything to do with firearms; he can be charged, for example, with money-laundering.  And Dick and Harry can have equally or more evidently heinous felonious lifestyles.  In this case the only reason Tom was charged was because the prosecutor had the resources to prosecute only one of the three cases referred to him, and he chose Tom because he discovered Tom owns a gun and he wants to deprive him of it.  There is no valid defense to be found in the notion that Dick or Harry should have been investigated and charged instead.

Yes, I guess there is that also.  Gun ownership, even though legal, could enter negatively into your social credit score.

I knew someone once, an American, who claimed he was pulled over for some traffic issue by multiple police cars, with guns drawn.  He claims this is because he was a registered gun owner.  I have no way to verify whether this is really true, I haven't seen him for years, and I can't even remember his name.  I do remember the state, though, it was New Jersey.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 11, 2020, 09:17:53 AM
Acknowledging that my view on guns is very different being a Brit, where we have very strict gun control laws (that were toughened up after a school shooting), that just seems to be solving the wrong problem.

Oh, I quite agree.  But a lot of people really do believe they should be allowed to own arsenals with absolutely no regulation on it, and there we are.

And you folks aren't remembering the NRA wrong; its focus has shifted in the last few decades.  For one thing, it's well established that the primary force driving the current NRA is support for gun manufacturers, not gun owners.  Some of their policies make considerably more sense in that light.  There are a lot of examples of NRA hypocrisy, such as their absolute silence when a black licensed carrier was killed by the police during a routine traffic stop for informing them that he was a licensed carrier and armed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 11, 2020, 11:06:00 PM
Acknowledging that my view on guns is very different being a Brit, where we have very strict gun control laws (that were toughened up after a school shooting), that just seems to be solving the wrong problem.

Given the long history of gun ownership in this country, and its place in our culture (some parts of the nation more than others), changing attitudes toward it would take a very long time. And that was true even before current events and the use of the internet helped to spur more distrust of government, the rise of survivalists and militia, etc.  Plus, there's the issue that there are just so many guns of all types out there that even if disarmament were pushed by the powers that be, it would almost be a practical impossibility to get them, at least without the police state action that the fear-mongers push.

Having gun owners be responsible ones, who know how to properly use and maintain their weapons, and have to demonstrate that they also are well aware of the actual laws and rights, is at least a step in a positive direction.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 11, 2020, 11:12:34 PM
And you folks aren't remembering the NRA wrong; its focus has shifted in the last few decades.  For one thing, it's well established that the primary force driving the current NRA is support for gun manufacturers, not gun owners

That's a good point. Up until the rise to power of the lobbying section, the NRA was focused more on owners and responsibility, and was far more involved in that side of the law. In fact, if I remember correctly, they helped write one of the major laws involving automatic weapons and their registration with the federal government. 

Of course, in more recent times they pushed for the legislation which effectively crippled the ATF and other agencies, including state and local LEOs, from having an effective and efficient way to trace gun ownership, making it impossible for them to keep anything but hard copy records, requiring ridiculous number of man-hours to do checks that should take minutes at most using a computer.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 12, 2020, 02:04:31 AM
Of course, in more recent times they pushed for the legislation which effectively crippled the ATF and other agencies, including state and local LEOs, from having an effective and efficient way to trace gun ownership, making it impossible for them to keep anything but hard copy records, requiring ridiculous number of man-hours to do checks that should take minutes at most using a computer.

Thumbs up
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on August 12, 2020, 04:28:17 AM
Having gun owners be responsible ones, who know how to properly use and maintain their weapons, and have to demonstrate that they also are well aware of the actual laws and rights, is at least a step in a positive direction.

I agree. Again, I don't know the full details of gun ownership laws in the US, and how they may differ on a state and federal level, but as I understand it, give or take the 'cooling off' periods on some firearms (I presume intended to prevent someone buying a gun to shoot someone in a fit of anger), anyone can walk into a gun store and buy a gun of more or less any kind. Since a gun has no other purpose but to kill and maim, be your target animal or human, it seems totally incredible to me that it is not already a requirement of owning one that you must have some degree of training, a licence, or somesuch measures to ensure that people buying a gun know how to store and handle it safely.

But then I don't really get the mentality of it being desirable to not only carry a lethal weapon but to advertise to others that you are doing so. Also, of course, every October/November/December time in the UK we have a period where any old tom, dick or harry over the age of 18 can walk into a shop and buy a huge box full of explosives, which is apparently allowed because they explode in a pretty way....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 12, 2020, 12:26:28 PM
Honestly?  A lot of places have the explosives thing in June and early July as well--and the places that don't often have stricter regulations on fireworks.  Where I grew up, it was actually illegal to have fireworks, because I grew up in an area with high fire risk.  Banning guns in that way is obviously illegal.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on August 12, 2020, 07:48:25 PM
If folks need guns for an uprising, they can just find a way, like the gun fetishists are always saying criminals will do anyway.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on August 13, 2020, 04:35:40 AM
If folks need guns for an uprising, they can just find a way, like the gun fetishists are always saying criminals will do anyway.

The gun fetishists have shown that all their talk about needing guns to form a militia against a tyrannical government has been shown to be nothing more than nonsense. There IS a tyrannical government in place at the moment- a government that is openly racist, disappears people off the streets, is riding roughshod over the Constitution, has allowed 160,000+ people to die through sheer ineptitude. And all the while the gun fetishists have sided with that tyrannical government is led by a man who says things that appeals to their inbuilt biases.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on August 13, 2020, 07:46:35 AM
If folks need guns for an uprising, they can just find a way, like the gun fetishists are always saying criminals will do anyway.

The gun fetishists have shown that all their talk about needing guns to form a militia against a tyrannical government has been shown to be nothing more than nonsense. There IS a tyrannical government in place at the moment- a government that is openly racist, disappears people off the streets, is riding roughshod over the Constitution, has allowed 160,000+ people to die through sheer ineptitude. And all the while the gun fetishists have sided with that tyrannical government is led by a man who says things that appeals to their inbuilt biases.

Were I feeling cynical I might say it has something to do with wanting to be the ones at an advantage. With their guns they could take on a lone terrorist or random school shooter and be the hero. With their guns they can march into a room full of unarmed politicians and shout for their views from a position of strength and willingness to use lethal force to get what they want. With their guns they can intimidate those without guns into doing as they please. However, the prospect of using their guns to stand up to an equally well-armed and properly trained force, and in all likelihood get shot themselves, requires a change of underwear....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 13, 2020, 04:51:13 PM
I think a key issue is that the majority of gun owners really do have the best intentions but you know what they say about that...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 15, 2020, 12:38:58 PM
I think a key issue is that the majority of gun owners really do have the best intentions but you know what they say about that...

That has definitely been my experience. In addition, I think it's important for the general public to not over-generalize the image of a gun owner as someone who looks like the ones we see at demonstrations or the more extreme examples. (I don't believe people here are doing so - I'm just stating it's something that all people should be aware of) I knew plenty of gun owners who used them only for hunting, providing food for their families, keeping farms free from varmints, or for target shooting. Several don't own handguns or even desire to, and they are very careful about safety and maintenance. For them, a gun was a tool to provide, or a recreational hobby, and nothing more. I have no idea of the number of owners who fit into this category, but I know that growing up that was the case for the vast majority in my area. (getting a handgun was not easy) As with most categories, there is a lot of variability, more than most people see or keep in mind.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 15, 2020, 01:39:27 PM
That's been my experience.  I grew up in the American Midwest and I live in the American West.  The majority of gun owners I've encountered have been responsible people who use their firearms for the same sorts of purposes.

That said, we've always had the Ammon Bundy types (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammon_Bundy) but they are a particular sort.  They arise out of longstanding tension between state and local officials and the inhabitants, and the Federal government -- which owns some 60% of Utah and tends to rule these people's lives from Washington.  They have fairly narrowly aimed grievances, but it would be quite easy to lump them in with "gun nuts."  But that's a long, rather irrelevant story.

The paramilitary wannabes armed with assault-style rifles and showing up to "protect" the police and private property at protests are a completely new phenomenon -- or at least newly visible.  They've always been around, and many of them have roots in white supremacist movements, such as those in the Hayden Lake, Idaho area.  The Trump administration's openly racist policies seem to have emboldened them.

As I said before, I enjoyed target shooting as a teenager, but I find other things these days are better at running up the adrenaline.  Like Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor.  Ironically when I moved out West, I sold all my firearms.  I live in a city.  I don't need any.  And if I feel the need to keep up my marksmanship -- which I do from time to time -- there are plenty of target ranges.  My sister was in the Army (a West Point graduate, as a matter of fact, and an MP -- Military Police, not Member of Parliament) and can still shoot 10 out of 10 at 300 meters.  So we go shoot paper targets for old time's sake.

Plunking tin cans laid out on a fence rail, duck hunting on a quiet lake with guys you've known forever, skeet shooting -- these are the things many Americans naturally gravitate to when they think of how they would use a gun, if they would use one at all.  But of course these don't make the news, and they make for unexciting television and movies.  So the perception of the U.S. in many people's eyes is the glorification of violence and gun culture that we see in entertainment.  And television news these days is little removed from entertainment.

I assure you that for every person in the world who's looking at the U.S. with despair and alarm at what's going on, there are plenty of us Americans doing exactly the same thing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 16, 2020, 12:16:52 AM
Well said, Jay.  And 10/10 from 300 meters?  Damn!!!  That's some great shooting.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 16, 2020, 12:26:16 PM
I have no idea how she does it.  But the Marines train out to 500 yards, so by Marine standards she might still have room to improve.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on August 27, 2020, 05:30:47 AM
Plunking tin cans laid out on a fence rail, duck hunting on a quiet lake with guys you've known forever, skeet shooting -- these are the things many Americans naturally gravitate to when they think of how they would use a gun, if they would use one at all.  But of course these don't make the news, and they make for unexciting television and movies.  So the perception of the U.S. in many people's eyes is the glorification of violence and gun culture that we see in entertainment.  And television news these days is little removed from entertainment.

I assure you that for every person in the world who's looking at the U.S. with despair and alarm at what's going on, there are plenty of us Americans doing exactly the same thing.

As I've said before, I have no doubt the majority of gun owners are responsible and it wouldn't even occur to them in all but the most extreme examples to even point their gun at a person, much less fire one at someone. However, as you say, that's not newsworthy.

One question I do have though, about the police use of guns. Why is it whenever I see a report about a police shooting it always involves multiple shots? In the latest case a guy was shot seven times in the back from point blank range. Since one well-aimed bullet will kill or incapacitate (and even one badly aimed bullet has a good chance of doing either of those things as well), why are trained law enforcement officers unloading multiple bullets into anyone? And that's before we even get onto the dubious nature of what amounts to summary execution for maybe going for a weapon...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on August 27, 2020, 10:03:34 AM
Plunking tin cans laid out on a fence rail, duck hunting on a quiet lake with guys you've known forever, skeet shooting -- these are the things many Americans naturally gravitate to when they think of how they would use a gun, if they would use one at all.  But of course these don't make the news, and they make for unexciting television and movies.  So the perception of the U.S. in many people's eyes is the glorification of violence and gun culture that we see in entertainment.  And television news these days is little removed from entertainment.

I assure you that for every person in the world who's looking at the U.S. with despair and alarm at what's going on, there are plenty of us Americans doing exactly the same thing.

As I've said before, I have no doubt the majority of gun owners are responsible and it wouldn't even occur to them in all but the most extreme examples to even point their gun at a person, much less fire one at someone. However, as you say, that's not newsworthy.

One question I do have though, about the police use of guns. Why is it whenever I see a report about a police shooting it always involves multiple shots? In the latest case a guy was shot seven times in the back from point blank range. Since one well-aimed bullet will kill or incapacitate (and even one badly aimed bullet has a good chance of doing either of those things as well), why are trained law enforcement officers unloading multiple bullets into anyone? And that's before we even get onto the dubious nature of what amounts to summary execution for maybe going for a weapon...

I think I can answer this.

It's not an American thing, it's a Use Of Force thing: once you've decided to shoot you keep shooting as quickly as possible to end the threat as soon as possible.

Sure, one bullet may incapacitate a person, but the time spent waiting to see whether it has is time the person can use to do something - such as pull out a weapon and harm a third party. Better to keep shooting until you see the person fall to the ground.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 27, 2020, 10:04:58 AM

One question I do have though, about the police use of guns. Why is it whenever I see a report about a police shooting it always involves multiple shots? In the latest case a guy was shot seven times in the back from point blank range. Since one well-aimed bullet will kill or incapacitate (and even one badly aimed bullet has a good chance of doing either of those things as well), why are trained law enforcement officers unloading multiple bullets into anyone? And that's before we even get onto the dubious nature of what amounts to summary execution for maybe going for a weapon...

The specifics of that case warrant their own discussion, so forgive me for not speaking about that. Situations differ, and training can vary from force to force, but rather than address that (because there are differences and that would be a longer discussion) I wanted to address your premise that 1 well-aimed shot will kill or incapacitate, so more are not necessary.  I also want to put a disclaimer that I am not an officer, although I do have a family member who was, and know some of what they went through in terms of training.  First, in an emergency situation even well-trained people cannot always react 'perfectly' and take the shot that is much easier on the range. Second, when someone is moving, it's not so easy to hit that small area that would put someone down instantly, or even to hit them at all. You see that in after-action reports, where multiple shots are fired and yet only a small number hit. Third, there are a number of instances of someone getting hit with a 9mm round (which many forces carry) and still going, and in fact people have been hit with multiple rounds and still been able to mount an effective attack, at least for a short time. Being shot can give someone even more impetus to fight or resist, because it can activate survival instincts.

Combined, it is understandable that multiple shots are often fired. Once the decision has been made that shots need to be fired (again, that in and of itself could warrant threads), that deadly force is needed, then the person will do what is necessary to carry out that decision. People are trained/told to not point a gun at someone unless they intend to use it, and not to use it unless they intend or are ready to kill.  Police can and do point weapons to effect compliance with orders, but they do not do that haphazardly.

That's my take, anyway, for what it's worth.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 27, 2020, 10:06:26 AM
I think I can answer this.

It's not an American thing, it's a Use Of Force thing: once you've decided to shoot you keep shooting as quickly as possible to end the threat as soon as possible.

Sure, one bullet may incapacitate a person, but the time spent waiting to see whether it has is time the person can use to do something - such as pull out a weapon and harm a third party. Better to keep shooting until you see the person fall to the ground.

Well said, and much briefer than my own reply.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 27, 2020, 11:39:41 AM
I agree with a lot of what's been said by way of an answer.

It's harder than it looks to hit a moving target with a handgun, even at point-blank range.  In the 1981 attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, the would-be assassin John Hinckley hit nearly everything and everyone except the President, who was ultimately the victim only of an improbable ricochet.  And from Hinckley's perspective, it was a deliberate act.  He wasn't in a reactive posture.  He was mentally and physically primed to open fire.  Ane he was firing only a .22 caliber pistol, which doesn't kick that much and wreck your aim.

For a variety of reasons, handguns are just not that accurate or useful a weapon in a tactical situation.  The idea that the shooter would be able to sight the target in a non-lethal way is wishful.  Generally he will aim at center mass and fire somewhat indiscriminately.

The real answer, I think, is the one hinted at:  adrenaline.  Some of the police departments in my vicinity have a transparency policy that allows the public to see records of interviews of police officers who discharge their weapons on duty.  A recurring theme is that they don't remember how many shots they fired.  The tendency seems to be to empty the gun.  As much as we would desire a measured response, and as much as we hope police officers are trained to remain calm in a crisis, human nature seems to still be in charge.  He had many factors in his favor

There are commonly used drugs, especially methamphetamines, that amplify a person's ability to continue to function after injury.  So that factors into the calculus of how much force is considered incapacitating.  If an officer believes the suspect may be under the influence of drugs, he will probably consider that one hit will not stop the suspect.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 27, 2020, 12:00:34 PM
Though of course none of that explains victims who were already on the ground . . . .
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on August 27, 2020, 04:05:33 PM
It's harder than it looks to hit a moving target with a handgun, even at point-blank range.

Oh yes indeed. I qualified as a Marksman with the SLR (Self Loading Rifle, what we Australians called the L1A1 FN rifle), but accuracy and the 9mm pistol seemed to be mutually exclusive for me....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on August 27, 2020, 06:01:21 PM
Great example with Hinckley, Jay. And, as you said, adrenaline definitely throws off aim and concentration, and can also interfere with decision-making.  It's also true that, while the saying ridicules bringing a knife to a gun fight, that understates the deadliness of a knife-wielder. When my relative went through the academy they showed the class a demonstration of a man with a knife about 10-15 feet from a trainee with his handgun holstered.  The 'attacker' moved with deliberation toward the trainee, striding, not running. In most cases the trainee didn't even get their gun fully out, let alone get off a good shot, before they were 'stabbed'. And if a person is speaking at the same time, as is often the case during police-involved shootings, that slows reactions down more.

One thought I had is that I'm surprised there aren't more instances where there are head shots reported, at least for those who are shot while approaching the officer. My relative was trained to put 2 in center of mass, and if the person kept going, to put the 3rd shot in center of forehead. I don't know how many forces use similar training, but the idea was, as Peter B said, to make sure the person was stopped, and that last shot (especially with a .357 magnum) is pretty much guaranteed to do that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on August 28, 2020, 04:08:10 AM
Thank you all for the replies. Most interesting. It seems I am guilty of the same fallacious thinking I have pulled up JFK conspiracy theorists on, in assuming that trained officers are not so subject to the same instincts and adrenaline as the rest of us. Also highlights how little I know of actual gun use or the effects of being shot. Frankly, I am still glad to live in a country where strict gun control laws make either myself or someone I know having any first-hand experience of this pretty unlikely, and where the majority of police I encounter are not equipped with the option of using lethal force if they think I might be reaching for a weapon rather than my driver's licence. Seeing any armed police makes me extremely uneasy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 28, 2020, 01:34:42 PM
I think Sir Robert Peel would be appalled at the state of American policing.  I grew up thinking the unarmed London policeman was a quaint throwback, but much of the civil unrest in the U.S. right now is aimed at dispelling the myth of the American police officer as a high-trained, apolitical, fair-minded agent of the law.  It doesn't help that the concurrent political unrest lets that continue to be mischaracterized as a debate between "law and order" and "violent anarchy."  As a Caucasian male in a reasonably affluent socio-economic environment, I've more privileged than my peers to see and experience first- or second-hand the abuses, excesses, and corruption that our minority friends have been decrying for decades now.  It's real, and largely disbelieved or ignored by many.

As Gillianren notes, it goes beyond the mere failure to conquer adrenaline and instinct.  American police officers are immersed in an environment that does little to encourage fair-minded law-and-order.  Most American police forces are ruled, not by the Chief of Police and the Mayor, but by powerful labor unions that have successfully resisted nearly every legislative or executive attempt to reform law enforcement in the United States.  There is little interest among these unions in adopting a mode of policing that doesn't involve overwhelming application of pseudo-military force.  It's the job of the union to protect officers' jobs, so individual miscreant officers are rarely punished lest the department incur the wrath of the union.  Similarly the union rejects civilian oversight, citing fears that such review boards will be packed with liberals who will question every use-of-force decision.  This is not to say that every American police officer is an undertrained, racist thug.  But if you happen to be any of those, it won't stop you from working successfully as a police officer in the United States.

The thinking of the JFK assassination conspiracy theorists may be naive, but it's not unreasonable.  On both sides of the policing debate remains the notion that armed officers have more time, ability, and discretion when an armed encountered is unavoidable, and should exercise more restraint as a rule.  In cases where this can be shown to be naive, it gives police unions a toehold to fight back and say, "You people who've never fired a gun don't know what you're talking about."  It behooves those of us who have some experience with firearms to help separate the rhetoric and make cogent arguments for gun control and police reform -- ones that aren't so easily dismissed.  The argument should not be about finer aim, or a more judicious use of deadly force.  It should be about changing the whole way we approach enforcing the law.  The police need to be demilitarized and de-unionized.  Their present role in American government and society needs to be divided among more specialized, unarmed professionals.  But the present political situation will not allow this.  Hence the escalating unrest.

The separate question of private gun ownership still divides Americans from each other as well as Americans from much of the rest of the civilized world.  The slight advantage possibly gained from having more people understand the principles and limitations of firearms is probably not outweighed by the promise of general increased violence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on August 28, 2020, 08:38:34 PM
Thank you all for the replies. Most interesting. It seems I am guilty of the same fallacious thinking I have pulled up JFK conspiracy theorists on, in assuming that trained officers are not so subject to the same instincts and adrenaline as the rest of us. Also highlights how little I know of actual gun use or the effects of being shot. Frankly, I am still glad to live in a country where strict gun control laws make either myself or someone I know having any first-hand experience of this pretty unlikely, and where the majority of police I encounter are not equipped with the option of using lethal force if they think I might be reaching for a weapon rather than my driver's licence.

I too live in a country where the Police are not routinely armed - individual Police to not carry sidearms. Patrol cars do have weapons in a locked cabinet, but if either of the officers even unlocks that cabinet, they have to justify done so, a task which involves much paperwork!

Seeing any armed police makes me extremely uneasy.

I had a frightening experience in Greece many years back at Athens Airport. This was back in the mid-1980s a few months after the hijacking of a TWA airliner at that airport. I had a metal pin in my right arm after having broken it a few months earlier, and of course, when I walked through the metal detector, the alarm went off. Immediately, three or four armed airport security guards pointed assault weapons at me, and other airport security personnel started babbling at me in Greek. I don;lt speak the language. but it I wasn't hard to guess what they were saying , so I put my hands in the air..... very... very...     slowly! 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on August 29, 2020, 12:18:47 AM
it gives police unions a toehold to fight back and say, "You people who've never fired a gun don't know what you're talking about."

It's actually true that the police, having direct first-hand experience of police work, have the best knowledge and experience to judge things like whether use of force was justified in a particular situation.  The problem is, they don't have the best motive.

When you are the police, you may sometimes have to be judged by people who don't know what it's like themselves.  What other alternative is there?  You could say, "we don't know first-hand the difficulties and challenges that police face, so whatever you decide to do, we'll take your word if you feel it was justified", which declares open-season for all manners of abuse.

This isn't unique to police.  If you're driving the train, and the train crashes, there's going to be an inquiry in which people who don't drive trains decide whether you have some responsibility or not.  We could decide, train drivers can only be judged by other train drivers, which guarantees that the people doing the judging know a lot about what it's like to drive trains, what sorts of problems can occur, what the best ways to handle those problems are, whether it's difficult or easy, and so on.  They're also the people who have the best incentive to say, when a train crashes, it's the fault of anyone except the person driving it.

It's simply the hard reality.  When force is used, there may have to be a justification, and the justification may have to be made to people who aren't front-line police officers.  I think the problems likely to occur if police can only be judged by themselves, are obvious.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 29, 2020, 01:20:09 PM
I recently acquired Cop Rock on DVD, and there's a plot in it about a police officer (I promptly dubbed him "Murder Cop," because I couldn't keep track of the characters' names) who shoots an unarmed, handcuffed suspect because the bust is bad and he and the suspect both know that the suspect will go free--despite having previously, in another incident, killed a cop.  Murder Cop is, of course, acquitted--and this was in 1990, so it's not a Rodney King reference.  It's just an awareness that cops are more likely to be acquitted by juries for murdering people regardless of circumstance.

Similarly, the military base near my house has been doing night exercises lately.  There are people defending artillery and machine gun fire in the middle of the night as "the sound of freedom."  One of my concerns about the night exercises is the health and well-being of the soldiers; it seems likely to me that one infected soldier will spread it to the rest of the group unless they're taking serious precautions, but we're so accustomed to defend the military here that people aren't even criticizing a bad decision on the leadership's part.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 29, 2020, 02:07:56 PM
I have to say Cop Rock takes me back.  I remember as a teenager thinking it was a conceptual nightmare.

The analogy to train drivers is apt.  This is a chronic problem in transportation.  If equipment makers get to the make the safety rules, a crash is always due to operator error.  Conversely if the operators' union makes the safety rules, a crash is always due to equipment failure.  And if those were the only two goalposts, we could just let them fight it out.  But because we're talking about public transportation, the public gets to have a large say in safety rules, even if they don't know how to make trains or drive them.  That's simply the nature of the work.  As the ultimate risk-takers involved, they have a moral stake.

The police are an arm of the government, which ought to be an extension of the people.  They are the only ones authorized to employ force (sometimes at their discretion) without the customary legal consequences.  But the point is that what they do is done in the name of the people.  If a police officer shoots an unarmed person of color in the back, that action is ostensibly under my direction.  If we excuse violence applied by the police as a necessary evil to maintain order, then we should have a great say in the rules by which that violence is applied.

When the public makes a rule that says, "If you are driving a train, you can't also be using your smart phone," it rings hollow if the answer is, "But you have no idea how much attention it takes to drive a train, so you don't know whether that's a good rule."  If my life is in your hands, I ought to have a say in what those hands are doing.  On the other side of the coin, it's absolutely appropriate to regard police officers as experts in the tactics of fighting crime and apprehending miscreants.  Those who have never fired a gun shouldn't try to judge whether a police officer should have aimed at a suspect's ankle instead of his head.  Those of us who have never been threatened with deadly violence at work might not make the best rules by which police can employ force to defend themselves.

But the rules are not just about tactics.  Having police at all is a moral decision.  Arming them is a moral decision.  Different civilizations feel morally different about all of that.  But the people for whom the police are agents and by whose authority they can, if desired, wield deadly force ought to be fully qualified to say what the moral boundaries are.  And yes, it may weigh disproportionately against the police.  But that will have to be the job.  To say we have to respect the police at all costs, and approve their brutal tactics because we've given them a hard job to do, abrogates our role as the ultimate authority in whose name they carry out their duty.  Similarly, if you don't know what the police are doing in your name, that's not much better.

But in the U.S. we're at the point where the police have become so powerful that they can simply substitute the argument about tactics every time a question of moral authority comes up, and there are plenty of people willing to let that be the trump card for every trick.  "You can't imagine what it's like to be a police officer facing violent protesters that could harm you at any moment," ought to begin the debate, not end it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on August 29, 2020, 02:50:17 PM
The analogy to train drivers is apt.  This is a chronic problem in transportation.  If equipment makers get to the make the safety rules, a crash is always due to operator error.  Conversely if the operators' union makes the safety rules, a crash is always due to equipment failure.

A situation common in all areas I feel. I work for a distributor of medical tests. When we deal with complaints inevitably the customer believes there is a fault in the test kit, while the manufacturer believes there is a fault in the customer process. It's not a lot of fun being in the middle refereeing these debates!

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The police are an arm of the government, which ought to be an extension of the people.  They are the only ones authorized to employ force (sometimes at their discretion) without the customary legal consequences.  But the point is that what they do is done in the name of the people.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I may not be an expert in policing, I may not be an expert in making and driving trains, but I am entrusting my safety to the people who are experts, and I therefore expect them to work for my benefit, and if necessary to justify their decisions when they affect me. No, I am not an expert, but I won't be satisfied with being brushed off as such as if that is the end of the debate.

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Those who have never fired a gun shouldn't try to judge whether a police officer should have aimed at a suspect's ankle instead of his head.

A justified rebuke as this was precisely what I had done.

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Those of us who have never been threatened with deadly violence at work might not make the best rules by which police can employ force to defend themselves.

Also true, and in fact I have defended police officers in this country accused of brutality in trial by media in discussions before now. One I recall showed CCTV of a woman being arrested, clearly violently resisting, dragged to the floor by two officers where she could not be seen as she was obscured by something in the foreground. The video showed one officer raising his fist and thumping her twice, hard, and he was accused of assault. The arguments all centred around why he needed to hit her at all when she was restrained, and the moral arguments around a man hitting a woman at all, but no-one could see what she was doing or what she might have been reaching for, so there was no context to his actions and hence no grounds on which to assume he was being un-necessarily brutal.

In cases of police using lethal force, I concede I am not familiar with the use of any firearms, nor have I ever been in a position where I might be in immediate mortal danger from a suspect, so my ability to judge the actions of a police officer is limited. However, there are elements that provoke a visceral reaction, such as being shot in the back, or being shot because there might be a weapon, or being shot in bed... 

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But the people for whom the police are agents and by whose authority they can, if desired, wield deadly force ought to be fully qualified to say what the moral boundaries are.  And yes, it may weigh disproportionately against the police.  But that will have to be the job.  To say we have to respect the police at all costs, and approve their brutal tactics because we've given them a hard job to do, abrogates our role as the ultimate authority in whose name they carry out their duty.

Indeed, again I am 100% in agreement. I am disturbed greatly by the constant discussions that go on here and in other places about increasing police powers in regard to crime prevention. This inevitably leads to punitive measures being taken against people who have not in fact committed any crime as yet on the basis that they might do so. It's not an easy debate, because of course there may be no crime committed until a lethal action is taken and people die or are injured, but where do we draw the line? I can see that people who are clearly gathering materials to make bombs and making plans to attack targets need to be stopped before they do anything, but in a country like the US where having a gun is defeneded as a right of all law abiding citizens, does proving the person the police shot was armed justify the use of lethal force? What does one do in the case that the police stop a driver and ask for their licence, and the licence is in the glove compartment or in a pocket of their coat and there happens to be a gun nearby?

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Similarly, if you don't know what the police are doing in your name, that's not much better.

I think there are large swathes of the population who would argue the police are not actually acting in their name at all, despite the supposed mandate to act for all.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 29, 2020, 07:52:31 PM
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I may not be an expert in policing, I may not be an expert in making and driving trains, but I am entrusting my safety to the people who are experts...

More importantly, you are entrusting your safety to people who need to demonstrate to you that they are experts.  As I mentioned before, American police officers are trained differently than their G8 counterparts, and for far less time.  The public should have a say in what police officers are trained to do, and how that training should occur.  But again, that's mostly controlled by unregulated police unions.

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A justified rebuke as this was precisely what I had done.

I apologize if it sounded like a rebuke.  What I mean is that people who propose regulations ought to do so from some position of knowledge.  And to acquire that knowledge, it's proper to ask questions like what can be accomplished with a handgun that would be less final than killing the suspect.  That's what I interpreted you to have been doing.  You had a legitimate question that deserved an informed answer.  When you come to find out, despite your prior reasonable assumptions, that handguns generally alternate between ineffective and lethal, you understand why some other countries' police forces use them only as a last resort.  You're having exactly the kind of conversation that intelligent, well-meaning people need to have before they make decisions about public policy.

Can a handgun apply stopping force surgically?  No, not in the tactical situations we mean.  Can people be trained to act calmly in stressful situations and not be ruled by adrenaline?  Yes, but American police generally are not.

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However, there are elements that provoke a visceral reaction, such as being shot in the back, or being shot because there might be a weapon, or being shot in bed...

Yes.  There are clear cases of police misconduct.  That's why people are so angry, and why they are less pacified these days by being told it's none of their business or beyond their ken.  We give police a hard job, but it's not the hard job they think it is.  The job is hard because we ostensibly require them to do it within the bounds we set.  These days they just don't seem to want to.

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I am disturbed greatly by the constant discussions that go on here and in other places about increasing police powers in regard to crime prevention. This inevitably leads to punitive measures being taken against people who have not in fact committed any crime as yet on the basis that they might do so.

Yes, this terrifies me.  As the police in America come under increasing fire (no pun intended), they have taken to "cracking down" in order to show how necessary their role is in society.  It's fear mongering to justify brutality.  They are thus also now in the business of generating crime that otherwise would not occur, just so that they can conspicuously fight it.

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...but in a country like the US where having a gun is defeneded as a right of all law abiding citizens, does proving the person the police shot was armed justify the use of lethal force?

Contrary to popular opinion, most Americans don't wander the streets with holsters at their side.  It's quite uncommon for anyone minding their business in the city to be armed.  Out on a ranch, you'll see hunting-style rifles quite a lot, though.  But the question I think you're asking is whether discovering post facto merely that a person was armed should not justify using lethal force.  If the police break into my house to execute a no-knock warrant, shoot me dead summarily, and later discover a handgun in my desk drawer, that's not going to fly as justified use of force.

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What does one do in the case that the police stop a driver and ask for their licence, and the licence is in the glove compartment or in a pocket of their coat and there happens to be a gun nearby?

I'm glad you asked.  Weapons carried in public generally must be in full view.  It's unlawful in all but six states in the U.S. to carry a concealed firearm without an additional permit.  Among the remaining 44, laws differ on your duty to inform a police officer who stops you whether you are armed.  My state imposes no duty.  Other states require you to inform an officer at the outset of the encounter if you are armed.  Still more states don't require you to affirmatively state this, but you are obliged to respond honestly if asked.

Here's what my State advises.  https://bci.utah.gov/concealed-firearm/general-information/concealed-firearm-permit-frequently-asked-questions/

If you open your glove compartment to fetch your license and a handgun falls out, you will have broken no law (in Utah).  But you will have failed common sense.  Even though no state law requires it, it's highly advisable to inform the officer that you are armed, that you have a proper permit, where the firearm is, and whether it's loaded.

That said, do criminals obtain these permits and follow the laws?  Obviously not.  And a violation of that is simply one more charge added to their list.  Not much consolation after shots have already been exchanged, I know.  But it should be mentioned that laws restricting the ownership and possession of firearms in America -- such as they are -- are generally vigorously enforced.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on August 30, 2020, 03:40:23 AM
If equipment makers get to the make the safety rules, a crash is always due to operator error.  Conversely if the operators' union makes the safety rules, a crash is always due to equipment failure.

Hah, ain't that the truth!

The other thing that springs to my mind now is military action.  Since each country judges its own motives, we are very fortunate to live in a world where, in all of human history, there has never been a single aggressive military action.  Only defensive actions.

Re the police, it also occurs to me that the "you don't know what it's like" argument could cut both ways.  Perhaps many police don't know what's it like to be a member of a minority group that lives in fear of police violence and abuse.  So if a member of that group is accused of killing a police officer, how can we judge him?  We weren't there, we didn't know what pressure he was under, we don't know what it's like to have to make spur-of-the-moment decisions when you're not sure what's going on.  So why don't we just trust any defendant who says he was in fear for his life, and killed the police officer in self-defence?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 30, 2020, 12:27:05 PM
If you open your glove compartment to fetch your license and a handgun falls out, you will have broken no law (in Utah).  But you will have failed common sense.  Even though no state law requires it, it's highly advisable to inform the officer that you are armed, that you have a proper permit, where the firearm is, and whether it's loaded.

Though of course at least one person has been shot by the police for doing just that.

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That said, do criminals obtain these permits and follow the laws?  Obviously not.  And a violation of that is simply one more charge added to their list.  Not much consolation after shots have already been exchanged, I know.  But it should be mentioned that laws restricting the ownership and possession of firearms in America -- such as they are -- are generally vigorously enforced.

Though of course there are also some pretty prominent exceptions to that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on August 30, 2020, 03:27:20 PM
Though of course at least one person has been shot by the police for doing just that.

And I think that becomes the point.  If Jason posits an unremarkable hypothetical, and all the possible outcomes credibly include, "You will be shot by the police," then I think that outlines a problem.  Out-of-control police are part of that problem, but not it entirely.  There has to be a way for a law-abiding citizen to confidently believe that he's going to survive an encounter with a law enforcement officer.  And Jason's point is intriguing:  if "law-abiding" includes the hallowed possession of a firearm, how should that mesh with ordinary policing that shouldn't otherwise escalate?  It does seem somewhat hypocritical.

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Though of course there are also some pretty prominent exceptions to that.

Yeah...

I guess I'm trying to convince our friends here -- for whom private ownership of guns is wholly foreign -- that the United States is not the lawless wasteland that the media sometimes depicts where guns are concerned.  Here's our state's law regarding who may not possess a firearm.  https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title76/Chapter10/76-10-S503.html  These offenses are not just for show; they are routinely prosecuted and result in conviction, notwithstanding the 2nd Amendment.  Quite a number of arrests of repeat offenders that are reported in our media include a violation of this section.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on August 31, 2020, 12:30:43 PM
The problem is that the safest way to possess a firearm around the police is "while being white." 

I'm honestly not a fan of guns.  I don't think most people have any need to have one in their homes; I found out a couple of years ago that the parent of another kid on Simon's bus kept one in their apartment that he said he could get to in [a few seconds; I don't remember quite how long] but also believed was safe from his daughter, who simply wouldn't play with it because she wasn't supposed to.  He's also the person who asked me where  this "well-regulated militia" stuff I was quoting came from, since it wasn't in the Second Amendment originally.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on September 01, 2020, 03:31:31 PM
He's also the person who asked me where  this "well-regulated militia" stuff I was quoting came from, since it wasn't in the Second Amendment originally.

 :o

It may or may not have been mentioned earlier, but there's a concept of "qualified immunity" - in the course of executing their duties, law enforcement personnel may have to use force, including deadly force, and innocent people may be injured or killed by accident (not through negligence or malice).  QI is supposed to protect officers who do everything "right" per training and policy but still accidentally injure or kill someone. 

The problem is that the definition of "right" has been stretched so far as to render QI meaningless.  And where departments do suspend or fire the clearly incompetent, negligent, or malicious officers, the union is there to demand they be reinstated. 

I believe in unions, I think they are necessary, but so many police unions have made the problem so much worse. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 02, 2020, 01:08:52 PM
Yeah, police unions more closely resemble organized crime than a proper union, which ought to be concerned with things like public safety and, frankly, the public perception of the people in their union.  I'd have more respect for police unions if they fought for people who were fired for reporting their coworkers for excessive force and racism and so forth.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 04, 2020, 01:59:15 PM
A lot of things are good ideas until you factor in the worst side of human nature.

Labor is in crisis in the U.S., and has been since the 1980s.  We don't have a credible labor movement.  We don't have a credible labor political party.  As such, the One Percent manages to convince everyone, on the basis of the visible corruption in labor unions, that unions are wasteful and bad and should be abolished as impediments to business competitiveness (read: impediments to obscene profits funneled into executive compensation packages).

That's why no one films entertainment in Hollywood anymore.  The reason we have new large-scale, regional production facilities in North America -- Atlanta, Albuquerque, Park City, Vancouver, Toronto, New York -- are that the labor unions had such a powerful stranglehold over Hollywood film and television production that it literally did become cheaper to move everything elsewhere.  All the Disney Channel movies in the 1990s and 2000s were filmed in a warehouse-studio in an industrial complex near the downtown Salt Lake Home Depot store.  Sure, IATSE (film production crews) and SAG/AFTRA (actors) and DGA (directors) are alive and well in Utah, but they don't crap all over the studios.

The idea of organized labor and collective bargaining is great.  It serves as a necessary check on the power of capital.  But power inevitably corrupts.  Or rather, the opportunity to wield power attracts those who would wield it for ulterior motives, whether in government, industry, or labor.  And this runs roughshod over what otherwise would have been a good organization serving a valuable purpose.  Quite a lot of good things, such as government and policing, are ruined by human nature.  Even controversial topics like private ownership of firearms can't be discussed without an army of not-so-straw men arising out of human nature.

This is why I think the American Experiment is not so much whether a representative government of, by, and for the people can long endure.  It's whether such a disparate rabble of people can unify under one banner.  George Washington said, in one of the brilliant addresses Alexander Hamilton wrote for him, that the two-edged sword of American government was that it allowed maximum freedom, so long as individual discipline would be maintained.  People will simply not tolerate abuses of power or encroachment upon their rights.  And if they did not behave with honor and discipline themselves, the people -- in one form or another -- would take steps to enforce good behavior more broadly.  If not by government authority, then by taking to the streets.  If I, through my entitled and wanton misbehavior, trespass upon Gillianren in any way she finds uncomfortable, the courts may redress.  Or they may not, because I might not have committed any cognizable tort.  But that doesn't mean she has to endure my boorish conduct.  Thus breeds contempt among neighbors.

If the government itself is what is acting oppressively or without discipline, then taking to the streets -- and what subsequently follows -- is really all that's left.  We're seeing a revolution against police power, because we have little else to rely upon.

But I digress.  My point is to agree that police unions differ little from organized crime at this point.  But they have badge-wearing, flag-waving, in-harms-way appeal that speaks to people who have little daily contact with police, little understanding of what minorities face, and little understanding of how the police have become the de facto local government.

Our local political cartoonist, Pat Bagley, has national exposure.  His latest cartoon in the Salt Lake Tribune has sparked outrage from the local police union.  Those of you outside the U.S. may have to hunt down the cartoon on social media, as the Tribune's web site is generally blocked in GDPR-protected countries.  Briefly, it features a Utah policeman in a doctor's office looking at an x-ray alongside the doctor.  The x-ray depicts a KKK member wedged up ... well, you can guess where.  The doctor says, "Well there's your problem."  The message, of course, is that the police in our city are encumbered by the infiltration of white supremacists, who generally cannot be held accountable because the Fraternal Order of Police opposes any sort of oversight.  Naturally the FOP opposes this cartoon vehemently, and demands an apology from the Tribune -- whose interim editor has politely told them where they can stick it.

There was a lackluster protest last night supporting the police.  But when you protest against a Pulitzer-Prize-winning newspaper, you get more that you bargained for.  The organizers of the protest turned out to be a vehement anti-BLM organization, anti-maskers -- the whole nine yards.  This is the sort of support our "union" craves and relies upon.  The FOP has been calling the BLM and related protests "riots."  But in fact -- having observed several of them now from a polite distance -- I can say that they don't become violent until the police show up.  And yes, it is the police who are starting the fights.  The unions provide the political cover for ongoing thuggery, not just against people of color.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 05, 2020, 11:26:17 AM
And I mean, the abuses of the studio system before the coming of the unions were real and shocking.  Most people of Golden Age Hollywood had stories, and that's the stars; presumably the people behind the scenes were even more mistreated.  Limiting how many hours a day you could film was a good start.  There's also a reason there are multiple laws in California named after movie stars--they're the laws intended to protect actors from the mistreatment of the studios or, in the case of Coogan laws, their own families.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 05, 2020, 01:48:43 PM
Don't get me started.  Keith (Jackie's grandson) is a sometimes acquaintance.  We've had a few chats about working in Hollywood.  And as you can expect, they've chipped away at the Coogan Law to provide plenty of dubious exceptions.  And you probably know Gary Coleman's story.  He eventually moved to Utah and died here; he lived just down the road from my sister.  In the case of the Directors Guild of America, part of the motivation was creative control.  Under the oppressive studio system, most directors had comparatively little say on what was done creatively with the results of their labor.

Again, human nature at work (no pun intended).  A lot has been written on how the labor movement arose in Hollywood, and why.  It started because human nature exploited others' creativity as mere labor, and created an economic system that corralled the creatives into an impossible situation.  And the rebound suffered from human nature in the other direction.  The creatives (and skilled stage workers) ended up pricing themselves out of the market, according to the incorrect presumption that the studios were bound to employ them for the same reasons the studios once presumed their grandparents were bound to work for them on their terms:  mobility.  "You want how much to staff my production?  We can film in Utah for less than a quarter of that."  Once the entertainment labor realizes it doesn't have to move to a coast to get work, the capital realizes it can shop around.  (I'm told one of the big flaws in the study of labor economics is the presumption of labor mobility throughout history.  I'm not going to venture there.  Not really my wheelhouse, and I have to get the lawn mowed today.)

But that's entertainment.  Once you decide to run it like a business, you should -- you know -- run it like a business.  Let capital and labor work it out, under reasonable anti-exploitation regulation, and (hopefully) according to good-faith negotiations.  A separate argument should be had about whether the apparatus of government should be run like a business.  Should governmental authority and paid public labor have the same relationship as private employers and employees?  Should government operations expect to make a profit?  Should we allow privatization?  If we define certain public services as necessary, should the people we pay to provide those services be allowed to strike?  Conversely, should government shutdowns as part of political power plays be allowed?  And more to the most recent point, if the police are the state instrument given the authority to enforce the people's wishes by condoned violence, should that even be within the realm of normal labor relations?  Should "police unions" even be a thing?  We give them the special power to be violent on our behalf.  Why should that group of people subsequently get to negotiate the terms by which it can be applied?  That's not how I think it should work.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on September 05, 2020, 06:58:47 PM
What's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?

Under Capitalism, Man exploits Man.

Under Communism, it is the other way around.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 06, 2020, 12:26:05 PM
A cousin of mine was a child actor (actually, I know most of the people here have seen at least one of his movies, if for no other reason than to mock it--he's in Armageddon).  He would've been okay regardless; his parents are good people who wouldn't have exploited his money.  But there's a kid on YouTube that I worry a lot about, because few states have Coogan laws, and no one's sure if they apply to things like YouTube videos anyway, so who even knows how his parents are handling things?  Not to mention how completely unsustainable his particular type of YouTube stardom will prove to be as he gets older.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 06, 2020, 03:15:31 PM
A cousin of mine was a child actor (actually, I know most of the people here have seen at least one of his movies, if for no other reason than to mock it--he's in Armageddon).

Work is work.  Most of the former child actors I work with locally were in High School Musical and the aforementioned insipid Disney Channel movies.  In fact, when I directed the youth theater production of the stage version, I tried to cast the "I play cello!" guy in his original role as a favor to his dad (who played John Hancock in the play my avatar comes from).  Sadly he had aged out of the contractual limits for our play.

Everything I did before my early 20s was mock-worthy.  There's an unspoken rule that we don't criticize each other for what we did to get started.

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He would've been okay regardless; his parents are good people who wouldn't have exploited his money.  But there's a kid on YouTube that I worry a lot about...

There's a lot about the monetized YouTube phenomenon that has me a lot concerned.

Take as a counter example the Working With Lemons channel on YouTube.  I love this family.  The dad is a long-time friend.  I've worked with most of his kids when they were child actors.  Rather than live through his kids as their careers take off, he gets into it with them and casts his family in videos that have a surprising production values.  This is an entertainment-oriented family done right.  Sure, it's mostly about the kids.  But it's not like he's living the posh suburban lifestyle off his kids' monetized YouTube.

Most of us who have some experience in the stage and film industry have a sixth sense for toxic parents.  Word gets out, and around.  But there's not much we can do by way of intervention.  Utah has zero laws that specially regulate child labor in entertainment, or their compensation.  There is no special law that prevents the parent from taking the child's income, although I understand there are some legal protections.  Not that the child actors I know locally make enough to plunder.  But you never know what some unscrupulous parents will do.  Because, you know, everyone's a jerk these days.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 06, 2020, 03:29:09 PM
What's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?

Under Capitalism, Man exploits Man.

Under Communism, it is the other way around.

This seems to be Russia in a nutshell.  I was forced to read a lot of Russian literature in college.  I noted patterns of exploitation in those vaguely Tsarist plot lines.  Then there was the Russian revolution, and pretty much we returned to the same patterns of exploitation.   Democracy will fix that, right?  And we're back to the same patterns of exploitation.  I'm pretty sure I'm simplifying 200 years of history in a region of the world full of highly diverse people.  But what I see is that it really doesn't matter what economic system you choose, or what governmental system you choose.  Human nature -- as it ends up being expressed in one's part of the world -- just finds ways to exploit the flaws in those systems to funnel resources toward the benefit of the few oligarchs.

Where are we now in America?  Back to the same economic and governmental dynamic that gave us the Carnegies and the Vanderbilts and the Morgans.  As Michael Cohen seems to be ready to say in his forthcoming book, Donald Trump's secret to success was convincing a whole bunch of middle-class voters that he cared about them, and that if they worked very hard (at starvation wages) they could become as rich and successful as he did, under his leadership.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 06, 2020, 04:37:47 PM
To try to drag this back to the Trump topic:  Many of you have probably heard of the President's claim of a planeload of thugs sent to disrupt the Republican Party's national convention.  Our local paper is reporting that they have uncovered the likely source of the conspiracy theory.  Senator Devin Nunes (we love that guy, right?) reported that he had to change planes in Salt Lake City and boarded a flight on which he said there were ostensibly a lot of BLM protesters.  The flight was to Washington DC, and the protesters were joining several more groups from all across the country to participate in the March on Washington.

And because Sen. Nunes is such a Trumpian toady, he spun his own conspiracy theory (apparently on Twitter) about how they were paid, coordinated disrupters.  And how they weren't even Black, so how could they be real BLM protester.  Pres. Trump apparently embellished it into thugs wearing black Antifa uniforms.

Well, no.  I've lately become acquainted with a number of these people.  They're "coordinated" only in that they prudently chose to take the same flight to DC to simplify travel arrangements.  They're not at all paid, and in fact many of them sacrificed quite a bit of their personal income to participate in something they feel very strongly about.  They're young idealists, to be sure.  But this is their time and their cause.  They are what I think of when I read about the civil rights activists of the 1960s.  And yes they're white -- because the vast majority of Utahns are white.  It's hard for anyone of color in Utah to achieve even token representation.  As a middle-aged white male, I see utter disregard on the part of power elites for anyone who doesn't look like me.  It requires us to advocate for them in order for change to happen.

But honestly I don't see how a grown man -- a Senator -- can just so knee-jerkedly shift into speculation and conspiracy theories.  It's like these people literally don't know how to think otherwise.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on September 06, 2020, 11:25:25 PM
But honestly I don't see how a grown man -- a Senator -- can just so knee-jerkedly shift into speculation and conspiracy theories.  It's like these people literally don't know how to think otherwise.

My own thoughts are that this is true for some of them, that it's simply a matter of not being able to think well. However, I think in many cases it is planned, in the sense that it is an opportunity to distort reality to suit and promote an agenda. And this happens on both sides of the aisle, so it's not just a right vs. left issue. It seems to be an entrenched part of many in politics, especially for those that have been in it for a while. Not all, but many.

Reminds me of a scene from the West Wing with Ainsley and Leo, where she calls him out on something, and his response is, "I'm a politician, Ainsely. Of course I lied to you just then."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 07, 2020, 12:07:56 PM
Among other things, it literally does not occur to these people that it's possible to care about black people even if you are yourself white.  Now, I firmly believe Trump doesn't really care about anyone but himself, but for most of the others, they're so intensely tribalist that white people at a BLM rally are inherently suspicious because why do they care?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 07, 2020, 01:25:09 PM
I suppose I'm naive to think that politicians won't act like politicians.  And I may have a biased view of the politicians I've known personally and worked with.  I know them and work with them because I agree with their politics.  And in some cases they're close friends, so I would be naturally inclined to overlook their excesses and elaborations.  One of them was even one of the former child actors I mentioned yesterday.  He grew up, got a degree in political science, and worked for the Obama administration.

We live in an era that's approaching real-time fact-checking on public claims.  I guess if many, but not all, politicians are doing this, we might expect the old guard to be the worst at it.  Maybe the younger generation realizes they can't really get away with lying about situations where there were many people present.  The protests I'm observing are being recorded not just by professional journalists, but by legions of people wielding their camera phones.  It's really becoming impossible for any faction to lie about the events and there not being some objective set of facts available to test the claim.  I suppose that's countered by people having become more polarized in their consumption of media.  More facts are available, I feel, but we are paying more selective attention to them.

I do have to tell one more entertainment related story, since so many aspects of it just lined up.  I was at Warner Brothers working on a small project, and it was over the U.S. Labor Day weekend -- just like today.  Since all the productions were shut down for the holiday, our studio liaison graciously gave up half his day off to give us a personal tour of the entire studio lot.  Lots to tell, of course, but one of the sets we visited was The West Wing.

I confirmed they used a particular lighting technique that I suspected from watching the show:  the ceilings are stretched muslin and not solid panels.  You put the lights above it and they shine through it to diffuse the light.  The practical light fixtures are actually hung from chains attached to the grid high overhead.  Then for shots that show the ceiling, you light from underneath and the muslin turns opaque.

The carpets are filthy.  Lots of equipment rolls around in there, so it's not surprising.  And few shots look down at the floor such that you could see it.  And as was the case before widespread high-definition television, the construction is actually a lot more crude than you'd expect for the "White House."

The best part was the iconic entryway into the West Wing.  They literally cut out part of the wall of the soundstage and built the replica of the entry outside it, so that you can go from outside to the interior sets in one long tracking shot -- their trademark.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 07, 2020, 01:59:06 PM
Now, I firmly believe Trump doesn't really care about anyone but himself, but for most of the others, they're so intensely tribalist that white people at a BLM rally are inherently suspicious because why do they care?

Which, I guess, is the whole problem.  People of color have to convince the powers that be they are legitimate subjects of empathy.  Not as people of color, but simply as people.  I reiterate that the American Experiment is, in my opinion, whether very disparate people can come together to make a single nation.  This convinces me such an experiment cannot succeed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on September 07, 2020, 03:46:14 PM
That is very cool about the WW set, Jay. Thank you for sharing that. And talk about a simple, practical way to create the entryway so it can have natural lighting, etc.  Nice!

I also wanted to add that I have had a number of positive interactions with those in office, although it has almost always been at the local level (my dad was supervisor of the town I grew up in for most of my first 30 years) and occasionally at the county and state level (don't think I ever spoke or spent time with national office-holders). And in those cases, while there definitely was politics happening (small town politics are definitely a thing), since the office-holders were generally well-known, it was a little harder for them to get away with being as out of touch as those at the higher levels might get, simply due to the difference in distance and size of constituency.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on September 07, 2020, 04:37:36 PM
They literally cut out part of the wall of the soundstage and built the replica of the entry outside it, so that you can go from outside to the interior sets in one long tracking shot -- their trademark.

The walk & talk. I love that show. I wish they had done a sequel with President Santos (although I would have been happy with President Vinik).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 07, 2020, 05:27:52 PM
I've taken to watching the show in reruns these days, just so I can be reminded what a real Presidency might look like, even fictionalized.  I should probably start a different thread to cover all my entertainment industry stories.  This really should stay focused on the Trump Presidency and all that's wrong with it.

I see the flap today is over a selectively edited video clip purporting to show the President meandering in alleged confusion after talking to reporters, instead of walking to Marine One.  The longer clip shows he was merely waiting for Melania and shows no sign -- at least at that time -- of impairment.  Yeah, don't do that.  I don't agree with the "fight fire with fire" rationale.  Donald Trump gives us plenty of factual reasons to oppose his actions.  We don't need to be making stuff up.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on September 07, 2020, 05:57:05 PM
I see the flap today is over a selectively edited video clip purporting to show the President meandering in alleged confusion after talking to reporters, instead of walking to Marine One.  The longer clip shows he was merely waiting for Melania and shows no sign -- at least at that time -- of impairment.  Yeah, don't do that.  I don't agree with the "fight fire with fire" rationale.  Donald Trump gives us plenty of factual reasons to oppose his actions.  We don't need to be making stuff up.

I agree that it's not right and shouldn't be done.  That's even more true if someone is trying to claim the higher moral ground and portray themselves as being on the 'right side'.  Unfortunately the pragmatist in me says that that's one of the most effective ways (and in some cases seemingly the only way) to score points with far too many voters. Sadly we know that logic and critical thinking don't have the influence we would like them to.

I also know I'm setting myself up for failure, but I really am hoping that we will actually have a very large turnout, in whatever form that happens to be. I'm sick of having such a low percentage of people casting votes. If he gets re-elected, I'd like it to reflect the wishes of the overwhelming majority of eligible voters, not just the pathetic 58% that voted last time. I know in some states and districts the results are pretty much a foregone conclusion, but that's not the case everywhere, and even so, those in the minority should still be counted.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 08, 2020, 08:31:00 AM
it gives police unions a toehold to fight back and say, "You people who've never fired a gun don't know what you're talking about."

It's actually true that the police, having direct first-hand experience of police work, have the best knowledge and experience to judge things like whether use of force was justified in a particular situation.  The problem is, they don't have the best motive.

When you are the police, you may sometimes have to be judged by people who don't know what it's like themselves.  What other alternative is there?  You could say, "we don't know first-hand the difficulties and challenges that police face, so whatever you decide to do, we'll take your word if you feel it was justified", which declares open-season for all manners of abuse.

This isn't unique to police.  If you're driving the train, and the train crashes, there's going to be an inquiry in which people who don't drive trains decide whether you have some responsibility or not.  We could decide, train drivers can only be judged by other train drivers, which guarantees that the people doing the judging know a lot about what it's like to drive trains, what sorts of problems can occur, what the best ways to handle those problems are, whether it's difficult or easy, and so on.  They're also the people who have the best incentive to say, when a train crashes, it's the fault of anyone except the person driving it.

It's simply the hard reality.  When force is used, there may have to be a justification, and the justification may have to be made to people who aren't front-line police officers.  I think the problems likely to occur if police can only be judged by themselves, are obvious.

To be fair, air crash investigators seem to be able to get a good level of cut-through when it comes to working out the causes of air crashes. If nothing else, air travel has improved in safety decade after decade for, well, a long time. So, sure, this is an industry where accidents are investigated by people from within the industry, but they still seem to be able to point the finger at cowboys and idiots when the evidence points that way.

But it's also worth pointing out that, at least here in Australia, a lot of police don't like the idea of being investigated even by their own agency's Internal Investigations teams (known disparagingly as 'toe-cutters'). To some police, those who volunteer to work in II have a tinge of the traitor about them at worst, or at best are simply trying to buff up their CVs for a run at management (along with a stint in HR and an alphabet of tertiary qualifications).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 08, 2020, 09:37:13 AM
A lot of things are good ideas until you factor in the worst side of human nature.

Labor is in crisis in the U.S., and has been since the 1980s.  We don't have a credible labor movement.  We don't have a credible labor political party.  As such, the One Percent manages to convince everyone, on the basis of the visible corruption in labor unions, that unions are wasteful and bad and should be abolished as impediments to business competitiveness (read: impediments to obscene profits funneled into executive compensation packages).

Which raises the obvious question of why. I'm reminded of this quote from Ronald Wright (about whom I know nothing else): "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Which is to say the marketing of the American Dream has been so successful that any failure to achieve it seems to be seen as the fault of the person themselves rather than any external factors. I mean, I'm sure I've seen somewhere that even lowly paid people don't like the idea of raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans because they can so vividly see themselves belonging to that class at some point in the future.

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That's why no one films entertainment in Hollywood anymore.  The reason we have new large-scale, regional production facilities in North America -- Atlanta, Albuquerque, Park City, Vancouver, Toronto, New York -- are that the labor unions had such a powerful stranglehold over Hollywood film and television production that it literally did become cheaper to move everything elsewhere.  All the Disney Channel movies in the 1990s and 2000s were filmed in a warehouse-studio in an industrial complex near the downtown Salt Lake Home Depot store.  Sure, IATSE (film production crews) and SAG/AFTRA (actors) and DGA (directors) are alive and well in Utah, but they don't crap all over the studios.

And yet in the pre-unionised days, a doco I saw recently about Walt Disney suggested his workplace in the late 1930s was a nightmare for the majority of the staff due to their low pay in comparison to the few close mates of Disney who were well paid. In the circumstances I'll take the union's support if that's what's needed to make an employer pay a liveable wage.

But to go back to my last point, Hollywood itself plays an insidious role in marketing the American Dream, thanks to movies about people who succeed at the American Dream from the most trying circumstances, especially if they can market it as involving real people who really did succeed from the most trying circumstances. "The Pursuit of Happyness", "Joy", "The Blind Side" and even "Friday Night Lights" all come to mind. For example, in the case of TPOH, our hero gains the position he was competing for, but we don't hear about the fates of the other nineteen people competing for that position; there's no comment about the fact that these people are working for six months without pay in the hope of getting that one position; and then there's the fact that the job naturally suits extroverts, which not all of us are.

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The idea of organized labor and collective bargaining is great.  It serves as a necessary check on the power of capital.  But power inevitably corrupts.  Or rather, the opportunity to wield power attracts those who would wield it for ulterior motives, whether in government, industry, or labor.  And this runs roughshod over what otherwise would have been a good organization serving a valuable purpose.  Quite a lot of good things, such as government and policing, are ruined by human nature.  Even controversial topics like private ownership of firearms can't be discussed without an army of not-so-straw men arising out of human nature.

It's a shame that unions seem to have a bad reputation in the USA. Here in Australia they're regularly targeted from the conservative side of politics and the media, and often with good reason - union corruption can easily be presented as a betrayal of the people the union is supposed to be representing. But when they're under proper internal control the role they play in protecting workers from arbitrary behaviour by management is vital, and where this protection is lacking the results can be bad for workers. Over the last few years there have been a number of high-profile cases of wage theft by companies in all sorts of industries, at exactly the same time that banks and other financial institutions have been shown to have engaged in egregious behaviour at the expense of their so-called customers. It's hard to see this as anything but companies doing what they think they can get away with, unless they're shown up by either internal whistleblowers or unions.

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This is why I think the American Experiment is not so much whether a representative government of, by, and for the people can long endure.  It's whether such a disparate rabble of people can unify under one banner.  George Washington said, in one of the brilliant addresses Alexander Hamilton wrote for him, that the two-edged sword of American government was that it allowed maximum freedom, so long as individual discipline would be maintained.  People will simply not tolerate abuses of power or encroachment upon their rights.  And if they did not behave with honor and discipline themselves, the people -- in one form or another -- would take steps to enforce good behavior more broadly.  If not by government authority, then by taking to the streets.  If I, through my entitled and wanton misbehavior, trespass upon Gillianren in any way she finds uncomfortable, the courts may redress.  Or they may not, because I might not have committed any cognizable tort.  But that doesn't mean she has to endure my boorish conduct.  Thus breeds contempt among neighbors.

But isn't it the case that this balancing act is common to many enterprises? Doesn't every democratic form of government contain within it the potential for its own destruction? After all, even a supposedly anti-democratic party can win a democratic election if enough people support it, and then enact the anti-democratic policy agenda it says it was elected to undertake. The scary thing is that such things have happened because (among other problems) the members of the other parties are tempted to rely on slogans instead of genuinely attempting to solve the problems they face, and voters switch their support to the new party, even if it's anti-democratic, because they feel they have nothing to lose.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 08, 2020, 10:16:29 AM
I also know I'm setting myself up for failure, but I really am hoping that we will actually have a very large turnout, in whatever form that happens to be. I'm sick of having such a low percentage of people casting votes. If he gets re-elected, I'd like it to reflect the wishes of the overwhelming majority of eligible voters, not just the pathetic 58% that voted last time. I know in some states and districts the results are pretty much a foregone conclusion, but that's not the case everywhere, and even so, those in the minority should still be counted.

Heh, one more case where I like to think we got it right in Australia, with compulsory voting. People have a little more right to complain about the government if they've actually voted.

The amusing thing is how many people (especially on the conservative side of politics and media) seem to think compulsory voting was introduced in Australia by a left-wing government. The reality was that it was adopted by a right-wing government because back in the day the unions were exceptionally well-organised in getting people out to vote, and compulsory voting was the only way for conservative political parties to match the turn-out.

These days, of course, union membership is at an all-time low...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 08, 2020, 12:12:54 PM
I was talking to a friend-of-a-friend yesterday who insisted that writing Bernie Sanders on her ballot in November would change things, because he would force change if he had the greatest number of write-in votes ever.  Then she got mad when I assumed she was young, so I asked her if she remembers Ross Perot.  I suggested to a friend yesterday that you can draw a direct line from Perot to Trump.  Because I've read a fair amount about Perot's movement, and it seems a lot of the usual suspects were involved.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on September 08, 2020, 03:57:40 PM
Big difference in the two candidates there is that Perot actually was a very successful businessman.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 09, 2020, 11:43:32 AM
That, at least, is true.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 09, 2020, 12:41:49 PM
I think it's more important to say that Ross Perot built a very successful business, which is a lot harder than squandering daddy's fortune as Donal Trump has done.  And unlike Trump, he did a lot of business with the U.S. federal government, which makes up in some part for Perot's lack of experience in elected office.  But the problem with electing businesspeople to serve in elected office is that they are often inexperienced at compromise.  You have public opinion and other branches of government to deal with, and they can't just be fired or overridden by edict and fiat.

Donald Trump tries to style himself as the consummate deal maker.  But as we've seen, his idea of the "art" of some deal is to bully and screw over the other guy and then rely on his inherited wealth to buy his way out of responsibility.  To me that's not a deal.  To be sure, each party in a negotiation tries to maximize his value.  But an artfully made deal, as I figure it, is a win-win.  That is, each person goes away thinking he's gotten the upper hand.  But in fact both people take away something of value.  Success in business imbues people with some qualities that I think translate to political leadership.  But it also, in some cases, can accustom candidates to autocratic leadership.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 09, 2020, 03:32:55 PM
Which raises the obvious question of why. I'm reminded of this quote from Ronald Wright (about whom I know nothing else): "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Which is to say the marketing of the American Dream has been so successful that any failure to achieve it seems to be seen as the fault of the person themselves rather than any external factors. I mean, I'm sure I've seen somewhere that even lowly paid people don't like the idea of raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans because they can so vividly see themselves belonging to that class at some point in the future.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head.  There's an even shorter answer that says what you've formulated here, but in a very quotable form:  Americans are terrified of the S-word -- socialism.

Which is to say, Americans are fine with certain social institutions, because they've been well disguised.  But to give political power to "the workers" smacks of those crazy European countries with sky-high taxes and volatile coalition governments, hovering just one step this side of communism.  I think it's just good old American exceptionalism, the belief that our brand of political democracy and economic capitalism is better (somehow) than everyone else's by its very nature.  We don't want to do anything that dilutes our sense of individuality and superiority, even if it's clearly in our best interest.

To be sure, there is the strong feeling that every American is a frustrated millionaire.  Even people of modest income will defend the notion that it's not the government's business to "punish success" by high taxes, because they really do fear that even their modest success will draw attention.  And especially in the middle sections of the country, being satisfied with an honest day's pay for an honest day's work is still something of pride.  Not every American wants to be a billionaire.  But every American wants to lay claim to what he believes he has earned.

I'm sure you've heard the Makers and Takers analogy.  This is the notion that American residents can be broken into two broad groups.  The Makers are those who contribute value to the economy, largely by prudent financial management that provides the capital lifeblood from which American business is built.  The Takers are lazy layabouts who exploit social and economic systems in order to make their living by a transfer of wealth from the Makers.  Taxation is the conduit by which this occurs.  And because this is America, the Takers are invariably depicted as racial minorities and/or illegal immigrants.

That's the story the Right would have you believe.  A more accurate view is that the workers are the Makers who create value in the economy.  Because of wage disparity and the lack of a poltically-endowed labor movement, the Takers are the business owners and stock holders who form the One Percent, and make their income largely via the economic rents this system engenders while creating comparatively negligible actual value.  The Makers themselves lack the capital to buy into this system.  So the wealth transfers upward instead of "trickling down."

And now since the wealthy elite have formed a political oligarchy in the United States, the barrier to an organized labor movement having real political power is all but impassable.

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And yet in the pre-unionised days, a doco I saw recently about Walt Disney suggested his workplace in the late 1930s was a nightmare...

It probably was.  We point to 1948 as the nominal end of the original Studio System, and animators didn't unionize until the early 1950s.  The original union agreements in the 1920s were mostly for manual labor -- carpenters, stage hands, etc. although the Screen Actors Guild did go back that far.

And who else was doing animation at that scale back then?  Nobody besides Disney was taking animation seriously as an art form.  So if they're the only game in town, I'm not sure unionizing improves your plight that much more.

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But to go back to my last point, Hollywood itself plays an insidious role in marketing the American Dream, thanks to movies about people who succeed at the American Dream from the most trying circumstances, especially if they can market it as involving real people who really did succeed from the most trying circumstances.

I think it's a vicious circle.  The major complaint against Hollywood beginning in the era that produced the films you mentioned was that it was entirely profit-minded.  You could make a case that those movies were made with those messages because that's what market research showed people would pay money to see.  If a feel-good underdog movie is what's going to make $200 million profit that quarter, then that's the movie that gets made.  It may accidentally reinforce that completely unrealistic economic outlook, but I'm not sure there's an ideological motive that outshines simply making whatever dreck they determine will score that year.

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...and then there's the fact that the job naturally suits extroverts, which not all of us are.

I'll never grasp the myth of infinitely fungible labor as an excuse for dealing with the consequences of economic shifts.  If the U.S. suddenly decides to outsource all its engineering to China, it's not like I'm going to find success now as a pastry chef.  The One Percent likes to tell people that foreign competition and illegal immigrants are taking their jobs.  And we need to eliminate regulation on business to allow it to be more competitive, and to abolish labor unions that artificially rase the price of labor.  And we need to build large fences in the desert to keep out illegal immigrants.

Of course what really happened is that American industry intentionally outsourced labor to cheaper sources of it.  And the result of lowering taxes and removing expensive regulation not historically been a reinvestment in American labor, but rather the payment of dividends and the acquisition of more profits, which are then moved offshore to make them ineligible for U.S. taxation.  And U.S. industry has invested heavily in automation, with the stated goal of reducing its labor costs.  There is no way "reducing labor costs" doesn't translate to firing people, paying them less, or both.  And the reduction of labor costs is not aimed at making things more efficient and thus lowering prices.  The prices stay the same, and the margins increase.  And where do the margins go?  Upward.

Factory and farm workers just can't up and train for new careers as web designers and account managers.  I might be in for a new career as a tree surgeon, since I'm cleaning up the debris from the 100-plus mile per hour winds we had blowing down my street last night.  Yes, a Category 2 hurricane in Utah.  But that's just my side hustle.

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It's a shame that unions seem to have a bad reputation in the USA.

It goes back to United States Steel and their successful campaigns against the fledgling steelworkers' unions.  Since then, organized labor has been socially and politically stereotyped with socialism/communism, and economically identified as leeches on American competition.  Early unions in the U.S. didn't really obtain much power initially.  And since the breaking point came in 1918-1919 -- formative years for national Communist movements -- it was trivial for U.S. Steel to portray the striking workers as Communists seeking to overthrow the American way of life.  And good people looked the other way while brutal things happened.  The American capitalist/industrialist really hasn't changed his stripes since the bad old days.

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It's hard to see this as anything but companies doing what they think they can get away with, unless they're shown up by either internal whistleblowers or unions.

I don't think there's any point in trying to see it any other way than rampant corporatism pushing the boundaries.  In the United States, getting away with as much as you can seems to be a point of pride.  Skill at the corporate executive level seems to be measured by how much regulation or law you can sidestep with impunity, especially if other people at the company's highest levels benefit.  During the hearing of Goldman Sachs executives before Congress in 2008 or so, these people were legitimately proud that they had circumvented regulation in order to structure deals that were highly risky and putatively profitable.   The fact that the crashed the world's economy didn't even put a tarnish on their pride.

Labor unions in the U.S. are not seen as watchdogs against management misconduct.  If a union points out misconduct, it's interpreted as a negotiating ploy.  The truthfulness of the allegations probably would not even register.  Pointing out "poor working conditions," for example, is often seen as simply wanting a more cushy job.  Non-unionized workers in American are often apt to characterize union labor as lazy and overpaid.  Of course this is an image carefully foisted upon them by politicians and big business.  But it's probably more apt to be believed in the U.S. than in other countries, where labor and capital have a more equitable footing.

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This is why I think the American Experiment is not so much whether a representative government of, by, and for the people can long endure.  It's whether such a disparate rabble of people can unify under one banner.  George Washington said, in one of the brilliant addresses Alexander Hamilton wrote for him, that the two-edged sword of American government was that it allowed maximum freedom, so long as individual discipline would be maintained.  People will simply not tolerate abuses of power or encroachment upon their rights.  And if they did not behave with honor and discipline themselves, the people -- in one form or another -- would take steps to enforce good behavior more broadly.  If not by government authority, then by taking to the streets.  If I, through my entitled and wanton misbehavior, trespass upon Gillianren in any way she finds uncomfortable, the courts may redress.  Or they may not, because I might not have committed any cognizable tort.  But that doesn't mean she has to endure my boorish conduct.  Thus breeds contempt among neighbors.

But isn't it the case that this balancing act is common to many enterprises? Doesn't every democratic form of government contain within it the potential for its own destruction?

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After all, even a supposedly anti-democratic party can win a democratic election if enough people support it, and then enact the anti-democratic policy agenda it says it was elected to undertake. The scary thing is that such things have happened...

Isn't that essentially how we got the Third Reich in Germany?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 10, 2020, 11:56:57 AM
And now it turns out that Fearless Leader knew the virus was more deadly than he was willing to say in public and kept denying that fact because admitting it was bad for him personally.  Which means, in my opinion, he's guilty of at best manslaughter through his reckless disregard for human life.  He didn't take the steps he could have and knew he probably ought to, because he didn't want to.  And that means my seven-year-old just started his first day of second grade using a school-issued Chromebook, because it still isn't safe for him to return to his classroom.  And my three-year-old cried because she isn't going to start school at all this year, there being no such thing as a safe and effective preschool.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 10, 2020, 05:48:25 PM
It's not safe for my sister to return to the classroom.  But she has to anyway.  She teaches first grade the county to the south, where a bunch of mothers just filed a lawsuit against our governor for his oppressive efforts to prevent children from enjoying their friends and relatives in person, unfettered by masks or distance.  As much as people want to blame this on Mormon exceptionalism -- Mormon entitlement is about 2X your average American entitlement level -- the official position of the church is that masks should be worn, social distancing should occur, and that all church members are expected to obey the orders of civic leaders.  The people in Utah County are special in ways that transcend religion.  But at least my sister's school district requires face masks.

My brother-in-law teaches high school science in an affluent school district in Idaho.  They will not be providing him PPE, nor are masks mandatory at the school.  So not safe at all for him either.  He can provide his own face mask etc. but no policy prevents some infected kid (he typically teaches 200 students in several classes) from coughing in his face.  He and his wife (my sister) figure they'll both have COVID-19 within a month.

Of course nobody believed the President when he downplayed the danger back in the spring.  And now nobody believes it was merely to reassure the nation.  His inaction -- and, at times, his claim that the virus was a hoax -- created reliances that put people in danger.  Now we discover that inaction was deliberate, not a consequence of distraction from the impeachment or a legitimate controversy over whether a danger existed.  He deliberately positioned his administration to deny the importance of an emerging health crisis, when proper information would have saved lives.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 11, 2020, 04:07:07 AM
It's not safe for my sister to return to the classroom.



My brother-in-law teaches high school science in an affluent school district in Idaho.



He and his wife (my sister) figure they'll both have COVID-19 within a month.

I hope they are lucky and don't get it, and if they do I hope they come through it OK.

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Of course nobody believed the President when he downplayed the danger back in the spring.  And now nobody believes it was merely to reassure the nation.

Regrettably I have seen evidence that some actually do believe the bullshit of 'reassuring the nation.' They seem to subscribe to some notion that if you tell a nation there is a deadly disease coming and measures need to be taken to contain it mass panic will result. The idea that you could reassure a group of people by telling them that there is a deadly disease coming, that measures are put in place for protection, and that everything that can be done to understand and prevent this disease is being done seems alien to them.

Of course, lying is just about the only thing Trump knows how to do effectively, so the idea that he could reassure his people while letting actual experts tackle the disease is anathema to him because it would entail admitting that he has to leave the actual health of the nation to others who know more than him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 11, 2020, 10:48:21 AM
Someone a block or two away from me has a very large banner declaring that voting for Fearless Leader means no more BS, and the temptation to wallpaper their house with demonstrations of his lies is strong.  Simon and I had a long talk about it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 11, 2020, 12:35:36 PM
I hope they are lucky and don't get it, and if they do I hope they come through it OK.

They're all smart and presently in excellent health, so we're hoping for the best.  There have already been outbreaks in three area high schools since school resumed.  It's not looking good for in-person instruction this year either.

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Regrettably I have seen evidence that some actually do believe the bullshit of 'reassuring the nation.'

Of course.  If you're a Trump supporter, it's easy to believe that Trump did his best to avoid panic (because you know how those liberals freak out about everything).  And Trump and Pence worked around the clock behind the scenes hand in hand with scientists to develop a containment plan, because of course the Obama Administration -- whoops, excuse me, the Obama-Biden Administration left them absolutely nothing to work with.  And Jared Kushner used his brilliant business acumen to set up a supply chain for PPE in record time, so that states wouldn't run short.

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They seem to subscribe to some notion that if you tell a nation there is a deadly disease coming and measures need to be taken to contain it mass panic will result.

The mass panic they feared, of course, was in the U.S. stock market.  News that businesses might have to close for an extended period might send stocks tumbling. and the powers that be needed time to restructure their portfolios before the inevitable.  And when the inevitable hit, Kushner was busy confiscating state and national stockpiles of PPE and selling them to the highest bidders.  As, you know, that sort of person does.

Strangely enough, there are still people who blame Obama for not developing a vaccine for coronavirus ahead of time.  These are the same sorts of people who blame Obama for his inaction on 9/11.  You really can't work with people who are just this plain stupid.

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The idea that you could reassure a group of people by telling them that there is a deadly disease coming, that measures are put in place for protection, and that everything that can be done to understand and prevent this disease is being done seems alien to them.

I think it goes back to the strange notion among many Americans that the United States is inherently invincible, that our institutions will prevent anything truly bad from happening, and that all these things are just tempests in a teapot fomented by The Other Guys for political reasons.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 12, 2020, 01:09:23 AM
...the strange notion among many Americans that the United States is inherently invincible, that our institutions will prevent anything truly bad from happening, and that all these things are just tempests in a teapot fomented by The Other Guys for political reasons.

*groan*

Talk about getting it back to front.

The institutions aren't strong because the USA is invincible. The USA is invincible when the institutions are strong.

It's like all those dopey generals from throughout history who thought they'd win their battles because their nation was strong, when in fact their nation was strong because they won their battles.

But I'm pretty sure we've discussed this before...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on September 12, 2020, 03:52:41 AM
Which raises the obvious question of why. I'm reminded of this quote from Ronald Wright (about whom I know nothing else): "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Which is to say the marketing of the American Dream has been so successful that any failure to achieve it seems to be seen as the fault of the person themselves rather than any external factors. I mean, I'm sure I've seen somewhere that even lowly paid people don't like the idea of raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans because they can so vividly see themselves belonging to that class at some point in the future.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head.  There's an even shorter answer that says what you've formulated here, but in a very quotable form:  Americans are terrified of the S-word -- socialism.

I'm a little unclear what argument (if any) is being made with the Ronald Wright quote.

Is the idea that people in the US should support more socialistic policies, because it is in their self-interest to do so?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 12, 2020, 11:25:13 AM
I'm a little unclear what argument (if any) is being made with the Ronald Wright quote.

Is the idea that people in the US should support more socialistic policies, because it is in their self-interest to do so?


It's that all you have to do to get a certain segment of US society to oppose an idea is to call it socialism.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on September 12, 2020, 01:00:42 PM
Most Americans don't seem to know what socialism is.
This includes the self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders: he keeps pointing at Sweden as a desired model, which is not a socialist country.
In fact, there are no socialists countries in Europe.

A cynic might argue that European capitalists learned from experience and allowed social market economies (capitalism 2.x) to be implemented as an anti-revolution insurance.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 12, 2020, 02:45:34 PM
Americans infamously have no clue what socialism really is.  But as Gillianren points out, it's well-entrenched political rhetoric in the U.S.  Anything that smacks of taxing people and using the proceeds to provide basic services or temporary assistance to the less fortunate (read:  everyone who isn't a millionaire) gets labeled "socialism" by the right, and that effectively kills support for it from their base.

The visual you get for this is some hardworking rural citizen, obviously a white, middle-aged man in a flannel shirt and work gloves leaning against the side of his pickup truck.  And the narrative is that he's going to lose the family farm because of unfair competition from overseas, taxation, and environmental regulations.  His taxes are diverted -- we see as the scene shifts -- to some urban single mother, naturally of some unfavorable ethnic minority, and probably here illegally, who has a multitude of babies for the sole purpose of increasing her monthly stipend -- the only income she ever plans to obtain.  Obviously this image is comically wrong, and even possibly offensive.  But it's amazing how effective this rhetoric is on the GOP base.

Americans for the most part like to think they are fiercely independent, capable, self-sufficient, and hardworking.  They really do think they have it in them to become well off, to retire in comfort, and to enjoy the good life if only they will stick to the plan, work hard, and pay their dues.  They really do despise the notion -- even at their level of personal and family economics -- that "the government" is taking their hard-earned money and giving it to people who somehow don't deserve it.  They object to it in principle, even though that principle is very unevenly applied across the U.S. tax base.

It could be said they really don't know what capitalism is, either.  They don't seem to object to the wealth transfer inherent to that.

So the pickle we're in now is that since the 1970s the wealth -- including taxation -- has been funneled upwards in increasing proportions.  It's literally impossible for the average Joe to buy into the American Dream using the resources the economy provides him today.  The claim was made that if Jeff Bezos gave every single one of his 800,000+ employees a $100,000 bonus, he would still have as much money today as he did when the pandemic started.  How's that for a sobering reality?

And Donald Trump, and the party that represents him, is the embodiment of that oligarchy that now effectively rules the United States.  The rhetoric from them is that the Democrats want to redistribute the wealth of the middle class to the lower class.  In fact they're effectively transferring it from the middle class to the upper class.  The competing rhetoric from the Democrats is that they want to transfer wealth from the incredibly over bloated upper class back down to the dwindling middle class, who are the ones who actually created the value.  Any wealth transfer that looks like that gets branded "socialism!" and dismissed.

Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist, so he claims, but it's true he's really only a diet socialist.  The U.S. could benefit quite a bit from a mixed economy such as those in Sweden and elsewhere.  But frankly there is way too much political opposition to doing anything that resembles "those liberal, socialist democracies."  Some people in the United States oppose programs that would fix our problems for literally no other reason than it would make the U.S. look like Europe, and that's not what they want.

I am resolved to curtail writing Saturday walls of political screed, so I'll stop there.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on September 12, 2020, 04:55:21 PM
It's that all you have to do to get a certain segment of US society to oppose an idea is to call it socialism.

Even if we were to suppose that that were true, what does it have to do with the Ronald Wright quote?

The quote does not say that Americans oppose socialism because they don't like the word "socialism".  It says that they don't support it because they believe (with the possible insinuation that this believe is not justified) they will not benefit personally from it.

This is what I find fascinating about this quote every time I see it and the way people use it.  If we are attempting to convince people to support certain types of policies (which we may call, rightly or wrongly, "socialism"), how should we do it?  Straight to the point, an appeal to self-interest.  Even some American right-wingers have mocked the book "What's the matter with Kansas?" as expressing the American left's complaint that the American right is not materialistic enough.

Maybe that could be the counter-rhetorical point.  "Socialism: it's a good way to make money!"

But as Gillianren points out, it's well-entrenched political rhetoric in the U.S.

I agree that it is well-entrenched rhetoric.  However, Gillianren goes beyond stating that it is rhetoric, and says the rhetoric is effective.  As do you, here:

Anything that smacks of taxing people and using the proceeds to provide basic services or temporary assistance to the less fortunate (read:  everyone who isn't a millionaire) gets labeled "socialism" by the right, and that effectively kills support for it from their base.

It's something of a side issue, but I'd be interested in seeing evidence to that point, that using the label causes people to object to policies they might otherwise support.  I know in politics you're supposed to portray your opponents as stupid, but do they really just object to the word, or do they object to the actual policies?

The visual you get for this is some hardworking rural citizen, obviously a white, middle-aged man in a flannel shirt and work gloves leaning against the side of his pickup truck.

Oddly enough, that does have certain aspects in common with the visual that people have for American and European "socialists" in this part of the world.  They tend to imagine a rich white person, with an income several times the global average of $10,000 per year, easily in the top 20% of the global income distribution, who will do just about anything for money, complaining about how he is the victim of the cruel economic order, and that in any kind of just world, he'd be in the top 10% or even the top 5%.  Someone who would sacrifice the interests of the hundreds of millions in the world who survive on less than $2 a day in a heartbeat, if that's what it took to make more money.  Even the US presidential candidate who did call himself a "socialist" had an undisguised disdain for third-world workers.

This is why I find the Ronald Wright quote so fascinating.  It seems to take it as a given that, of course, people act purely in their own self-interest, and thus would adopt "socialism" if and only if you can convince them that they, personally, are better off under it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 12, 2020, 08:33:34 PM
It's something of a side issue, but I'd be interested in seeing evidence to that point, that using the label causes people to object to policies they might otherwise support.  I know in politics you're supposed to portray your opponents as stupid, but do they really just object to the word, or do they object to the actual policies?

Both, I think.  They object to the word, in the sense that they use it as a pejorative for a number of different policies, some of which wouldn't even necessarily be considered relevant to economics.  And they object to actual policies that seem to use taxation to level wealth, which they would consider socialists.  Evidence...  Hm, I live in a conservative state, so I'm fairly steeped in the rhetoric.  I hate to make it a matter of "Well, you just have to live here."  Let me see if I can find some pertinent examples.

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This is why I find the Ronald Wright quote so fascinating.  It seems to take it as a given that, of course, people act purely in their own self-interest, and thus would adopt "socialism" if and only if you can convince them that they, personally, are better off under it.

I confess this is my first encounter with the Wright quote, so I'm unfamiliar with how it's typically deployed.  I agree we're talking about two different phenomena: the pejorative use of "socialism" and the objection to socialist policies.  I don't think Gillianren is out of line in making the statement she did.  But you can argue it doesn't really follow from the quote.  True, but maybe non sequitur.

To convince many Americans that socialist policies are in their best interest, I think you'd have to show them examples of the socialist policies we already have and explain why that's a good thing.  One of the classic examples in American history was privatized fire brigades.  We discovered that centralizing emergency response and making it a public good is a much better way to get it done.  Ironically one of the biggest socialist institutions in the United States is its military.  Active and retired military people enjoy a whole bunch of services centralized and funded by the Department of Defense, including medical care.

As has been said, most Americans have no clue what socialism really entails, and aren't really interested in being corrected.  The rhetoric is meant to scare them away from it, deployed by people who would be disadvantaged in a more socialist economy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 12, 2020, 09:11:15 PM
Which raises the obvious question of why. I'm reminded of this quote from Ronald Wright (about whom I know nothing else): "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Which is to say the marketing of the American Dream has been so successful that any failure to achieve it seems to be seen as the fault of the person themselves rather than any external factors. I mean, I'm sure I've seen somewhere that even lowly paid people don't like the idea of raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans because they can so vividly see themselves belonging to that class at some point in the future.

That pretty much hits the nail on the head.  There's an even shorter answer that says what you've formulated here, but in a very quotable form:  Americans are terrified of the S-word -- socialism.

I'm a little unclear what argument (if any) is being made with the Ronald Wright quote.

Is the idea that people in the US should support more socialistic policies, because it is in their self-interest to do so?

G'day Luther

My understanding of the way the quote is intended is this:

The American Dream is a concept of the way Americans achieve success. You work hard, you take responsibility for your actions, the government keeps the heck out of the way, and by the end of your life you're in a much better place than when you started. If you have exceptional skills, strength, intelligence or an eye for taking advantage of the opportunities that are available to you (or some combination) then even someone starting in penury can end up as a millionaire.

This view is constantly repeated in all sorts of media, whether books, movies, newspapers or TV - the rags to riches stories of musicians, entrepreneurs, sports stars or whoever (and, FWIW, even the trashy displays of wealth by black rap stars feed into that image, even if white middle class Americans despise or vaguely fear blacks). And because these stories are true, and are going to happen to some people in a country with a population as large as the USA - the reality of the American Dream is reinforced.

So when people look at millionaires, they don't see a separate and privileged group of people, they see what they expect themselves to be some time in the future.

Incidentally, this view is also reinforced by the marketing of millionaires as People Who Are Just Like You. I forget which of those self-help books specifically mentioned it (How To Win Friends And Influence People, or Think And Grow Rich - those sorts of books) but at least one has a section which talks about how many rich people still drive around in ordinary cars and live in ordinary houses and use those discount dockets to save money, and so on. Think about how that plays out in the minds of ordinary Americans when they're shopping at Walmart - for all I know that casually dressed Joe who parked his battered old pick-up next to me could be one of those millionaires...

Therefore any attempt to extract a little more tax from millionaires today can be interpreted as an attack on the group of people they imminently expect to be joining, and thus an attack on themselves.

The reality, of course, is that the best indicator of being a millionaire in America is to be the child of a millionaire. Social mobility in the USA is lower than in most developed countries. That is, the reality is that the American Dream these days is largely a myth. Yet its marketing is so successful that people think it's still real - real enough that anyone wanting to oppose a policy only needs to hint that it runs counter to the American Dream and the very people who would benefit from it will reflexively oppose it.

So your counter-rhetorical point that socialism is a great way to make money is pushing against a very potent myth: that this money socialism will supposedly * allow you to make is coming out of the pockets of the people you will in reality be shortly joining - the ranks of the millionaires.

* Because any policy can also be criticised before it's implemented on the grounds that it won't work as advertised. In this regard it follows the path often followed by critics of an idea - using two arguments against an idea which contradict each other but which are presented as being actually complementary: X policy shouldn't be implemented because it won't help the poor, and X policy shouldn't be implemented because it will harm you. As long as the critics can convince you that you aren't actually poor, then these two arguments appear to complement each other. But if the reality is that you are poor, then you've just been convinced to oppose a policy which would help you.

ETA: A good example of this is the tax cuts that Trump and Congress passed a couple of years ago. My understanding is that the greatest amount of financial benefit went to the rich. Yet they have been largely supported by Trump's base because of the logic chain that tax cuts for the rich encourage business investment, allowing businesses to expand and offer wage rises to workers, so the workers benefit as well.

And the reality is that there were wage rises for ordinary Americans following the tax cuts. But if I remember the figures correctly, the amount of tax-cut money passed on as wage rises was something like 6% of the value of the tax cuts. A lot also went to wage rises for the rich. But most of this money has been spent by companies buying up their own shares. And the result of this? All that purchasing pushes up share prices. And this in turn increases the value of the share portfolios of the executives and making their share options more valuable. Plus it artificially inflates the stock market indexes which Trump uses as the indicator that the American economy is booming in his Presidency.

So the reality is that Trump's base of ordinary workers have been convinced to support a policy which delivered small benefits to them but much larger benefits to the rich. And the cost of the tax-cuts have been met out of the American government's tax base, which means a bigger deficit, just at the time that the stock market is growing in an unsustainable bubble.

It's hard to see how this can be resolved in any way other than ugly, and that it will be at the expense of ordinary Americans, not the rich.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on September 12, 2020, 11:10:36 PM
To convince many Americans that socialist policies are in their best interest, I think you'd have to show them examples of the socialist policies we already have and explain why that's a good thing.  One of the classic examples in American history was privatized fire brigades.  We discovered that centralizing emergency response and making it a public good is a much better way to get it done.

But I'm not sure this really fits the quote very well.  Are public fire brigades something that promotes the self-interest of the poor, and damages the self-interest of the rich, such that people who are rich, or who have a good chance of becoming rich in the future, ought to oppose them?

The aspect of this that I find interesting, every single time I see it is, the quote seems to take it as axiomatic that people ought to be behave strictly in their own self-interest.  I suppose Ronald Wright could have argued, socialistic policies are not harmful to the interests of the rich.  (Is the fire brigade an example of that, if we call it a "socialistic" policy?)  He could also have argued that rich people ought to support socialistic policies, even if those policies are against their own self-interest.  But if he ever advanced those arguments, I've never seen them quoted by anyone.  I see this one all the time, which seemingly argues that the absence of socialistic tendencies in the US is a result of some misjudgement by the American people, who have a wrong idea about where their own narrow self-interests lie.  The idea that they ought to do something other than pursue their own narrow self-interests is completely absent.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on September 12, 2020, 11:38:43 PM
My understanding of the way the quote is intended is this:

<further extended contents>

It's hard to see how this can be resolved in any way other than ugly, and that it will be at the expense of ordinary Americans, not the rich.

That's all well and good, but it mostly elaborates on the idea that Americans have some mistaken idea about their likely future prospects, and that this affects their policy choices.  No problem there, I understand this part of the message.  (We can leave aside the issue that more than half of all Americans are already in the global top 10%, with many deeply dissatisfied that they're not even higher.)

What I find most interesting about the quote is something that is not said - there seems to be an unquestioned assumption that people ought to pursue their own self-interest.  I haven't read the work from which it came.  However, I have seen it quoted many times, and if Ronald Wright considered the possibility that perhaps people ought to do something other than pursue their own self-interest, I have never seen anyone quote his comments to that effect.

Whenever I hear this quote, it brings to my mind a picture of someone saying, "What's good for me?  Socialism?  Capitalism?  Liberalism?  Communism?  Conservatism?  Fascism?  Anarchism?  Peronism?  Chavism?  Whichever system gives me the most money, that's the one I support."

Is "socialism" simply something a tool for pursuit of one's self-interest?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 13, 2020, 12:20:57 PM
I think it's reasonable that people not act in ways that oppose their own interests in favour of the interest of a very small group of people who do not themselves do much to improve society.  That they not actively go out of their way to worsen their situation in a way with no real benefit to anyone.  Because, yes, Jeff Bezos has more money now, but I'm honestly not sure what benefit that extra money does him at this point.  What can he do now that he couldn't do before?  He wanted it, but that's not enough.  Whereas increasing my disability check even fifty dollars a month would help me get more things I actually need, and my spending that money would boost the economy more than Bezos hoarding it would.  But there are plenty of Americans who think that would be socialism.  There is also a not insignificant percentage of Americans who would complain about the government's taking over their Medicare while they were at it, because no program that benefits them could possibly be governmental interference!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 13, 2020, 03:52:16 PM
Whereas increasing my disability check even fifty dollars a month would help me get more things I actually need, and my spending that money would boost the economy more than Bezos hoarding it would.

This seems to be a factor commonly missed here in the UK as well. Poorer people help sustain the economy because they spend what little money they have.

The sad irony of this pandemic is that it has exposed just how absurd the economy here actually is, being based primarily on people buying crap they don't need and running a 'just in time' model of delivery and stock control. This time last year the media was filled with articles decrying millennials as not being able to afford their own homes because they insist on spending money on breakfasts and lunches in cafes and bars rather than at home, and now the chancellor of the exchequer is practically begging them to keep doing it because people NOT frequenting these cafes and bars is apparently screwing up the economy!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 13, 2020, 04:36:55 PM
But I'm not sure this really fits the quote very well.

No, it's a lousy example.  It popped into my head because that's what we typically use as an example of something that has normalized to the perception of a public good at everyone's expense, rich or poor.  When we describe how privatized fire brigades used to work in the U.S., the anti-socialist Americans say, "Ew, that's horrible!"  Strangely enough they can't seem to make that leap to things like healthcare or sensible labor protection.

Here's Breitbart's rhetoric, just so you can hear how Trump's base envisions other economic systems.

https://imgur.com/gallery/Q6aAfFQ

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Are public fire brigades something that promotes the self-interest of the poor, and damages the self-interest of the rich, such that people who are rich, or who have a good chance of becoming rich in the future, ought to oppose them?

I was in a hurry to finish cleaning up after our hurricane, so I gave you a lousy example.  My just dessert therefore is that you're now going to make me defend its applicability.

Under the private enterprise system, fire brigades had contracts with insurance companies to put out fires for the policyholder.  There was no incentive to put out fires gratis.  Naturally this leads to free market competition, where the best and fastest brigades got the best work.  The key to the concept is that some private citizen is making money off of this because he owns the fire brigade.  So one way to answer the question in a lame way is that the rich guy is going to want to have private fire fighting because it's just one more necessary service for which money can be charged and for which a profit can be made.

This is part of what Americans wrongly mean by socialism:  the notion that most public goods are somehow provided by an inefficient, wasteful, over-regulated centralized bureaucracy, and that private enterprise would do so much better at it.

So one answer from the perspective of the wealthy is, "Why are we letting the government mismanage our fire response when I could be doing so much better (and getting more rich) to provide this service as a business."  As a potential fire client, the wealthy person will balk at subsidizing a service for the poor.  Fire brigades in the U.S. are usually funded out of property taxes, which almost never allow deductions or the other sorts of things by which the wealthy avoid paying income taxes.  And they tend to own more valuable real estate, so they pay a disproportionate share of the cost for extinguishing fires anywhere in the city.  The rhetoric would be, "If people were required to pay for fire services directly, or via an insurance free-market actuary as before, my taxes would be lower and I'd have more of my hard-earned money to spend on myself, as God intended.  Poor people are a greater fire risk anyway because they live in older houses and do a lot of their own handy work.  I don't know why I have to pay for that."

The reason that the rich figured out that centralized fire brigades were the right thing is the notion that if their house was next to someone who bought cut-rate fire insurance, serviced by a substandard brigade, the fire might spread to their house too.  The problem with trusting people's discretion in ways that impact you is that you can't expect them to think of you.  Maybe someone doesn't really care and wants to spend only the bare minimum on fire service.  Yes, it's good to have good fire insurance, but it's better to avoid the fire altogether, which makes it more of a collective risk.  The urbanization of American mean that fire protection was something we all should care about, regardless of whose structure precisely is on fire.

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The aspect of this that I find interesting, every single time I see it is, the quote seems to take it as axiomatic that people ought to be behave strictly in their own self-interest.  I suppose Ronald Wright could have argued, socialistic policies are not harmful to the interests of the rich.

The American rich benefit heavily from a tax structure that places a disproportionate burden on others, and offers many incentives to them that are simply outside the reach of others.  So the wealthy consider policies that would close these loopholes very much a threat to their interests.  The purpose of the res pubblica, according to them, is to stay out of the way as much as possible and let people fend for themselves as befits their means and station.

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But if he ever advanced those arguments, I've never seen them quoted by anyone.

And I all I know of this author is the quote represented here, which seems to ring true at least as an accurate summary of American thought on socialism.

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I see this one all the time, which seemingly argues that the absence of socialistic tendencies in the US is a result of some misjudgement by the American people, who have a wrong idea about where their own narrow self-interests lie.  The idea that they ought to do something other than pursue their own narrow self-interests is completely absent.

Pretty much.  This is what's so terribly wrong with American culture and society today.  Americans so rarely think outside their own self-interest, which includes their immediate family and peer group.  Peter B accurately summarizes the America Dream. The nasty corollary is that if it seems like not everyone can achieve the American Dream, all of a sudden the competition gets very ugly.

American entitlement is a huge problem.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 14, 2020, 12:40:33 AM
This seems to be a factor commonly missed here in the UK as well. Poorer people help sustain the economy because they spend what little money they have.

Part of the marketing of the American Dream is the notion that it's okay for billionaires to receive obscene amounts of money, because they're just investing it back into the economy, and doing it at a scale and in ways that ordinary people can't match.  It will all trickle down to us.  First of all, that's not what they're doing with all the money; they're removing it from circulation and sequestering it offshore.  Second, that's not what makes a strong economy.  A strong economy is bottom-up, not top-down.  It's stronger the more people who can participate in it.  Giving $2000 to 200 million people every month is what keeps the economy going, not giving a trillion dollars to five people.

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This time last year the media was filled with articles decrying millennials as not being able to afford their own homes because they insist on spending money on breakfasts and lunches in cafes and bars rather than at home, and now the chancellor of the exchequer is practically begging them to keep doing it because people NOT frequenting these cafes and bars is apparently screwing up the economy!

Our state's "reopen the economy" plan was supposed to be based on science.  Turns out it was written by a group of business leaders with almost no input from health officials.  And don't get me started on the practice of decrying the Millennials for supposedly failing the economy.  I tend to believe the economy has failed Millennials.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 14, 2020, 04:12:11 AM
Under the private enterprise system, fire brigades had contracts with insurance companies to put out fires for the policyholder.  There was no incentive to put out fires gratis.

Equally, no incentive to promote fire prevention measures, since reducing the incidence of fire for the brigade to put out is not conducive to business. And that's not even the most obvious or disturbing corollary to the notion of fire brigades being paid per fire....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 14, 2020, 10:32:48 AM
To convince many Americans that socialist policies are in their best interest, I think you'd have to show them examples of the socialist policies we already have and explain why that's a good thing.  One of the classic examples in American history was privatized fire brigades.  We discovered that centralizing emergency response and making it a public good is a much better way to get it done.

But I'm not sure this really fits the quote very well.  Are public fire brigades something that promotes the self-interest of the poor, and damages the self-interest of the rich, such that people who are rich, or who have a good chance of becoming rich in the future, ought to oppose them?

The aspect of this that I find interesting, every single time I see it is, the quote seems to take it as axiomatic that people ought to be behave strictly in their own self-interest.  I suppose Ronald Wright could have argued, socialistic policies are not harmful to the interests of the rich.  (Is the fire brigade an example of that, if we call it a "socialistic" policy?)  He could also have argued that rich people ought to support socialistic policies, even if those policies are against their own self-interest.  But if he ever advanced those arguments, I've never seen them quoted by anyone.  I see this one all the time, which seemingly argues that the absence of socialistic tendencies in the US is a result of some misjudgement by the American people, who have a wrong idea about where their own narrow self-interests lie.  The idea that they ought to do something other than pursue their own narrow self-interests is completely absent.

Okay, sorry, I got a bit carried away there.

First thing, Wright wasn't presenting an argument. He was making an observation. His observation was that socialism never had a chance of being adopted in the USA - because the alternative economic vision of the American Dream was just too attractive, too ingrained in the American psyche.

So what's socialism? I think the simplest answer is to not overthink it: socialism is a range of political concepts built around the ideas of state control/influence over the means of production, and of a large scale social security net. This stands in contrast to a capitalist system of allowing the free operation of a market system with no or minimal government regulation, and minimal government provision of social security.

Now the reality is that no countries in the world are purely capitalist (all countries regulate the market to at least some extent and provide at least some social security), and I doubt there are any purely socialist countries (all countries, even North Korea and Cuba) allow at least some level of private enterprise. So in that sense Wright's observation is based on a false dichotomy.  But I think we can interpret Wright's observation as pointing to two alternatives that are largely capitalist (like the USA) and largely socialist (like either the communist countries of Eastern Europe 1940s to 1980s, or the social democrat countries like those of Scandinavia).

A capitalist system allows people to accumulate as much wealth as they might ever be able to accumulate (needed or not), with the converse that success isn't guaranteed, and if you fail then you have to look after yourself to the best of your now limited resources. A socialist system (details depending on which one you're looking at) has the government ensuring that everyone has at least a reasonable standard of living, and pays for this by heavier taxation which is aimed at the wealthy.

To me, Wright's observation is, simply, that socialist policies are unlikely to be adopted in the USA because the marketing of capitalism has been so wildly successful. The key to this marketing success has been to focus so heavily on the success side of the equation that no one talks about that converse - what happens to the people who fail.

So when Americans are offered two economic alternatives - capitalism and socialism - instead of seeing the nuances of both systems they only see (capitalism) the chance to become incredibly wealthy without government interference or (socialism) government taxing of wealthy people putting a cap on how wealthy they could become. What they don't see is how much worse off they're likely to be under capitalism than under socialism if things go wrong.

It's like that thought experiment about risk: what would you prefer - (a) a 1 in 10 chance of winning $1000 and 9 in 10 chance of winning nothing, or (b) a guaranteed $100. If you're provided with these conditions then you might reasonably choose either alternative depending on your approach to risk. Only, the way the experiment is marketed is: what would you prefer - (a) a chance to win $1000 under capitalism, or (b) a chance to win $100 under socialism. If you're provided with these conditions even though the game operates exactly as before then it would be perverse to choose the socialist alternative.

So to reference the second quote I bolded, it's rational to pursue policies which advance your self-interest. But there are two points to consider. First, different people will have different views of their self-interest, depending on your approach to risk. In the first example of the thought experiment above, your choice of option (a) or (b) will depend on your risk profile (exactly the same if you were investing in the stock market - do you go for a high-risk/high-return investment strategy, a low-risk/low-return strategy or something somewhere between the two). Second, the choice you make is going to be influenced by the accuracy of the information you're provided with about the alternatives. And in the USA, people have been marketing a distorted explanation of both capitalism and socialism that oversells the upsides of capitalism and the downsides of socialism. It's therefore not surprising many Americans reject socialism as they understand it.

And sorry, got carried away again.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 14, 2020, 11:34:34 AM
Part of the marketing of the American Dream is the notion that it's okay for billionaires to receive obscene amounts of money, because they're just investing it back into the economy, and doing it at a scale and in ways that ordinary people can't match.  It will all trickle down to us.  First of all, that's not what they're doing with all the money; they're removing it from circulation and sequestering it offshore.  Second, that's not what makes a strong economy.  A strong economy is bottom-up, not top-down.  It's stronger the more people who can participate in it.  Giving $2000 to 200 million people every month is what keeps the economy going, not giving a trillion dollars to five people.

I've seen people counter that by claiming it's not what billionaires do, and, no, it's literally what billionaires do.  It's not a giant Scrooge McDuck money bin, in no small part because a lot of their money is electronic, if you will, and not represented by physical currency, but the relevant bit is that it isn't "being invested."  It's sitting in banks.  It's not circulating.  It's stagnating.

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Our state's "reopen the economy" plan was supposed to be based on science.  Turns out it was written by a group of business leaders with almost no input from health officials.  And don't get me started on the practice of decrying the Millennials for supposedly failing the economy.  I tend to believe the economy has failed Millennials.

Oh, my, yes.  Most of my good friends are Millennials (I'm at the tail end of Gen X, myself), and they don't fit the perception of lazy and entitled at all.  Most of my friends are college educated.  Some of them are veterans.  They're working retail jobs, a lot of them, because those are the jobs they can find.  I have one friend who's been working at an office for almost as long as I've known him, and he lives with his parents because he cannot afford to live on his own.  And my friends are relatively privileged; few of them have kids, and most of them only have one job each.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 14, 2020, 02:05:29 PM
,but the relevant bit is that it isn't "being invested."  It's sitting in banks.  It's not circulating.  It's stagnating.

Not every billionaire does this to that extent, of course, so there will always be straw-man exceptions.  But the trend has been very much focused on moving wealth upward and having that wealth tied up in ways that benefit only a very few, not reinvested into the economy.

Most of the wealth is actually sitting in the stock market, which is just a different way of saying sitting in banks.  And many will say that investing in the stock market is investing in the economy.  Except that's not what it is anymore.  Companies don't raise capital to innovate anymore by selling equity in the company.  When you buy stock in Apple, you're not really helping Apple make new and better products.  Today, the stock market is just yet another financial game.  Shareholders aren't in it for the long term anymore.  They're in it to make more money on a 3-to-6-month time scale.  The only way you make money buying and selling stocks is when the prices change.  The stock price is no longer an indicator of the company's actual value, or connected to anything else in the economy.

In short (pun intended), the the alleged mechanism billionaires use to reinvest in the economy does nothing more than increase their personal wealth.

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Oh, my, yes.  Most of my good friends are Millennials (I'm at the tail end of Gen X, myself), and they don't fit the perception of lazy and entitled at all.

They mostly aren't.  In fact, they work much harder than I did at their age (or at least to the extent I remember).  The economics of higher education don't work anymore; you can't "put yourself through school."  The economics of the real-estate market are completely different.  Home prices have skyrocketed, far out of synch with wages.  The reason Millennials can't buy a house has nothing to do with how much they aren't spending on food service.  Further, as you allude, many of them are in living arrangments -- by necessity -- that don't allow for the traditional procurement, storage, and preparation of food.

A universal basic income would go a long way toward fixing this, or fixing the wage gap.  I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 14, 2020, 02:22:01 PM
The key to this marketing success has been to focus so heavily on the success side of the equation that no one talks about that converse - what happens to the people who fail.

And the present state of the system is that failure is becoming increasingly inevitable.  In general, failure was read out as laziness.  The premise was that everyone had some marketable skill, and anyone who isn't a millionaire either hasn't developed his skill or isn't working hard enough to make it profitable.  Today most wealth in American is inherited, not earned (including that of our Dear Leader).  And today most wealth is increased by gaming economic systems such as the stock market or the labor market.  Or in Trump's case, the real-estate market, which he utterly failed to make work for him.  Now he's simply gaming the credibility of his "brand."

These are economic rents, not actual creation of value.  But the key point is that these are means wholly unavailable to the under classes.  No amount of labor at a typical entry-level job these days will provide much more that subsistence living.  This was not really always the case in America.  The American Dream was somewhat attainable in the post-War years.  You could get a good job and buy a house and eat comfortably and have plenty left over for recreation.  The fact that it once was the case is a powerful part of the marketing that it still could be the case -- which it very much isn't.

So to tell them they're failing at capitalism because it's their fault for being lazy or unimaginative is the ultimate insult.  But it works.  It's why pyramid schemes still dupe so many.  If you don't become a zillionaire in multi-level marketing, it's because you're not working hard enough, not because the mathematics of such schemes literally do not allow it.  Bernie Sanders may be a socialist in name only, but his major talking point is still valid:  You're failing at capitalism because the system is rigged.

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And in the USA, people have been marketing a distorted explanation of both capitalism and socialism that oversells the upsides of capitalism and the downsides of socialism. It's therefore not surprising many Americans reject socialism as they understand it.

Also part of the marketing is the stereotype of "socialist Europe" as brutalist, subsistence cultures, where nobody wins.  Most Americans don't spend enough time abroad to see anything for themselves.  I was lucky enough to live abroad in various places for several years.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on September 14, 2020, 06:44:55 PM
A capitalist system allows people to accumulate as much wealth as they might ever be able to accumulate (needed or not), with the converse that success isn't guaranteed, and if you fail then you have to look after yourself to the best of your now limited resources. A socialist system (details depending on which one you're looking at) has the government ensuring that everyone has at least a reasonable standard of living, and pays for this by heavier taxation which is aimed at the wealthy.

To me, Wright's observation is, simply, that socialist policies are unlikely to be adopted in the USA because the marketing of capitalism has been so wildly successful. The key to this marketing success has been to focus so heavily on the success side of the equation that no one talks about that converse - what happens to the people who fail.

This, in my view, sums up the main difference between the US and what many Americans would regard as "socialist" countries, e.g. most wealthy, westernised, OECD member countries.  Although not fully socialist politically, it's recognised that society functions much better when its less fortunate members are provided for (although I admit this doesn't always happen as it should).  Whether it's through healthcare, basic income, low-cost housing or other means, giving people support at a tiny cost when spread over the rest of the population, has overall benefits for everyone.

And it's why benefits like healthcare are so much cheaper, due to economies of scale, not being run for profit, and better collective price bargaining.  Yet I still see so many comments on social media along the lines of "why should I pay for someone else's treatment", not recognising that they would see those benefits when suddenly faced with a major operation or long-term medication needs.

And my friends are relatively privileged; few of them have kids, and most of them only have one job each.
This always shocks me, that so many people in the US have to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet, compared to typical westernised economies where only the very poorest are in that situation.

Sadly the UK now seems to be heading down the same road, and we're liable to end up with a very poor social support system and privatised healthcare, but that's a topic for another thread  :(
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 14, 2020, 07:38:28 PM
Whereas increasing my disability check even fifty dollars a month would help me get more things I actually need, and my spending that money would boost the economy more than Bezos hoarding it would.

This seems to be a factor commonly missed here in the UK as well. Poorer people help sustain the economy because they spend what little money they have.

The sad irony of this pandemic is that it has exposed just how absurd the economy here actually is, being based primarily on people buying crap they don't need and running a 'just in time' model of delivery and stock control. This time last year the media was filled with articles decrying millennials as not being able to afford their own homes because they insist on spending money on breakfasts and lunches in cafes and bars rather than at home, and now the chancellor of the exchequer is practically begging them to keep doing it because people NOT frequenting these cafes and bars is apparently screwing up the economy!

That's been a Thing here in Australia too. Some talking head or other suggested if they bought fewer smashed avocado on toast breakfasts they'd be able to afford to buy their first house sooner. So smashed avocado has become a bit of a meme in Australia.

Of course, what the talking head missed was the statistics indicating housing prices in Australia have doubled in real terms in just the last 20 years. And obviously, that wealth accrues to the people who already own those houses - which is mostly Boomers.

This house price boom has been driven by record low interest rates, which it's clear won't be going anywhere upwards anytime soon.

Having said that, the situation is complicated. Builders tend to want to maximise their profits, so new houses tend to be as large as will fit on their blocks. And for those buyers contemplating saving a bit of money by moving into an apartment, there's been a spate of construction problems with new apartment buildings in a number of cities.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 15, 2020, 11:12:11 AM
Oh, yeah, the sheer number of jokes I've seen about avocado toast.  One I've seen going around lately is, "Well, I've been making my own coffee at home for six months--why aren't I a millionaire yet?"  Because that's one of the other things that get blamed.

I've also been telling a lot of people lately about the realities of being on SSI.  For those who aren't aware, SSI is the version of disability for people without a substantial work history.  Which I don't have, because I've been disabled enough for it to affect my work history since long before I applied for disability.  (They factor in age.)  It takes years to get through the process, because they're trying to make sure no one who isn't really disabled is cheating the system for the whopping $700 a month, which is about what I get.  They limit how much you can earn through other means before losing your benefits.  They limit your assets--my monthly check has actually been cut for about ten years because I was getting disability while in possession of a life insurance policy I could borrow on, and that counted as an asset.  I can't get married without losing my benefits.  This is planned poverty; the system is set up to keep disabled people poor.  For a while, it didn't even look like disabled people would qualify for the one and only stimulus check that's been sent out.  Certainly the current payroll taxes grift isn't putting any more money in our pockets even in the short term!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 15, 2020, 12:05:12 PM
This, in my view, sums up the main difference between the US and what many Americans would regard as "socialist" countries, e.g. most wealthy, westernised, OECD member countries.  Although not fully socialist politically, it's recognised that society functions much better when its less fortunate members are provided for (although I admit this doesn't always happen as it should).  Whether it's through healthcare, basic income, low-cost housing or other means, giving people support at a tiny cost when spread over the rest of the population, has overall benefits for everyone.

And this actually does work in the U.S. when you can convince people to give it a try.  We have a chronic homelessness problem in our city, largely because it's the biggest city for many miles around.  There are itinerant homeless, and we attract homeless from a wide area.  We've experimented with providing low-cost housing to the homeless instead of the typical practice of arresting and incarcerating them for minor offenses arising out of their homelessness (e.g., petty theft).  Naturally we found considerably less recidivism, and the cost was markedly less than the cost of policing, court time, and incarceration.  It's literally better for everyone if we adopt the socialist approach.

However, in America this constitutes "being soft on crime," which is an outgrowth of America as a carceral state.  This, incidentally, is why the Black Lives Matter movement doesn't get as much traction as you think it would.  The demonstrations are classified as "riots" (even when peaceable, or when violence occurs as a consequence of police provocation).  Since BLM activists are "rioters," they acquire the status of lawbreaker, which gives the right wing a moral justification to crack down on them, and the GOP the rhetorical toehold of quelling the protests in the name of "law and order."

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Yet I still see so many comments on social media along the lines of "why should I pay for someone else's treatment", not recognising that they would see those benefits when suddenly faced with a major operation or long-term medication needs.

This is the incredible hypocrisy and entitlement of American culture.  We don't want to pay taxes, but we sure want taxpayer funded benefits when we fall on hard times.  If you lose your job and you're white middle-class, it's a given that you apply for unemployment insurance, and it's a given that this will cover all your living expenses for up to several months.  This is expected.  This is part of President L.B. Johnson's Great Society that so many of the Boomers grew up in.  In short, if a racially and socially favored American falls on hard times in any number of ways, it is expected without further consideration that there will be some government program or policy that acts as a safety net.

But if you recast the problem in terms of ethnic minorities or "lawbreakers" who need the same assistance for the same reasons, then the rhetoric immediately shifts over to, "Why should my taxes go to support them?"  The underlying attitude -- and this is so very odious -- is that certain classes of American society are simply undeserving of aid.  It's racism and other -isms in disguise.

And this hypocrisy exists at the highest levels too.  American corporations shouldn't have to pay taxes because they're the engines of American prosperity, and we need to afford them the least possible friction so that they can compete in a world market.  But if they lose all their money through mismanagement and unregulated, risky investments, all of a sudden they become "too big to fail," and lay claim to taxpayer-funded bailouts.  And lest this seem like a strictly Bush-the-Younger problem, we have to note that the Obama administration quietly allowed most of the responsible parties to keep their jobs, maintain their lifestyles, and escape liability under the premise that, while lawbreakers, they were the only ones with the skills and connections to rebuild the economy.

Americans are perfectly okay with socialism when they're on the receiving end of benefits, because the GOP promotes it to their base as, "You earned this."  But they're not okay with socialism when it wants to look like a national policy, because the GOP demotes it as, "Those undesirables are taking your hard-earned money."  From the opposite perspective, the Democrats posture it as, "Every American deserves to be on the same footing," and the Republicans respond by issuing the dog-whistle, "That's socialism!"  (Remember:  capitalism=good, socialism=bad)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 15, 2020, 02:21:16 PM
This is planned poverty; the system is set up to keep disabled people poor.

And this is pretty much typical of assistance programs in the United States.

For things like unemployment insurance -- which is the one we're all concerned with during the pandemic -- one is eligible only for a limited amount of time, generally not more than one year.  The size of the benefit is determined by one's needs and available assets.  Additional income during the benefit period reduces payment.  In Utah, one must give evidence of having applied for at least five jobs during each week benefits are received.  This is the epitome of a program designed to help people temporarily when they lose their jobs for economic reasons.

What's darkly humorous (and I don't mean to make light of others' plight) is the rhetoric is floating around that people will want to remain on unemployment insurance because the benefits are more than they can earn at minimum wage in a full-time job.  This is factually true.  Unemployment insurance is meant to provide an actual living benefit, and -- at least in Utah by statute -- requires a calculation of each individual's existing non-discretionary financial burden, and a reasonable margin for basic comfort.  This does not occur when setting actual wages.  The U.S. federal minimum wage was originally proposed as a basic living wage to sustain life.  It has not been increased -- even to account for inflation -- since 2009, when it became $7.25 per hour.  At 40 hours per week full-time employment, that's a gross monthly income of $1,160.  To put that in perspective, the monthly rent for an apartment in the buildings adjacent to a property I own, managed by a large commercial residence company, is $950 per month.  When we say there is a wage disparity and a labor crisis in the United States, this is what I'm talking about.  And this is for an able-bodied entry-level wage-earner, not someone considered incapacitated or lazy.

And because this is America, the cry comes up that we should lower the benefits, because why should we pay more for someone not to work than to pay someone who is working.  It doesn't seem to occur to the powers that be that this is an excellent argument for doubling or tripling the federal minimum wage.  The objection is that the giant increase in labor cost will shackle the economy.  And I just have deaf ears for that when Jeff Bezos is one of the richest man in the world, and getting richer by the minutes, while his employees -- his full-time employees -- make so little money that they qualify for supplemental food assistance.  I really don't think the "greed" of the ground-level employees is really the problem here.

Gillianren, your experience is typical of many groups who are simply unable to participate in traditional capitalism, through no fault of their own.  As Peter B adroitly points out, the prophets of capital don't seem to have an answer to that except to maintain the bare minimum (or less) required for basic subsistence.  You get to live, but you don't get to enjoy it.  And many more groups are being cut out as non-participants, for even pretextual reasons such as minor criminal convictions.

It seems the intent is a cruel "survival of the fittest" doctrine.  If one is unable to participate in capitalism either as a capitalist or as labor, then one simply doesn't fit the system.  Nature should be allowed to take its course, because how can we become a great nation if we have to drag along with us the dead weight of non-contributors?  Rush Limbaugh is infamous for saying that no nation ever taxed itself into prosperity.  Yet we have modern examples of nations with happy, productive, well-educated, prosperous populations where the chronically unfortunate don't have to fear being left behind.  They may have taxed themselves away from the obscene profit-mongering that's the American style, but the sure do seem to enjoy an affluent lifestyle.

And the other side of the coin, as I mentioned early in the pandemic, is that "survival of the fittest" doesn't seem to apply when it's a business.  Then all of a sudden they require bailouts and affordances to keep them going under trying circumstances.  It seems to me that if you're going to cut individuals out who can't participate in capitalism under trying circumstances, then you should cut out businesses who can't participate in capitalism under trying circumstances.  If part of capitalism is the potential for individual failure, then part of it should also be the potential for catastrophic business failure.  You could argue that businesses that don't maintain a suitable reserve have made unwise choices and should fail as a result.  But no, that's when all of a sudden these organizations have intrinsic, salvage-worthy value despite their questionable behavior.

Recently the Trump administration tried to add a required-work component to programs like food assistance for children and Medicaid, the national healthcare payer for low-income recipients.  (Medicare, a related program, does a similar thing for the elderly, but that's another thread.)  Essentially one could not qualify for certain very important assistance programs unless one was either working or actively looking for work.  Not only does the GOP vision of American involve keeping certain groups poor, but also requiring them to contribute to the labor market.  America has a voracious appetite for labor at rock-bottom prices, but also the moral direction that one shouldn't receive anything from the public coffers unless one is contributing in some economically cognizable way to society.

From the mere fact that someone is receiving a public supplement to pay for medical care, one can probably infer the likelihood of an inability to work.  Indeed, the intent of Medicaid in most cases is to provide no-strings payment for medical treatment precisely so that the recipient can return to the work force.  And that's largely how it has been used.  The GOP strategy would have provided practically no additional revenue, while making vast numbers of Medicaid recipients suddenly ineligible.  There is simply no way for them to pay their way.

The Trump administration and the GOP have attempted other moral gatekeeping provisions for social assistance, such as mandatory drug testing.  The marketing image presented by the GOP is that recipients of public funds are drug addicts and therefore unemployable, or drug users and using the funds to purchase drugs.  That's almost never the case, of course.  But it has been a well-known economic reality for years that the money spent on implementing the test programs far outstrips the amount spent inappropriately by the few errant recipients.  These programs so often have the potential to be wielded as moral bludgeons, and usually according to criteria that seem ostensibly valid but which are inevitably proxies for such things as race.  Note that massive bailouts to corporations do not require evidence of moral rectitude, and in fact have been given out to renumerate the losses incurred by the recipients' own flagrant malfeasance, and often to the enrichment of individual corporate officials who have less than stellar moral character.

The system is so very rigged.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 16, 2020, 04:24:29 AM
What's darkly humorous (and I don't mean to make light of others' plight) is the rhetoric is floating around that people will want to remain on unemployment insurance because the benefits are more than they can earn at minimum wage in a full-time job.  This is factually true. 



And because this is America, the cry comes up that we should lower the benefits, because why should we pay more for someone not to work than to pay someone who is working.  It doesn't seem to occur to the powers that be that this is an excellent argument for doubling or tripling the federal minimum wage.

Not just America, sadly. Same thing happens here in the UK. People on state benefits are portrayed as scroungers getting free money for sitting around enjoying themselves all day instead of doing an honest day's work to earn their keep. The fact that media outlets can always find one or two such layabouts to act as poster-boys for this campaign just amplifies the message, while ignoring the many many people who genuinely need those benefits. Even during this pandemic when huge swathes of the workforce were furloughed, there was rhetoric that these people could not be supported for too long or they might start enjoying being paid to be at home. The fact they were sitting at home because the government decreed their workplace had to be closed was glossed over. And of course everyone I knew who was furloughed was in fact a) desperate to get back to work and b) terrified that the business they worked for would not survive and they wouldn't have a job to go back to when the government allowed their business to re-open, or that the business would have to make cutbacks and they'd be out of a job anyway (both of which things have happened to people I know). Some of our minsters actually, gallingly, pointed to people's social media accounts that were full of people trying to stay positive as evidence they were enjoying the lockdown and furlough. And don't even get me started on the complaints about taxpayers supporting the furloughed workers (the furloughed workers were still taxpayers), or the conflating of being back in the workplace with being back at work (I wasn't in my office at all for four months but I was still working full time from home).

The common thread in all of this seems to be that people would prefer to knock others down than figure out that in fact they are maybe not getting as much as they should out of a system, and so we have a race to the bottom. It seems to be easier to look at the person on benefits and ask why they get more than me than to ask why I don't get more than them: a subtle difference in the framing of the question that makes all the difference in where the attention is focused. It's the way the ones at the top have framed the situation. In the same way they have managed to convince the population at large that a job is something that can be obtained or stolen, as if it is just sitting there on a shelf waiting to be picked up rather than being handed out by the top management. If we convince everyone they can get any job they want if they try for it, we can convince them that they didn't get it because it was somehow stolen from them. That was the top tiers can keep the attention off their practices and on whichever slice of the population they feel like vilifying at the time.

And then of course we have Trump illustrating perfectly to anyone who cares to actually learn the lesson of just how absurd these justifications for people getting paid six or seven figure salaries are. We are fed this narrative that the higher you go the more responsibility you have and hence the more you deserve to be remunerated for exercising it, and yet at every turn we see top executives abdicating all responsibility and deflecting blame to their underlings when things go wrong. Trump is the absolute epitome of that, now going so far as to blame Joe Biden for the state of the country he is supposed to be running! What staggers me is just how few people seem to either see it or be willing to change it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 16, 2020, 11:03:33 AM
I've argued that everyone able to work is better off for keeping me out of the job market.  Certainly it's better for companies not to hire me, discover I'm not actually capable of holding the job, fire me, and go through the hiring process again.  (Which is what the Social Security employment expert said would happen; I would be able to get a job but unable to hold it for six months.)  That's expensive and time-consuming for them when they would just, you know, hire someone better equipped to do the job.  And since I present really well, I'm quite sure I could get hired somewhere in normal times.  (Now?  No.)  And I'm relatively functional. 

Realistically, disabled people are less of a drain on the system than corporations.  I won't deny being a drain--though I provide some benefit through raising my kids and keeping a home for my partner, who's even one of the idolized military.  (I like joking that I am supported by a troop, though we keep our finances completely separate and he just makes sure I'm capable of eating and sleeping indoors.)  But I don't suck anywhere near as money out of the economy as a major corporation that qualifies for enormous tax benefits and doesn't pay its employees enough to survive.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 16, 2020, 11:22:31 AM
But I don't suck anywhere near as money out of the economy as a major corporation that qualifies for enormous tax benefits and doesn't pay its employees enough to survive.

And therein lies another rhetorical trick by those opposed to such state benefits: forget the comparison, just give some absolute numbers that sound big.

We have it here too. Every so often you'll see a headline that argues we need to toughen up on benefit sanctions and make the qualifying criteria more restrictive, because the cost of benefit fraud runs into the millions every year. Millions of pounds of taxpayer money wasted on cheats and frauds and layabouts! Shocking! Horrific! Why is my money going to them?! Except what they don't tell you, of course, is that the total benefits budget is billions of pounds a year, so the actual cost of fraud is a tiny percentage of the total spend, and amounts to about 0.02 pence per taxpayer or some other tiny number I don't have the time to calculate. They will also of course not tell us (at least not in the same article, or one anywhere close enough to it for anyone to put two and two together easily in one newsreading session) that many more taxpayer funds were spent on a civil construction project that went overbudget or failed, or on bailing out a failing corporation, or even on a payrise for our politicians.

Because any state aid programme must by its nature involve large sums of money it is all too easy to drum up stories about waste and illegitimate use of funds because of these big numbers, while most people haven't a clue how big the overall numbers actually are or how small, comparatively, the numbers being touted as huge wastes really are.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 16, 2020, 12:19:21 PM
I won't deny being a drain--though I provide some benefit...

I dispute the whole notion of a "drain" in this context.  If one voluntarily accepts employment, then one is compelled to make the expected effort.  Failing to do that might be considered a drain.  But no one is voluntarily born into a nation, or voluntarily born into conditions of varying ability.  These are circumstances, not commitments.  Margaret Mead was asked a question something like what sign showed when humans first evolved.  She answered that it was the discovery of a hominid leg bone that had broken and knit.  This was evidence that someone had cared for the victim until ability was restored, whereas in a purely animalistic world the disabled creature would quickly have died.  I tend to think of that as a species survival trait.

The notion that we measure society according to what can be extracted from each participant rather than what the responsibility is to each participant seems backwards to me.

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But I don't suck anywhere near as money out of the economy as a major corporation that qualifies for enormous tax benefits and doesn't pay its employees enough to survive.

Not only via tax benefits, but often by sequestering the money overseas so it doesn't even benefit American financial institutions.  Offshore deposits of corporate earnings deprives the United States of any possible collective benefit.  Workers are paid a pittance, no tax is even possible on the earnings, no profit comes to a U.S. back for being able to invest the deposits, and only certain individuals benefit -- ironically most often the ones that are trying to blame the less fortunate for not pulling their "fair share."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 16, 2020, 12:29:43 PM
Except what they don't tell you, of course, is that the total benefits budget is billions of pounds a year, so the actual cost of fraud is a tiny percentage of the total spend, and amounts to about 0.02 pence per taxpayer or some other tiny number...

And the cost of increased enforcement would surely outweigh the savings.  Engineering has a term for this:  essential complexity.  Every design has flaws.  They can be structural, such as in the way the components are arranged.  Or they can be "critical," meaning that each component has a non-zero probability of failing before some future time t.  Solving structural problems usually means changing the systemic complexity of the design and altering its overall reliability.  Solving criticality issues usually means systemic alterations such as adding redundancy, which also comes at a cost in both design constraint factors (e.g., weight, cost) and in additional risk of failure due to systemic causes.

An ideal design is not one that eliminates all risk.  An ideal design is one that exhibits only essential complexity.  Essential complexity is achieved when any attempt to mitigate further risk paradoxically increases the risk because of the cost of the mitigation.  Similarly, at a certain point you cannot eliminate further waste in a transaction, because detecting and correcting the waste incurs a cost that may be more than what's wasted.  That's when it becomes a moral issue in some cases:  the administrators of a program would rather expend more money to make sure the moral lesson is being conveyed, but they do it hypocritically under the guise of cost savings.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 16, 2020, 02:49:47 PM
Not just America, sadly. Same thing happens here in the UK.

That's discouraging.  I can understand the U.S. descending into a pit of near-fascist conservatism, but I had hoped the U.K. would be more stable.

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It seems to be easier to look at the person on benefits and ask why they get more than me than to ask why I don't get more than them: a subtle difference in the framing of the question that makes all the difference in where the attention is focused.

And I think there's more to the comparative approach.  It seems to be human nature to want to achieve priority, not matter how slight and no matter how much the absolute values.  It's not enough for me to be rich; you must be poor.  It's not enough for me to be powerful; you must be weak.  It's not enough for me to succeed; you must fail.  Endemic to American capitalism is the notion that one's success must come at the cost of another person's failure, and that person's failure is because of his laziness or some other moral flaw.

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That way the top tiers can keep the attention off their practices and on whichever slice of the population they feel like vilifying at the time.

In the specific terms of labor, the top tiers freely admit trying to reduce their labor costs.  This means paying American workers as little as they can get away with and making unions politically unpalatable.  It means offshoring to cheaper labor markets.  It means automation.  Every single economic indicator I can imagine points to conscious, deliberate effort on the part of upper management to reduce the amount of money the combined American labor force will earn, if only as a consequence of minimizing the money it will spend on labor overall.  Yet for some reason the story is that people can't find jobs because they're too focused on smashed avocado and social justice, or because jobs are being taken by scary illegally-resident minorities.

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...at every turn we see top executives abdicating all responsibility and deflecting blame to their underlings when things go wrong.

And getting away with it, because most corporations are actually run by boards of directors to whom the CEO reports.  And there is a cadre of upper-level business leaders in the U.S., all of whom sit on each other's boards.  No CEO is going to be held meaningfully accountable by a board composed of CEOs from other companies on whose boards he sits.  Nothing less than a catastrophe will unseat a CEO, and in most cases the exit arrangements for these positions pretty much set you up for life even in the event of gross malfeasance.  This arrangement is what partly tied Pres. Obama's attempts to restructure the financial industry after the crash of 2008.  The collective power of the U.S. industrial oligarchy outstrips the power of its government.

The Dodd-Frank Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act attempted to bring more actual accountability into the corporate boardroom and executive office suites, but naturally the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress (in Pres. Trump's early term) have largely eviscerated those measures.  And because of the unique structure of the U.S. executive branch, Pres. Trump can largely forestall enforcement of any provisions that remain.

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Trump is the absolute epitome of that, now going so far as to blame Joe Biden for the state of the country he is supposed to be running! What staggers me is just how few people seem to either see it or be willing to change it.

My über-conservative father-in-law texted, at the beginning of the BLM demonstrations, "Welcome to Biden's America."  People who would otherwise be smart are literally falling for the rhetoric that the state of the country under Trump -- now, today -- is what it's going to be in a Biden administration.  I frankly can't understand how people can be so uncritically susceptible to that sort of nonsense.

And yes, the campaign seems to be ramping up the rhetoric, criticizing Joe Biden's lackluster response to the coronavirus crisis.  What, literally, was he supposed to do?  He holds no elected office.  He has no power to order or bring about a single thing.  Literally all he can do is advocate action, which his campaign is certainly doing, and illustrate how he will handle the crisis differently when and if he does have the power to do anything.  This reminds me of when people tried to blame Obama for not taking charge more forcefully on 9/11.

I'm fully convinced that rank-and-file political advocacy in the United States really rises no higher than, say, sports fandom.  People cheer for the Republicans or the Democrats with no more thought and no less fervor than cheering for Manchester United or the Sacramento Piggers.  You want your team to win because victory is sweet, not because there's actually a future at stake.  Americans in general don't ever face existential (or even serious) crises, and so political contests aren't considered to matter, because everything in America will always be okay for us no matter what.  I hold out hope that the pandemic will convince some people that these decisions matter.  But it's bleak hope.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on September 16, 2020, 08:12:51 PM
(jaw drop)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-17/trump-contradicts-cdc-director-on-coroanvirus-vaccine/12672238
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 16, 2020, 09:37:21 PM
Jaw-drop indeed.  The man simply cannot fathom the possibility that someone is smarter and more capable than he.  Previously his hubris and vast stupidity left only a string of failed businesses.  Now it leaves behind hundreds of thousands of dead Americans.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on September 17, 2020, 06:28:31 AM
Not just America, sadly. Same thing happens here in the UK.

That's discouraging.  I can understand the U.S. descending into a pit of near-fascist conservatism, but I had hoped the U.K. would be more stable.
Unfortunately we have our own mini-Trump here, along with a cabinet of people who are mostly well out of their depth for whatever office they've been assigned.  Johnson may well be more eloquent and well-read than Trump, but it just makes him more adept at avoiding answers or taking responsibility.

The levels of corruption and self-interest are off the scale, and we have another 4 years before we can vote them out (if indeed we can, since we also have a similarly-minded part of the population who lap up the right wing rhetoric).  I'm seriously considering a move to somewhere saner...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 17, 2020, 10:37:55 AM
Jaw-drop indeed.  The man simply cannot fathom the possibility that someone is smarter and more capable than he.  Previously his hubris and vast stupidity left only a string of failed businesses.  Now it leaves behind hundreds of thousands of dead Americans.

I think he literally cannot.  It's seemed to me for some time that he's a classic narcissist.  There is no one smarter or better than he is, because his brain won't let him accept that as a possibility.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 17, 2020, 11:03:54 AM
Jaw-drop indeed.  The man simply cannot fathom the possibility that someone is smarter and more capable than he.  Previously his hubris and vast stupidity left only a string of failed businesses.  Now it leaves behind hundreds of thousands of dead Americans.

I'm not sure if it is because Trump is stupid and incapable of believing someone knows more about this than him, or if it's because he is used to people doing things when he tells them to. He thinks he can set the timeline, as if giving them a tight deadline will motivate them to find a vaccine faster. It's probably both. He doesn't understand that finding a vaccine isn't a simple matter with a well understood process; it's not like a factory where you can (maybe) motivate the workers to assemble widgets faster by yelling at them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 17, 2020, 11:57:35 AM
Johnson may well be more eloquent and well-read than Trump, but it just makes him more adept at avoiding answers or taking responsibility.

Unfortunately Johnson comes from that long line of privately educated individuals who think that a good basis in classics and Latin serves to make him an intellectual and an effective leader. He does at least have the common sense to realise that following science is a good idea during a pandemic. Unfortunately he doesn't know which science to follow and his cabinet demonstrate often they do not actually understand how science works. One minister complained recently that advice kept changing when it was supposed to be following the science, because how can the science keep changing. Scientist collectively across the nation facepalmed at that point...

One characteristic Johnson does share with Trump is the total abdication of responsibility and a propensity to lie about things that he said, saying he never said them when they are there on the record, and gaslighting the population. Witness his latest assertion that the EU Withdrawal Agreement was signed in haste and had some unsatisfactory bits in it. The current 'unsatisfactory bit' concerns Northern Ireland, which was the bit he said he had solved to get an 'oven ready' Withdrawal Agreement on the back of which he fought and won a General Election last year.

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The levels of corruption and self-interest are off the scale

I can't for the life of me figure out how we have a cabinet in which children of immigrants are championing a new immigration system they freely admit would have blocked their own parents from entering the country had it existed back then.

And this connects to what we were discussing earlier about systems designed to favour the rich over the poor. Under the new system you cannot come to live in the UK unless you have a job lined up over a certain salary threshold. That means that we have kept those foreign bastards coming in and stealing our low paid jobs like supermarket shelf stackers, bin men, cleaners, even nurses and teaching assistants, but they are quite free to come in and take the management levels above those jobs and have control over them, which somehow many people seem to believe is better.

(And relating to my point earlier about framing of questions, the government put out a questionnaire in which one question was: "do you support strengthening the immigration system in the UK, yes or no?" They will of course use a 'yes' response to support their position. As it happens I do support strengthening the immigration system. The trouble is I know that what I mean by that is not what they mean by that....)

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and we have another 4 years before we can vote them out

Indeed. After a period where we had General Elections in 2015, 2017 and 2019, an EU referendum in 2016, and a European Election in 2019 as well (you know, where we elect our representatives to that unelected bureaucratic mess that is the EU...), we now look set to have four years with no election but with one of the most corrupt and self-serving governments we have ever had in power. They are, in a very Trumpian manner, even using social media to attack the Opposition for... opposing them! Just yesterday Johnson crowed about how the Conservative government were getting things done while the Labour opposition carped from the sidelines. Um, Boris, that is literally how this parliamentary democracy that we have had for centuries is supposed to work!

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I'm seriously considering a move to somewhere saner...

Ditto.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 17, 2020, 11:07:51 PM
He thinks he can set the timeline, as if giving them a tight deadline will motivate them to find a vaccine faster. It's probably both.

You may be right.  But I think in that case, his messaging would be different.  He basically said the official was mistaken or had misunderstood the question.  Had he been imposing a timeline, I would think he'd say something to the effect that this is what he's doing.  It postures him as the leader, as the person pushing hard to get things done.  And if the vaccine doesn't materialize by then, he can say it's all someone else's fault for not being on the ball.

The dynamic you mention is indeed a thing.  And it would be right up Trump's alley.  But the messaging is part of it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 17, 2020, 11:46:35 PM
Unfortunately Johnson comes from that long line of privately educated individuals who think that a good basis in classics and Latin serves to make him an intellectual and an effective leader.

Now that you mention it, I have heard of what I can only describe as the Eton cabal in U.K. government.  I had to look up where PM Johnson went to school.  But now that I know, I've heard of this phenomenon before.  Incidentally, it was this sort of elitism that the American system was rather meant to overcome: the "bred for leadership" estate.  Sadly it didn't actually happen until the populist surge in the 1820 and 1824 election.  Prior to that, elected individual offices were dominated by an inner circle comprising the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution, all generally considered upper-class.  Except it ultimately gave us President Andrew Jackson, who didn't exactly distinguish himself as a shining example of what to expect from a lay populist.

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One characteristic Johnson does share with Trump is the total abdication of responsibility and a propensity to lie about things that he said, saying he never said them when they are there on the record, and gaslighting the population.

Indeed.  I read the U.K. Supreme Court opinion on PM Johnson's failed attempt to persuade Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament in order to delay a key Brexit vote.  Even couched in formal legal language, it was pretty amusing to see the noble Justices dress down Mr Johnson for his transparent deception.

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Under the new system you cannot come to live in the UK unless you have a job lined up over a certain salary threshold.

This makes sense in a superficial, presumptive way.  The perception among the elite is that many people enter an affluent country in order to sponge off its social safety nets and assistance programs, without the intent to pay into the system.  This sounds like a hastily-conceived step to ensure that entrants contribute to the economy instead of draw from it.  But yes, legislating that lower-income jobs may be staffed only by true British subjects seems ill-conceived.  National origin ought not be a categorical proxy for aptitude.

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They will of course use a 'yes' response to support their position.

"Extensional pruning."  Also known as a motte-and-bailey feint.  Let's be intentionally vague and then snap back to a concrete meaning when it suits us.

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Just yesterday Johnson crowed about how the Conservative government were getting things done while the Labour opposition carped from the sidelines. Um, Boris, that is literally how this parliamentary democracy that we have had for centuries is supposed to work!

Maybe he can blame Joe Biden for failing to solve his problems.

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I'm seriously considering a move to somewhere saner...
Ditto.

So much for my plans to move the U.K. to escape the American Republicans.  Canada, anyone?  I hear Vancouver is a nice place.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 18, 2020, 04:35:00 AM
Now that you mention it, I have heard of what I can only describe as the Eton cabal in U.K. government.

Indeed. The biggest irony of all came a few weeks ago when our Education Secretary said of the exam results fiasco there was a danger of an entire generation being promoted above their capabilities. That's the Secretary for Education, who was previously manager of a fireplace manufacturer, then a pottery firm. The man in charge of education in our country has no experience whatsoever working in the field of education. If that isn't being promoted above your capability I don't know what is.

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Incidentally, it was this sort of elitism that the American system was rather meant to overcome: the "bred for leadership" estate.  Sadly it didn't actually happen until the populist surge in the 1820 and 1824 election.  Prior to that, elected individual offices were dominated by an inner circle comprising the Founding Fathers and the Framers of the Constitution, all generally considered upper-class.  Except it ultimately gave us President Andrew Jackson, who didn't exactly distinguish himself as a shining example of what to expect from a lay populist.

I think I've learned more American history from this thread than anywhere else. I'll have to look up Andrew Jackson now...

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Indeed.  I read the U.K. Supreme Court opinion on PM Johnson's failed attempt to persuade Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament in order to delay a key Brexit vote.  Even couched in formal legal language, it was pretty amusing to see the noble Justices dress down Mr Johnson for his transparent deception.

The most jaw-dropping thing about that whole business was that Johnson seemed to genuinely think we would not all see through it. With the Brexit deadline coming up and a new deal needing to be scrutinised and voted on, shutting down parliament for a month or two was such an obvious ploy to avoid getting his deal properly scrutinised that nobody could possibly have seen it as anything else.

Showing even more parallels to Trump, after repeatedly criticising his Prime Minister and her efforts to get the deal sorted, when it came time for his deal to be voted on when he was PM, he made it clear that anyone in the Conservative Party who voted against him would have the whip removed, and since then has replaced key positions with a bunch of 'yes men' and made scapegoats of anyone who disagrees with his work. Most recently, and just as appallingly as Trump's withdrawal of the US from the WHO, Public Health England was disbanded for apparent failings in handling the coronavirus situation here. PHE has a much broader remit than responding to a pandemic, and ultimately they are directed by the government and the failings in PHE are all directly attributable to poor government direction and policy-making in response to the pandemic, but they have been 'thrown under the bus', as the saying goes.

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This sounds like a hastily-conceived step to ensure that entrants contribute to the economy instead of draw from it.

That's precisely what it is. The sting of it all is that the lockdown and the pandemic itself have shown that it is precisely these low-income workers we actually depend on to keep our hospitals running, our supermarkets stocked and our homes and streets free of huge mountains of rubbish. If these jobs are having a net drain on the economy then for god's sake increase their pay and let them do those jobs AND live without needing benefits. The whole idea of a living wage is that if you have it you can live without needing additional state support, but that clearly is not actually working.

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Maybe he can blame Joe Biden for failing to solve his problems.

Well, Biden is already in their sights after his comments on the recent Brexit Northern Ireland fiasco. A fiasco, incidentally, that literally everyone could see coming. How could it not when they want both seamless trade across the Ireland/Northern Ireland border AND an EU/UK customs border? Ireland was always going to be the biggest stumbling block in the whole Brexit mess.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 18, 2020, 05:29:28 AM
So much for my plans to move the U.K. to escape the American Republicans.  Canada, anyone?  I hear Vancouver is a nice place.

There's always this sunny little island continent Down Under.

You could maybe get a job with Gilmour Space (https://www.gspacetech.com/) ?  :)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Britmax on September 18, 2020, 07:26:40 AM
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This arrangement is what partly tied Pres. Obama's attempts to restructure the financial industry after the crash of 2008.  The collective power of the U.S. industrial oligarchy outstrips the power of its government.

My über-conservative father-in-law texted, at the beginning of the BLM demonstrations, "Welcome to Biden's America."  People who would otherwise be smart are literally falling for the rhetoric that the state of the country under Trump -- now, today -- is what it's going to be in a Biden administration.  I frankly can't understand how people can be so uncritically susceptible to that sort of nonsense.
Yes, well. At the start of the crisis we had people here in the UK panic buying toilet rolls and clearing the shelves of dry goods. One of our beloved tabloids (I think it was the Daily Mail) printed a photo of these empty shelves, claiming that this was what life would be like under Corbyn.

Ignoring the somewhat unfair but factual point that this speculation on what life might be like under Corbyn was what life was, you know, actually like under Johnson.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 18, 2020, 09:08:17 AM
So much for my plans to move the U.K. to escape the American Republicans.  Canada, anyone?  I hear Vancouver is a nice place.

You're more than welcome to come to Canada, Jay. I haven't been to Vancouver yet, but it does look beautiful there.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 18, 2020, 09:10:32 AM
There's always this sunny little island continent Down Under.

If I ever get kicked out of Canada, Australia or New Zealand would be where I'd want to go.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 18, 2020, 10:43:56 AM
The man in charge of education in our country has no experience whatsoever working in the field of education. If that isn't being promoted above your capability I don't know what is.

Oooh, are we going to debate who has the worst cabinet?  Have you followed our Attorney General lately?

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I think I've learned more American history from this thread than anywhere else. I'll have to look up Andrew Jackson now...

You can start by correcting my dates:  Jackson was elected in 1828.  The 1824 election sticks out because it was notorious for the Corrupt Bargain that put John Adams' son in the White House.  Overall, Jackson is considered a reasonably  successful President.  In the interests of maintaining cordiality in this thread, we can omit discussing the Battle of New Orleans.

The point to which I specifically refer is the Indian Removal policy and the so-called Trail of Tears.  The Jackson administration was responsible for carrying out a policy of removing indigenous people from their ancestral land and forcibly resettling them westward.  It is not a proud moment in U.S. history.  The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled this session that the foisted treaties by which this forced relocation occurred means that a large portion of Oklahoma, including its major city, still belong to indigenous tribes.

Jackson's cabinet was also notorious, but for completely unrelated and historically amusing reasons.

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The most jaw-dropping thing about that whole business was that Johnson seemed to genuinely think we would not all see through it.

I saw through it, for heaven's sake, and British governance is fairly opaque to me.  I've read Erskine May, and it reads to me like Ikea assembly instructions.  Someday I may unravel it all in my head, but if Johnson's ploy is obvious to me then it does beg an explanation for how he thought he was going to get away with it.

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That's precisely what it is.

The idle class suspects an influx of idle immigrants draining resources from coffers they do not generally contribute to.  Oh, the irony.  They do not realize that most immigrants seek a better life, which in the estimation of the newcomers means better employment opportunities.  And even lowly jobs in an affluent society are frequently a step up from corruption, universal unemployment, and squalor where they came from.

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The sting of it all is that the lockdown and the pandemic itself have shown that it is precisely these low-income workers we actually depend on to keep our hospitals running, our supermarkets stocked and our homes and streets free of huge mountains of rubbish. If these jobs are having a net drain on the economy then for god's sake increase their pay and let them do those jobs AND live without needing benefits. The whole idea of a living wage is that if you have it you can live without needing additional state support, but that clearly is not actually working.

At a certain point the marketing of the American capitalist paradise (and to whatever extent the U.K. shares it) simply doesn't remain convincing.  CEOs are not invariably essential and therefore should not grow rich as kings on the fat salaries they deserve.  Not everyone gets to be an astronaut, but a robust economy means that all roles have intrinsic worth.  The proletariat are not what's draining the system.

Again, Sanders is right:  the system is rigged.  Don't like your job?  Well, get a better one!  Hard to do, when the quality of jobs and the compensation is essentially controlled by executive fiat.  Get more education!  In the U.S. that means literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that becomes payable the day you graduate.  The substantial pay rise you may have qualified for by higher education simply becomes interest on loans paid to the One Percent.  I got rich, and so can you!  Not when one's wealth is inherited, and maintained by gaming financial systems that few others can participate in.  We contribute the most to the economy through our wealth!  Our local newspaper examined local businesses that received state aid to maintain payroll and discovered a substantial number of the recipient companies had no employees; their sole proprietors received "payroll assistance" simply to maintain their standard of living.  Yet individual citizens received a mere one-time pittance to sustain them.

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How could it not when they want both seamless trade across the Ireland/Northern Ireland border AND an EU/UK customs border? Ireland was always going to be the biggest stumbling block in the whole Brexit mess.

Because having and eating one's cake has always been a winning strategy?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 18, 2020, 11:07:22 AM
The man in charge of education in our country has no experience whatsoever working in the field of education. If that isn't being promoted above your capability I don't know what is.

Oooh, are we going to debate who has the worst cabinet?  Have you followed our Attorney General lately?

Or, come to that, our Secretary of Education, one of the only Cabinet officials who has stayed for the entire administration.  Also the person I despise most in the administration, which takes some doing.  She started by saying that she couldn't say that disabled children had the same right to an education, and it's actually managed to go downhill from there.

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I think I've learned more American history from this thread than anywhere else. I'll have to look up Andrew Jackson now...

You can start by correcting my dates:  Jackson was elected in 1828.  The 1824 election sticks out because it was notorious for the Corrupt Bargain that put John Adams' son in the White House.  Overall, Jackson is considered a reasonably  successful President.  In the interests of maintaining cordiality in this thread, we can omit discussing the Battle of New Orleans.

Well.  Speaking as an amateur historian, I'd say that Jackson's record is considerably checkered, and those who dub it successful do tend to ignore his total disregard for the Constitution when it displeased him.  When his Indian removal policy was ruled against by the Supreme Court, his response was to ask if the Supreme Court had an army.  He did, and his policy ruled.  Small wonder he's Fearless Leader's favourite.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 18, 2020, 11:42:42 AM
Or, come to that, our Secretary of Education...

Yeah...

[Shakes head in disgust]

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When his Indian removal policy was ruled against by the Supreme Court, his response was to ask if the Supreme Court had an army.  He did, and his policy ruled.  Small wonder he's Fearless Leader's favourite.

Spoken like an ex-general.  Except that unlike our Dear Leader, Mr Jackson managed to serve with distinction in the military.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on September 18, 2020, 09:26:08 PM
Or, come to that, our Secretary of Education...

Yeah...

[Shakes head in disgust]

If it were any other administration, the idea of having a Secretary of Education who had probably, quite literally, never set foot in a public school before her appointment to the cabinet would have been unfathomable.  With this one, it barely rates an eyebrow raise.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 20, 2020, 10:25:33 AM
Not just America, sadly. Same thing happens here in the UK.

That's discouraging.  I can understand the U.S. descending into a pit of near-fascist conservatism, but I had hoped the U.K. would be more stable.

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It seems to be easier to look at the person on benefits and ask why they get more than me than to ask why I don't get more than them: a subtle difference in the framing of the question that makes all the difference in where the attention is focused.

And I think there's more to the comparative approach.  It seems to be human nature to want to achieve priority, not matter how slight and no matter how much the absolute values.  It's not enough for me to be rich; you must be poor.  It's not enough for me to be powerful; you must be weak.  It's not enough for me to succeed; you must fail.  Endemic to American capitalism is the notion that one's success must come at the cost of another person's failure, and that person's failure is because of his laziness or some other moral flaw.

I understand there's a school of economic thinking in Latin American countries that an economy has a fixed size, and so the only way someone can gain an economic benefit is at someone else's expense - the idea that an economy can grow and thus benefit everyone isn't apparent to them.

Do you think this sort of thinking occurs in the USA too? Or is it simply that the USAnian view of capitalism is inherently predatory?

Also, would you care to comment on how this seemingly win-at-all-costs attitude meshes with well-known American courtesy and hospitality?

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That way the top tiers can keep the attention off their practices and on whichever slice of the population they feel like vilifying at the time.

In the specific terms of labor, the top tiers freely admit trying to reduce their labor costs.  This means paying American workers as little as they can get away with and making unions politically unpalatable.  It means offshoring to cheaper labor markets.  It means automation.  Every single economic indicator I can imagine points to conscious, deliberate effort on the part of upper management to reduce the amount of money the combined American labor force will earn, if only as a consequence of minimizing the money it will spend on labor overall.  Yet for some reason the story is that people can't find jobs because they're too focused on smashed avocado and social justice, or because jobs are being taken by scary illegally-resident minorities.

It baffles me to read comments from Trump supporters over at UM that on the one hand castigate big business for off-shoring jobs (which they say Biden would help with), while at the same time praising big business for all the hiring and wage rises they do.

But then again, these are the people who simultaneously dismiss Biden as harmless, hapless and helpless and fear him as the stalking horse of the Green New Deal. A recent episode of the Australian ABC TV show 'Planet America' (Google it with "iview") screened an amusing fake Republican attack ad against Biden which mashed up Trump's two views of Biden as helpless and dangerous.

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...at every turn we see top executives abdicating all responsibility and deflecting blame to their underlings when things go wrong.

And getting away with it, because most corporations are actually run by boards of directors to whom the CEO reports.  And there is a cadre of upper-level business leaders in the U.S., all of whom sit on each other's boards.  No CEO is going to be held meaningfully accountable by a board composed of CEOs from other companies on whose boards he sits.  Nothing less than a catastrophe will unseat a CEO, and in most cases the exit arrangements for these positions pretty much set you up for life even in the event of gross malfeasance.  This arrangement is what partly tied Pres. Obama's attempts to restructure the financial industry after the crash of 2008.  The collective power of the U.S. industrial oligarchy outstrips the power of its government.

The Dodd-Frank Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act attempted to bring more actual accountability into the corporate boardroom and executive office suites, but naturally the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress (in Pres. Trump's early term) have largely eviscerated those measures.  And because of the unique structure of the U.S. executive branch, Pres. Trump can largely forestall enforcement of any provisions that remain.

Interestingly, this has started happening in Australia in the last few months. The latest case was just last week, when three senior figures at mining giant Rio Tinto had to fall on their swords after the company was found to have destroyed an indigenous site of tremendous cultural value.

It happened because one of Rio Tinto's major shareholders is an industry superannuation fund, the sort of fund which has considerable union representation on the board. Here in Australia employers have to contribute 9.5% of each employee's income into a superannuation fund of their choice, and the total value of super funds is around $3 trillion (about US$63 I believe ;) ). While historically many super funds have been run by banks, they've generally been out-performed by the industry funds, which are not-for-profit. So, given their financial success and their management structure, the industry funds have increasingly had the economic muscle to force companies to listen to them when they voice their objections to lenient punishments of bad behaviour.

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Trump is the absolute epitome of that, now going so far as to blame Joe Biden for the state of the country he is supposed to be running! What staggers me is just how few people seem to either see it or be willing to change it.

My über-conservative father-in-law texted, at the beginning of the BLM demonstrations, "Welcome to Biden's America."  People who would otherwise be smart are literally falling for the rhetoric that the state of the country under Trump -- now, today -- is what it's going to be in a Biden administration.  I frankly can't understand how people can be so uncritically susceptible to that sort of nonsense.

And yes, the campaign seems to be ramping up the rhetoric, criticizing Joe Biden's lackluster response to the coronavirus crisis.  What, literally, was he supposed to do?  He holds no elected office.  He has no power to order or bring about a single thing.  Literally all he can do is advocate action, which his campaign is certainly doing, and illustrate how he will handle the crisis differently when and if he does have the power to do anything.  This reminds me of when people tried to blame Obama for not taking charge more forcefully on 9/11.

With respect, was that actually a thing? I got the impression it was a satire.

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I'm fully convinced that rank-and-file political advocacy in the United States really rises no higher than, say, sports fandom.  People cheer for the Republicans or the Democrats with no more thought and no less fervor than cheering for Manchester United or the Sacramento Piggers.  You want your team to win because victory is sweet, not because there's actually a future at stake.  Americans in general don't ever face existential (or even serious) crises, and so political contests aren't considered to matter, because everything in America will always be okay for us no matter what.  I hold out hope that the pandemic will convince some people that these decisions matter.  But it's bleak hope.

And yet there seem to be many more opportunities to get involved in politics in the USA, especially at the local level, than just about anywhere in the world.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 20, 2020, 11:02:33 AM
Johnson may well be more eloquent and well-read than Trump, but it just makes him more adept at avoiding answers or taking responsibility.

Unfortunately Johnson comes from that long line of privately educated individuals who think that a good basis in classics and Latin serves to make him an intellectual and an effective leader. He does at least have the common sense to realise that following science is a good idea during a pandemic. Unfortunately he doesn't know which science to follow and his cabinet demonstrate often they do not actually understand how science works. One minister complained recently that advice kept changing when it was supposed to be following the science, because how can the science keep changing. Scientist collectively across the nation facepalmed at that point...

One characteristic Johnson does share with Trump is the total abdication of responsibility and a propensity to lie about things that he said, saying he never said them when they are there on the record, and gaslighting the population. Witness his latest assertion that the EU Withdrawal Agreement was signed in haste and had some unsatisfactory bits in it. The current 'unsatisfactory bit' concerns Northern Ireland, which was the bit he said he had solved to get an 'oven ready' Withdrawal Agreement on the back of which he fought and won a General Election last year.

With respect I wouldn't automatically reject someone with those sorts of qualifications. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that back in the day IBM preferred to hire someone with a good classics degree than a fair science degree (or something along those lines). I dare say, though, these days, there would be more interest in the work experience these graduates had in addition to their degree.

Having said that, I've read of Johnson being described as a clever man who pretends he's an idiot, while Trump is an idiot pretending he's a clever man. I've also read an article (can't find it online) about Johnson by a journalist who described Johnson being invited to speak on a particular topic at some expensive dinner, turning up late, with no notes, and bumbling into an impromptu speech complete off-topic, yet somehow holding the audience spellbound. The journalist then described attending another dinner months later at which Johnson was invited to speak on some other topic. He turned up late, with no notes, and bumbled into an impromptu speech which happened to be identical to the one he'd given before, and again somehow held the audience spellbound. He seems to be incredibly charismatic, but in the game of Illuminati I'm sure he'd be the manifestation of the Discordian Society...

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The levels of corruption and self-interest are off the scale

I can't for the life of me figure out how we have a cabinet in which children of immigrants are championing a new immigration system they freely admit would have blocked their own parents from entering the country had it existed back then.

To be fair I don't see this as a show-stopper. It would presumably be fairly easy to suggest that the nation's circumstances have changed from all those decades ago, and what would have been possible back then isn't possible now.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 20, 2020, 11:12:05 AM
The sting of it all is that the lockdown and the pandemic itself have shown that it is precisely these low-income workers we actually depend on to keep our hospitals running, our supermarkets stocked and our homes and streets free of huge mountains of rubbish. If these jobs are having a net drain on the economy then for god's sake increase their pay and let them do those jobs AND live without needing benefits. The whole idea of a living wage is that if you have it you can live without needing additional state support, but that clearly is not actually working.

At a certain point the marketing of the American capitalist paradise (and to whatever extent the U.K. shares it) simply doesn't remain convincing.  CEOs are not invariably essential and therefore should not grow rich as kings on the fat salaries they deserve.  Not everyone gets to be an astronaut, but a robust economy means that all roles have intrinsic worth.  The proletariat are not what's draining the system.

Again, Sanders is right:  the system is rigged.  Don't like your job?  Well, get a better one!  Hard to do, when the quality of jobs and the compensation is essentially controlled by executive fiat. Get more education!  In the U.S. that means literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt that becomes payable the day you graduate.  The substantial pay rise you may have qualified for by higher education simply becomes interest on loans paid to the One Percent. I got rich, and so can you!  Not when one's wealth is inherited, and maintained by gaming financial systems that few others can participate in.  We contribute the most to the economy through our wealth!  Our local newspaper examined local businesses that received state aid to maintain payroll and discovered a substantial number of the recipient companies had no employees; their sole proprietors received "payroll assistance" simply to maintain their standard of living.  Yet individual citizens received a mere one-time pittance to sustain them.

Here in Australia we have the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). If you pay for your degree up front then you get a discount. Otherwise you have to pay it back by means of a HECS levy on top of the tax taken out of your pay. However you don't start to pay the levy until your salary reaches a certain level. So if you can't get a decent job out of university you don't have to start to pay the government back.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 20, 2020, 11:55:09 AM
When his Indian removal policy was ruled against by the Supreme Court, his response was to ask if the Supreme Court had an army.  He did, and his policy ruled.  Small wonder he's Fearless Leader's favourite.

Spoken like an ex-general.  Except that unlike our Dear Leader, Mr Jackson managed to serve with distinction in the military.

Speaking of the military, something else that occurred to me with hollowing out the USA's middle class - this is the class that the technocrats and senior generals come from.

I get the impression the wealth in the USA aren't interested in serving in the military. On top of that, people who inherit wealth don't have to be particularly clever.

So if the American middle class is gutted, where are the people going to come from who will drive new American technology and lead its armies?

Wealth alone won't save the USA. History has a few examples of wealthy states which were conquered or which were in some way massively transformed interally, and others which came mighty close to either of these situations.

- To face Alexander's invasion, King Darius of Persia assembled what I suspect was the second largest Greek force in history, meaning he probably bought up every available Greek mercenary. Even so, after Persia's conquest, the Macedonian army uncovered eye-wateringly large amounts of money in Persian treasuries.

 - At the end of the 2nd century BC the Roman Republic was already the strongest state west of China. Yet a series of defeats at the hands of German barbarians left the republic with effectively no manpower from which to build a new army. This led to military reforms which helped drive the wars which caused the transition of Republic to Empire.

- When Ptolemaic Egypt was conquered by the Romans, its treasury was still large enough to allow Octavian to pay off something in the region of 150,000 soldiers and buy land at fair prices for them to settle on.

- The French Revolution was driven in part by a reluctance of the French nobility to give up financial privileges or even simply pay its bills, which had impoverished an otherwise active and educated French middle class.

- The Iranian Revolution in 1979 occurred in an otherwise moderately prosperous country with a strong military...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 20, 2020, 12:32:52 PM
This reminds me of when people tried to blame Obama for not taking charge more forcefully on 9/11.

With respect, was that actually a thing? I got the impression it was a satire.

It's not a common belief, but there are people who sincerely believe it.  They've gotten mixed up enough to think dumb things like that, because they can't admit that someone from their own party was in ostensible control during a bad situation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 20, 2020, 01:12:07 PM
Do you think this sort of thinking occurs in the USA too? Or is it simply that the USAnian view of capitalism is inherently predatory?

I think there is constant tension between the notion of winning (which implies the requirement of a designated loser) and the notion that all the average American wants is his slice of the pie.  (That this is a common phrase in colloquial American discourse should validate that the Latin American model has at least some traction.)

American capitalism is inherently predatory -- to a fault.  But the spectrum of thought across all strata of American economic thought includes the notion that one can achieve the American Dream without someone else being deprived of it.

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Also, would you care to comment on how this seemingly win-at-all-costs attitude meshes with well-known American courtesy and hospitality?

In my experience the latter is endangered, if not outright extinct, at least in terms of how many Americans deal with strangers on a daily basis.  I guess the kids today are talking about the Karen factor -- the stereotype of the farcically entitled, rude individualist.  I think we recognize that as a straw woman, but in fact that sentiment is growing.  "I got mine, and you're on your own" seems to be taking hold.

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Interestingly, this has started happening in Australia in the last few months. The latest case was just last week, when three senior figures at mining giant Rio Tinto had to fall on their swords after the company was found to have destroyed an indigenous site of tremendous cultural value.

If you scroll back past my walls of screed to an aerial illustration of the valley my city sits in, Rio Tinto owns pretty much the entire left third of the picture.  With the exception of a Northrop-Grumman facility that makes rocket fuel.  Rio Tinto can do pretty much whatever wants in my state.

The operation is a large, open-pit copper mine at the south end of the mountain range, and the various refining operations that occur as the ore is conveyed northward.  It ends at a giant smelter just a stone's throw from one of the theaters I work at (the one depicted in The Stand).  It requires a constant flow of train cars full of petroleum to keep it fired.  As a result, my city often has some of the worst air quality in the world.  But it's always chalked up to automotive exhaust.  We never talk about the big giant smokestack right there in plain sight.

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With respect, was that actually a thing? I got the impression it was a satire.

No, it actually happened.  But it being such a jaw-dropping occurrence, it got far more media attention than it deserved.

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And yet there seem to be many more opportunities to get involved in politics in the USA, especially at the local level, than just about anywhere in the world.

The last four years have seen an explosion of political activism in the U.S., for obvious reasons.  But the why is nebulous.  "It's important that these leaders get elected because their policies are presently needed," contrasts with, "We don't want the 'libtards' to win."  And yes, "We don't want the fascists to win," rhetoric happens on the other side too.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 20, 2020, 02:30:51 PM
With respect I wouldn't automatically reject someone with those sorts of qualifications.

Nor I.  I don't disdain well-educated leaders in general.  Quite the opposite.  The candidate I'm backing now for Utah governor is a highly respected professor at the law school.  My spouse spoke very highly of his knowledge and teaching skill.  I think he would make an excellent governor.

However, I was referred specific U.K. phenomenon where Eton seems to be the de facto school to attend if you envision a career in politics.  There's supposed to be some -- as we call it in America -- "good ol' boy" network happening.  That's really all I know.  I read somewhere about the Eton effect and filed it away as a curious fact.

Again President Harry S Truman comes to mind.  Notoriously plain-spoken, as we was from the American midwest were such qualities are admired.  Not especially well educated.  But he was a voracious autodidact.  He read almost constantly during his Presidency: books, newspapers, commissioned reports.  Nobody could really ever accuse Truman of being uninformed or unsophisticated.  And so he played the apparent Johnson strategy to great effect.  He used his plainspoken ways to lure you off your guard, then he had you.  Because in the end he probably knew more than you did about whatever you were disagreeing with him about.

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To be fair I don't see this as a show-stopper. It would presumably be fairly easy to suggest that the nation's circumstances have changed from all those decades ago, and what would have been possible back then isn't possible now.

That's a perfectly reasonable proposal.  But without the facts to test whether that is the case, or whether that was the legislative intent, it appears on its face as a sort of hypocrisy or ingratitude.  We'd have to dig deeper to see why that decision was made.

The immigration picture in the United States from our southern border has changed dramatically in the past 10 years.  A wholly different sort of person is trying to enter the U.S., and the enforcement posture under the Republican Party is still that it's a bunch of rapists and drug dealers.  We used to complain that it was just Mexico exporting its unemployment problem to the U.S., but in fact -- as we've seen -- there is a gray market for exactly the sort of labor that's part of that picture.  But I digress; it's perfectly reasonable to suspect that times have changed, as they do.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on September 20, 2020, 04:31:11 PM
I've only seeing a couple sources on this, so take it with a grain of salt, but apparently Mr. Trump claimed he would sign an executive order preventing Biden from being elected? 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/09/20/trump-threatens-to-issue-executive-order-preventing-biden-from-being-elected-president/#30155f9976f6
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 20, 2020, 05:22:55 PM
Normally I would write that off as campaign rhetoric, or a joking reference.  But as President Trump seems to have no correct idea what authority he has, we have to consider he might be serious.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on September 20, 2020, 06:20:11 PM
Normally I would write that off as campaign rhetoric, or a joking reference.  But as President Trump seems to have no correct idea what authority he has, we have to consider he might be serious.
Especially since he likes to use 'jokes' as a way to backtrack if outrage crops up, testing the waters, from what I've seen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 20, 2020, 08:01:09 PM
Indeed.  "Look at how those panicky liberals reacted to my obvious joke. You can't trust their judgment."  Except that he ran on a platform of unconventional politics and maverick governance.  That primes the audience to expect that inconceivable proposals should be taken seriously.  If he says he's going to abolish the postal service, you are expected to believe that's what he intends.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on September 20, 2020, 08:17:16 PM
Well, he did say it. With a 'maybe', but see above. This is not something the president of a democracy should joke about, even if so.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4907992/user-clip-trump-sign-executive-order-preventing-biden-presidency
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 20, 2020, 09:36:21 PM
We say that, and we mean it.  Ronald Reagan's hot-mike take on bombing the Soviet Union just came to mind.  Except he didn't realize he was being heard and recorded.  Some presidents of some democracies can make some kinds of jokes.  But if Donald Trump has specifically set up a situation where he can equivocate at will and see how it plays out, that's not something the President of the world's most powerful (maybe) democracy should do.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 21, 2020, 04:22:09 AM
Unfortunately Johnson comes from that long line of privately educated individuals who think that a good basis in classics and Latin serves to make him an intellectual and an effective leader. He does at least have the common sense to realise that following science is a good idea during a pandemic. Unfortunately he doesn't know which science to follow and his cabinet demonstrate often they do not actually understand how science works. One minister complained recently that advice kept changing when it was supposed to be following the science, because how can the science keep changing. Scientist collectively across the nation facepalmed at that point...

With respect I wouldn't automatically reject someone with those sorts of qualifications.

Nor would I, but that wasn't my point. It's not that there is anything wrong with those qualifications, it's the notion that knowing the 'classics' is somehow automatically a superior education than any kind of practical subject or life experience, and that such educated people are morally and intellectually better suited to leadership and authority. It's cobblers.

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Having said that, I've read of Johnson being described as a clever man who pretends he's an idiot, while Trump is an idiot pretending he's a clever man. I've also read an article (can't find it online) about Johnson by a journalist who described Johnson being invited to speak on a particular topic at some expensive dinner, turning up late, with no notes, and bumbling into an impromptu speech complete off-topic, yet somehow holding the audience spellbound. The journalist then described attending another dinner months later at which Johnson was invited to speak on some other topic. He turned up late, with no notes, and bumbled into an impromptu speech which happened to be identical to the one he'd given before, and again somehow held the audience spellbound. He seems to be incredibly charismatic, but in the game of Illuminati I'm sure he'd be the manifestation of the Discordian Society...

Ironic, because his performance as PM has been anything but charismatic and coherent. He gives the impression of being well out of his depth.

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The levels of corruption and self-interest are off the scale

I can't for the life of me figure out how we have a cabinet in which children of immigrants are championing a new immigration system they freely admit would have blocked their own parents from entering the country had it existed back then.

To be fair I don't see this as a show-stopper. It would presumably be fairly easy to suggest that the nation's circumstances have changed from all those decades ago, and what would have been possible back then isn't possible now.
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Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 21, 2020, 11:52:09 AM
In my experience the latter is endangered, if not outright extinct, at least in terms of how many Americans deal with strangers on a daily basis.  I guess the kids today are talking about the Karen factor -- the stereotype of the farcically entitled, rude individualist.  I think we recognize that as a straw woman, but in fact that sentiment is growing.  "I got mine, and you're on your own" seems to be taking hold.

I personally tend to think the idea of "Karen" is in part intended to make a lot of gatekeeping perceived as women's fault.  I do not deny that there are a lot of middle-to-upper-class white women who have bought into the notion that their problems are the only ones that matter, but I suspect that there are a lot more men doing the same sort of thing and that they don't get called out on it as much because a lot of women are afraid of calling out men for that behaviour.  Also, a lot of men with that attitude have the power to change things rather more directly than making life hard for Target employees or calling the cops on black people for existing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 21, 2020, 01:47:00 PM
I personally tend to think the idea of "Karen" is in part intended to make a lot of gatekeeping perceived as women's fault.

Good point.  The term "Karen effect" really doesn't capture the whole phenomenon I'm thinking of, precisely because of the differences in behavior you raise.  And it risks casting a sexist overtone over what doesn't need to be thought of in that way.  It's easy, but unfair, to point to that straw man as an example.

Both men and women today exhibit bad behavior when dealing with conflict, and I venture to say that much of it stems from entitlement and the nearly complete absence of empathy where strangers are concerned.  You can still find courtesy and hospitality in the United States, but I perceive them to be dwindling.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 21, 2020, 02:20:27 PM
I agree that the "Karen effect" has unfairly made it appear like women are the only ones doing stuff like that. It seems like more people (both men & women) have suddenly felt free to be their true racist selves, out loud & proud, ever since Trump came along and gave them permission. Maybe we were deluding ourselves to think that things had improved when it had really just gone deep undercover for a while.

I'm starting to think that the Civil War, WW1, and WW2, never really ended. The people that thought slavery was a good idea, or that Jews should be exterminated, just laid low while they got themselves into positions of power around the world. Now it is their time to spring back up. It's really disheartening to think that is the case.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on September 23, 2020, 01:39:18 AM
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1308594096005697541?s=21

Really? How dumb is having a rally of this size during a pandemic. Does he give a f**k about anybody, other than himself?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on September 23, 2020, 03:53:08 AM
Does he give a f**k about anybody, other than himself?

You already know the answer to that one....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 23, 2020, 05:14:15 AM
Is that the rally where he made a joke about signing an Executive Order to prevent Joe Biden from becoming President (because obviously it's a joke if a non-Trumper has to ask if he was serious this time...)?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on September 23, 2020, 11:04:21 AM
Does he give a f**k about anybody, other than himself?

Wouldn't it be perfect Karma if the voters hat are infected and incapable of voting as a result of this covidiotic event, were the missing votes that cost him the election?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 23, 2020, 11:23:02 AM
Does he give a f**k about anybody, other than himself?

Wouldn't it be perfect Karma if the voters hat are infected and incapable of voting as a result of this covidiotic event, were the missing votes that cost him the election?

That's what I don't get about Trump's handling of COVID-19. How does he come out of this looking like a good leader who should be elected to a second term? He can't even hold onto his base if they (or their loved ones) start dying.

He could have taken charge, followed the advice of experts, and had a much better result that might have even won over a few voters from the other side. Instead he downplays the virus and politicizes the only ways of getting control over it, and the death count sores. This seems like more than just Trump being a Dunning-Kruger idiot who is out of his depth, it looks like an intentional strategy that doesn't make sense unless you assume that death & societal chaos is what he wants.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on September 23, 2020, 11:41:43 AM
Wouldn't it be perfect Karma if the voters hat are infected and incapable of voting as a result of this covidiotic event, were the missing votes that cost him the election?

That's what I don't get about Trump's handling of COVID-19. How does he come out of this looking like a good leader who should be elected to a second term? He can't even hold onto his base if they (or their loved ones) start dying.
From this side of the pond, and going by the news reports and social media, I get the impression that most of them just accept that there will be "collateral damage", as long as they can keep Trump in office, and pushing through more right-wing policies.  As I recall, he bragged that he could shoot someone on Times Square and not lose votes and I'm afraid that has, in a way, come true.

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He could have taken charge, followed the advice of experts, and had a much better result that might have even won over a few voters from the other side. Instead he downplays the virus and politicizes the only ways of getting control over it, and the death count sores. This seems like more than just Trump being a Dunning-Kruger idiot who is out of his depth, it looks like an intentional strategy that doesn't make sense unless you assume that death & societal chaos is what he wants.
I don't think it's what Trump himself wants, but looking behind the scenes there is, or has been, a group of people such as Bannon and Miller, and a lot of "influencers" who have stated openly that they want to disrupt or destroy western societies/cultures.  Trump is a useful front for them, and the same applies over here in the UK, where Dominic Cummings (a friend of Bannon's) is pretty much the power behind the clown facade of Boris Johnson.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on September 23, 2020, 05:46:58 PM
I'm just waiting for him to complain that that the 200,000 US dead is "fake news", that the figure is more like 20,000, half of those were not COVID and the others were stupid Democrat voters who probably deserved it anyway.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on September 24, 2020, 04:29:02 AM
If only there was some way we could have foreseen his actions and his desperate need to de-legitimise any outcome unfavourable to him. I mean, it's not like he was going on about rigged election systems back in 2016 or anything....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on September 24, 2020, 09:46:36 AM
So much for my plans to move the U.K. to escape the American Republicans.  Canada, anyone?  I hear Vancouver is a nice place.

There's always this sunny little island continent Down Under.


Apologies for being so late joining in, but a quote on the idiot-box one night from a famous Aussie surfer seems appropriate:

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We may be descendants of white outcasts from England, but they threw us into a wonderful place in Australia.  They consigned us to heaven, and they stayed in hell!
― Midget Farrelly, “Nothing to Hide – The History of Swimwear” TV2 (New Zealand) 27 Sep 1996 8:30pm


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 24, 2020, 09:53:57 AM
If only there was some way we could have foreseen his actions and his desperate need to de-legitimise any outcome unfavourable to him. I mean, it's not like he was going on about rigged election systems back in 2016 or anything....

Now he has the full power of the Presidency and the backing of his party to make good on his rants.  Historically, incumbent candidates were barred from using the resources of their office to seek re-election.  But since no one is stepping up to stop him from breaking the law...

I must apologize too for my Senator.  Romney led everyone to believe he was going to do the right thing, then decided to cave to the party.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 24, 2020, 10:07:53 AM
Wouldn't it be perfect Karma if the voters hat are infected and incapable of voting as a result of this covidiotic event, were the missing votes that cost him the election?

Yes, that's been brought up elsewhere too.  Traditionally the Republicans use social issues ("Antifa!"  "Gays getting married!") to scare older voters out to the polls as issue voters, where they then cast more votes for conservative candidates.  But more that one candidate has noted that if older people have been more susceptible to COVID-19, and have died in greater numbers, then there simply might not be the votes there.

And aside from the age factor, the anti-maskers and rally attendees should logically suffer greater infection rates and mortality than the more cautious.  (Although the delay between infection and symptoms makes that not strictly the case.)

This is really my last hope.  As I've learned from twenty years of watching conspiracy theorists, their circles inevitably burn out.  People are looking at the Republican Party as the new fascist leaders of America, but I think they'll end up tearing themselves apart via infighting.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 24, 2020, 10:17:21 AM
Now he has the full power of the Presidency and the backing of his party to make good on his rants.

And soon he will have a solid lock on the Supreme Court who will say whatever he does next is perfectly legal. So, about those checks and balances... I think they might need some tweaking if the US survives long enough to do so. May I suggest installing an ejector seat behind the President's desk?

I'm starting to think that being ruled by AI might be better. At least it will be required to follow the rules of it's programming. Humans will just ignore the Constitution if it gets in the way of their plans, and all those so called "patriots" will do nothing when your ballots are tossed into a shredder.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 24, 2020, 10:20:24 AM
How does he come out of this looking like a good leader who should be elected to a second term?

Fox News.  Everything else is a left-wing, deep-state conspiracy to unseat and antagonize the best President ever.  Seriously, the propaganda machine has been in full swing for many years, especially through the Obama Presidency.

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...as long as they can keep Trump in office, and pushing through more right-wing policies.

Specifically, conservative federal judges.  Starting in 2015, when Sen. Mitch McConnell took over the post of Senate Majority Leader (not a thing that's in the Constitution, by the way), he stopped confirming Obama appointees to the federal bench.  At the close of Pres. Obama's last term, there were something like 200 open positions.  So now that the Republicans control the White House and the Senate, they've been racing to fill those seats.  This includes three seats on the Supreme Court.  The House of Representatives has nothing to do with the selection of judges.  So busy has Sen. McConnell been in ramming through those judicial nominees, the Senate has done practically no actual legislation.

Skewing the judiciary to the right has long been the goal of the Republicans.  The political branches of government come and go, vacillating between the parties.  The judiciary is longstanding.  And while it is supposed to be apolitical, that really hasn't been the case recently.  Increasingly the political branches of government have turned to the judiciary to resolve disputes or to alternately effect and bar policy.  If the judiciary leans right, the Republicans will win more of those fights.

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As I recall, he bragged that he could shoot someone on Times Square and not lose votes and I'm afraid that has, in a way, come true.

In a more literal way than many thought.  The Senate has sent a clear message to the White House that the President will not be held accountable for breaking any laws -- which he has then done in abundance.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 24, 2020, 10:23:54 AM
And soon he will have a solid lock on the Supreme Court who will say whatever he does next is perfectly legal.

If the Democrats gain control of Congress and the White House, they can change the composition of the Court as was done back during the New Deal.  The number of justices on the Court is not presented in Article III, and is instead something Congress can decide.  So there are political avenues open, but reasonable Americans need to brace for a 6-3 majority that might be a factor in a contested election.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 24, 2020, 10:48:54 AM
And soon he will have a solid lock on the Supreme Court who will say whatever he does next is perfectly legal.

If the Democrats gain control of Congress and the White House, they can change the composition of the Court as was done back during the New Deal.  The number of justices on the Court is not presented in Article III, and is instead something Congress can decide.  So there are political avenues open, but reasonable Americans need to brace for a 6-3 majority that might be a factor in a contested election.

Yes, I think that is the only option. But even though it has been done before, I think doing it now will cause a huge uproar from the right who will say it's "cheating".

I would also like to see Puerto Rico and Washington DC get made states. Either that or get rid of the electoral college.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 24, 2020, 11:00:14 AM
I passionately believe that at least one of the Republican justices has done enough to merit removal from office.  It's an open secret in DC circles that access to Clarence Thomas is essentially being sold by his wife.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 24, 2020, 11:14:45 AM
I passionately believe that at least one of the Republican justices has done enough to merit removal from office.  It's an open secret in DC circles that access to Clarence Thomas is essentially being sold by his wife.

How hard is it to remove a Supreme Court justice? Is it an impeachment process like the President?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 24, 2020, 11:45:39 AM
It's exactly the same process as removing a President.  The clause in the Constitution that lists who may be impeached and for what offenses applies identically to the President, Vice President, and all other federal civil officers.  That latter category comprises all judges whose jurisdiction is in the federal court system established by Congress under Article III.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 24, 2020, 02:06:20 PM
Ok, that's reassuring. I thought it might be a bigger ordeal since they are life-time appointments.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 24, 2020, 03:50:35 PM
They "hold their Offices upon good Behavior."

States have a parallel judiciary, established according to whatever the state decides in its constitution.  In some states judges are elected.  In others they are also lifetime appointments.  Term limits on Supreme Court justices would perhaps be a good idea, but that would require amending the Constitution. In many states, appointed judges are subjected to a period confidence vote in a general election:  "Shall Judge So-and-So be retained in as a judge in the First District," etc.  Thanks to a recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, acts committed that are punishable under both State and Federal laws do not incur double jeopardy.  Nor can the President pardon or commute sentences passed in state courts.  The various state courts may become more important if the federal judiciary breaks down.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 25, 2020, 06:55:41 AM
It's exactly the same process as removing a President.  The clause in the Constitution that lists who may be impeached and for what offenses applies identically to the President, Vice President, and all other federal civil officers.  That latter category comprises all judges whose jurisdiction is in the federal court system established by Congress under Article III.

Has a Supreme Court judge ever been impeached or removed from office?

Incidentally, our High Court judges have to retire at 70 (a rare constitutional amendment brought life tenure to an end). They're effectively chosen by the Prime Minister, but the Attorney General plays a large role as well, and it's rare that appointments raise any concerns. Six former politicians have been appointed as HC judges, but the last of those was more than 40 years ago.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 25, 2020, 07:22:09 AM
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-25/trump-turns-us-election-into-fight-he-can-win/12698506

This article gets closer to the heart of the Trump phenomenon than anything I've seen up to now, IMO.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on September 25, 2020, 08:05:10 AM
Over in the Kids say the darnedest things thread, Jay said:
It's also helped that Canberra has experienced so little direct effect from the virus - it's nearly 11 weeks since the last case was recorded, a few months since the last death - and the preventive measures are pretty mild. Here's hoping we can keep this up until a vaccine arrives.

That's looking like an attractive refuge as we slowly become Amerika.  My state alone recorded nearly 1,200 new cases just today.  My brother's eldest daughter turned 13 today.  I talked to him recently.  They're coping by doing a lot of outdoor activities that lets them keep distance.

Replying here to avoid derailing the other thread further.

It's interesting to compare the US response to that just north in Canada.

Here in Ontario, Canada there is a lot of concern over 400+ cases a day, and officials are actually doing something about it. The most interesting thing is Premier Ford, who when elected was compared a lot to Trump (he got only 40% of the vote, and was deeply unpopular). However, unlike Trump he took the pandemic seriously and has (mostly) redeemed himself in that area. He's even called anti-maskers idiots.

At all levels, politicians have been listening to domain experts and implementing their advice, including the opposition parties at all levels. There has been some fighting of late, particularly with the federal Conservative party, to the point that a fall election is a possibility, though. Looks like we will be spared that, fortunately.

There was an article in the Toronto Star newspaper (well, online) that I read recently about a person's experience crossing the Canada/US border in both directions (he's a dual citizen with a home in the US, but apparently needed to get belongings from Canada). The contrast was marked: going into Canada the single agent was masked, and he was asked many question about COVID-19. He only needed to remove his mask briefly to verify his identity. Once in Canada, he was required to self-isolate for 14 days - and they followed up on that not only with automated calls, but with a live person calling to check.

By contrast, on returning to the US, there were multiple border agents, none of whom were masked, and their main concern was about the goods he was bringing into the country. I don't recall if the article mentioned any self-isolation requirement; I suspect not.

This, in a nutshell, is why Canada, while not good, is not in the alarming state the US is - and personally, I lay most of the blame for that on Trump (who wants the border reopened soon - most Canadians, I believe, most emphatically do not).

Aside: My older son is in Halifax, Nova Scotia; they're nearly back to normal. It's a nice city, if you are seriously looking to emigrate that would be a good place to consider.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 25, 2020, 08:18:41 AM
Over in the Kids say the darnedest things thread, Jay said:
It's also helped that Canberra has experienced so little direct effect from the virus - it's nearly 11 weeks since the last case was recorded, a few months since the last death - and the preventive measures are pretty mild. Here's hoping we can keep this up until a vaccine arrives.

That's looking like an attractive refuge as we slowly become Amerika.  My state alone recorded nearly 1,200 new cases just today.  My brother's eldest daughter turned 13 today.  I talked to him recently.  They're coping by doing a lot of outdoor activities that lets them keep distance.

Replying here to avoid derailing the other thread further.

It's interesting to compare the US response to that just north in Canada.

Here in Ontario, Canada there is a lot of concern over 400+ cases a day, and officials are actually doing something about it. The most interesting thing is Premier Ford, who when elected was compared a lot to Trump (he got only 40% of the vote, and was deeply unpopular). However, unlike Trump he took the pandemic seriously and has (mostly) redeemed himself in that area. He's even called anti-maskers idiots.

At all levels, politicians have been listening to domain experts and implementing their advice, including the opposition parties at all levels. There has been some fighting of late, particularly with the federal Conservative party, to the point that a fall election is a possibility, though. Looks like we will be spared that, fortunately.

There was an article in the Toronto Star newspaper (well, online) that I read recently about a person's experience crossing the Canada/US border in both directions (he's a dual citizen with a home in the US, but apparently needed to get belongings from Canada). The contrast was marked: going into Canada the single agent was masked, and he was asked many question about COVID-19. He only needed to remove his mask briefly to verify his identity. Once in Canada, he was required to self-isolate for 14 days - and they followed up on that not only with automated calls, but with a live person calling to check.

By contrast, on returning to the US, there were multiple border agents, none of whom were masked, and their main concern was about the goods he was bringing into the country. I don't recall if the article mentioned any self-isolation requirement; I suspect not.

This, in a nutshell, is why Canada, while not good, is not in the alarming state the US is - and personally, I lay most of the blame for that on Trump (who wants the border reopened soon - most Canadians, I believe, most emphatically do not).

And there's another of those frustrating contradictions among Trump supporters: simultaneously claiming he has no powers to lead a fight against the virus, and claiming he's used his powers brilliantly to lead the fight against the virus.

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Aside: My older son is in Halifax, Nova Scotia; they're nearly back to normal. It's a nice city, if you are seriously looking to emigrate that would be a good place to consider.

Let the bidding war for Jay's relocation city begin...!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on September 25, 2020, 08:47:38 AM
 

Let the bidding war for Jay's relocation city begin...!

;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on September 25, 2020, 08:52:07 AM
Or he could move to Midway Atoll; from a post on ISF:
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Wildlife Refuge Manager (http://"https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/579013400")

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Yes You may qualify for reimbursement of relocation expenses in accordance with agency policy.

This position is part of the Midway Atoll NWRS responsible for a full range of significant scientific and non-scientific refuge issues affecting or related to managing refuge lands; resolves operational and administrative problems for which current information is inconclusive or lacking altogether; develops innovative solutions to complex resource and land management issues that have controversial environmental impact and involve conflicting or unclear law and policy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 25, 2020, 09:42:46 AM
Jay should just be his own country, like the Vatican. That way no one will fight over who gets to have him. ;)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on September 25, 2020, 10:36:34 AM
https://twitter.com/kenolin1/status/1309347252402491392?s=21

What?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 25, 2020, 11:01:46 AM
His brain is a mess.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 25, 2020, 11:06:18 AM
I've heard serious discussion in some circles about tertiary syphilis.  I genuinely didn't pay attention enough to him to know if he was like this in the '80s, though I definitely already knew I didn't like him.  It is my impression that he's getting worse, but it's also possible that he's actually managing to lose filters.  The only problem with that is the idea that he had them to lose.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on September 25, 2020, 12:10:12 PM
A lot of his speech, outside of cases where he's reading material written for him, is very much stream of consciousness. And he doesn't have much of that; he also has no focus and no discipline. He is just not qualified for any leadership role in so many ways, and that's before you get into his bigotry and various -isms.

So many people in the US don't just seem to realize the damage he's done to the country, especially internationally; the US just can't be trusted any more. Even in Canada, which had a good relationship with the country up to now, the majority of the people view the country with suspicion (something like 83% of Canadians didn't like or trust Trump, and that was before the pandemic).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on September 25, 2020, 10:16:06 PM

Let the bidding war for Jay's relocation city begin...!
;D

We've a tough opponent. Every Aussie I've spoken to who has been to Canada says it's like Australia with an American accent. I've never heard a bad word about it... except always packing survival kits in the car in case you get snowed in!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 26, 2020, 11:50:25 AM
Jay should just be his own country, like the Vatican. That way no one will fight over who gets to have him. ;)

We'll have an awesome space program.  There's a "Space Pope" joke in there somewhere.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on September 26, 2020, 11:08:15 PM
https://twitter.com/kenolin1/status/1309347252402491392?s=21

What?
His last brain cell must have died of loneliness.
On a more serious note though.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/17/critics-condemn-trumps-rewrite-of-americas-legacy-of-racism-in-dc-speech
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on September 27, 2020, 05:56:24 AM
Not to mention this. Wow. I don't really have the words for this right now. Well, I have a few. Terrifying. Infuriating. Appalling.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/politics/donald-trump-genes-historical-context-eugenics/index.html
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on September 27, 2020, 06:02:17 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/WpWoW31.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 27, 2020, 07:06:33 AM
Just don't forget that there are millions of Americans who think he's just doing a brilliant job, and love that he's sticking it to those lib-tards.

Yes, he's behaving outrageously, and he's probably set records for fibbies told and impeachable offences committed.

But being outraged isn't the answer. The Democratic Party people in Congress are just exhausting themselves pursuing each new outrage and I suspect ordinary Americans are moving on. I read earlier today that polls show most Americans don't care about the new Supreme Court recommendation. So the Dems shouldn't worry about it either - just let her be confirmed and find an issue that ordinary Americans do care about. (I suspect that the Dems in Congress would benefit from some views from the outside by non-American political operators about more tactical application of their resources...)

For example, I heard an interesting comment on the radio today - that American businesses want certainty more than anything, and Locus Of Chaos Trump is not delivering that. Instead, even if he might be more anti-business than Trump, Biden might be a more favourable candidate for the business sector because he's going to deliver the certainty that they want.

As for Trump, if the product of the Lincoln Project is anything to go by, what Trump dislikes most is mockery.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on September 27, 2020, 07:33:17 AM
And like most narcissist I've encountered, he's wafer thin in the skin department with absolutely zero true sense of humour about himself. Hell's bells and bodkin, remember how much of a tizzy he went into simply because some folks said he had small hands? Nonetheless, as much fun as it is to poke at this side of him, and by All is it fun, it shouldn't distract from the vile things he is doing and encouraging and allowing to happen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 27, 2020, 11:53:05 AM
The "small hands" thing was first a joke in the '80s, and it still makes him angry.

It annoys me that people still think the Democrats are just getting angry and not doing anything.  For one thing, enormous numbers of bills have passed the House, and they're being consistently ignored by Mitch McConnell, who won't do anything about them.  For another thing, what are they supposed to be doing?  They're limited by people who simply won't do anything bipartisan who control the Senate and the White House.  They could overcome the White House alone, but with the Senate Republican, nothing gets done.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 27, 2020, 11:55:04 AM
Also, "don't worry about the new Supreme Court appointment" is honestly terrible advice.  Most Americans may not care, but that's because most Americans aren't really thinking about how important a Supreme Court justice is to their daily lives.  Keeping this woman out of the Supreme Court isn't just partisan bickering; the Supreme Court would, with a 6-3 Republican majority, eliminate vast swathes of rights from the American people, and there's a lot of speculation that it would be used to override the will of the people come November.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 27, 2020, 12:03:44 PM
Nonetheless, as much fun as it is to poke at this side of him, and by All is it fun, it shouldn't distract from the vile things he is doing and encouraging and allowing to happen.

And the vile things being done in relative secrecy by the Republican-controlled machinery of government while the media remains obsessed with Donald Trump.  At one time I believed that's why they nominated George W. Bush.  He was an incompetent buffoon with an electable pedigree. His job was to distract attention away from Dick Cheney, who was more in charge of the White House, and from the Republicans elsewhere in government who would then be free to enact policy with the media's eye focused on Bush.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 27, 2020, 12:14:36 PM
Also, "don't worry about the new Supreme Court appointment" is honestly terrible advice.

Which is another reason not to fill a Supreme Court vacancy so close to an election.  It conflates the debate over the choice with electoral campaigning.  They don't mix well.

I gather the advice to ignore the appointment stems from the inevitability at this point that the nominee will be a conservative and that the court has no near future other than a 6-3 conservative majority.  If not this woman, then someone just like her.  But I adamantly wish it were not this person.  Roe v. Wade is all but overturned at this point.  And given the somewhat vulnerable reasoning in Obergefell v. Hodges, I can't say that marriage equality stands a chance of survival.

Quote
[T]here's a lot of speculation that it would be used to override the will of the people come November.

I think it's all but certain at this point that the Republicans will challenge the outcome of the election in court.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 27, 2020, 12:17:41 PM
I've heard serious discussion in some circles about tertiary syphilis.

There was also the suggestion that he had a small stroke, or a series of them, last year about this time.  I'll honestly be surprised if he remains passably competent until the Juanuary 2021 inauguration.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 27, 2020, 01:02:28 PM
A lot of his speech, outside of cases where he's reading material written for him, is very much stream of consciousness. And he doesn't have much of that; he also has no focus and no discipline.

To be fair, this is why a lot of his base likes him.  If you consider that his political base are generally less educated, less urban, and less sophisticated, then it makes sense to talk to them in plain language.  Speaking articulately in complete sentences and paragraph structure appeals to what those folk dismiss as the "coastal elites" or the "liberal elites."  But they simply don't want a President who sounds like college professor.  Now whether an incoherent stream of semi-conciousness qualifies as the plain speech they're after is obviously still in question.  But by differentiating himself in this way, he appeals to voters who don't what just more of the same elitist politicians.  He comes across sounding like a "man of the people."  Even though, of course, the rank and file American is the last person Donald Trump cares about.

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He is just not qualified for any leadership role in so many ways...

Not at all.  His behavior runs the gamut of anti-leadership qualities.  He's had everything handed to him, and as a narcissist he believes he earned it all by his superior acumen.  This leads him to treat underlings either as comparatively incompetent, or else as the cause of his failures.  It's no wonder nearly all his original Cabinet has abandoned him.  People think they can endure a problematic boss and just do their jobs.  They cannot.  And of course this is all spun as their own incompetence and stupidity; they just don't recognize the special genius that is Donald J. Trump.

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So many people in the US don't just seem to realize the damage he's done to the country, especially internationally...

Americans not only have a broad streak of exceptionalism, it blends with a broad streak of individualism.  Americans -- broadly painted, of course -- are so collectively narcissistic they (1) don't care what the rest of the world thinks of them, and (2) don't have much good to say, in most cases, about the rest of the world.  As has been pointed out, Americans have been fed such a constant stream of indoctrination about how good they have it and how successful American capitalism is that they literally disregard any appearance of success or affluence in other countries.  Many American's really don't care that the world views their country with derision, because they simply "know" they are still the best in the world and always will be.

I'm so very thankful to have lived outside the United States in many places for a considerable enough number of years both to see the U.S. from a different perspective, and to see why.

President Trump is both the epitome and the symptom of America's steady loss of prestige and power.  The symptom, because this started long before the Trump Presidency.  Although he has certainly accelerated it, it is by no means valid to lay it all at his feet, or even just to include the circle of enablers around him.  This has been happening for many years, probably since the late 1980s or early 1990s.  And the people responsible for it have been the increasingly blurry combination of U.S. big business and business-friendly politicians.

Donald Trump is the epitome of it because the U.S. is just doing what Donald Trump has done:  play games with brand name recognition in order to squander and plunder it for the benefit of an otherwise indifferent elite.  While the average American doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks about the country, I'm convinced that the average American business mogul or high-ranking politician (if there's even a difference anymore) doesn't care about anything idealist or institutional about any country.  America, Russia, the United Kingdom -- they're all just the same.  As long as there's a capitalist economic system, an exploitable labor force, and a pushover government, it's all just the same to them.  "America" is a just a brand they're going to plunder until the resources are used up.  Then they'll move on.

The difference, of course, is that the populations of other countries seem to catch this before it becomes a chronic problem and reign it in.  But again, the marketing of the American Dream has been so wildly successful that we'll stand on the deck of the sinking ship with our hands over our hearts to the tune of "Stars and Stripes Forever" and listen to people tell us the water lapping around our ankles is just a socialist conspiracy theory.

Quote
Even in Canada, which had a good relationship with the country up to now, the majority of the people view the country with suspicion.

It's worth pointing out -- and Gillianren can correct my colonial history recollection, if needed -- but I believe Canada is one of the few countries that has beaten the U.S. militarily.  :P
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on September 28, 2020, 12:17:27 AM
Nonetheless, as much fun as it is to poke at this side of him, and by All is it fun, it shouldn't distract from the vile things he is doing and encouraging and allowing to happen.

And the vile things being done in relative secrecy by the Republican-controlled machinery of government while the media remains obsessed with Donald Trump.  At one time I believed that's why they nominated George W. Bush.  He was an incompetent buffoon with an electable pedigree. His job was to distract attention away from Dick Cheney, who was more in charge of the White House, and from the Republicans elsewhere in government who would then be free to enact policy with the media's eye focused on Bush.
There is that, but he's too much of a wannabe autocrat for it to be the whole thing. He's done plenty of things on his lonesome with his speeches, his tweets, and his executive orders.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 28, 2020, 10:01:27 AM
Make no mistake, Donald J. Trump has done more damage to America and Americans than any other single person in recent memory.  And he does it loudly, publicly, and often rudely and childishly.

I just mean that there is much more happening behind the scenes, and it has been happening for a decade at least.  It may not have been their intent to nominate such a horror-clown, but one of the ways the idiot is useful to Republicans is by distracting the media.  Far away from the feeding frenzy that covers Trump tweets and such, others in government can do the legwork of quietly dismantling the institutions and rights that favor the common men and women.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 28, 2020, 11:52:38 AM
Also, "don't worry about the new Supreme Court appointment" is honestly terrible advice.  Most Americans may not care, but that's because most Americans aren't really thinking about how important a Supreme Court justice is to their daily lives.  Keeping this woman out of the Supreme Court isn't just partisan bickering; the Supreme Court would, with a 6-3 Republican majority, eliminate vast swathes of rights from the American people, and there's a lot of speculation that it would be used to override the will of the people come November.

I see your point, and I also realise there are times that it's worth fighting a fight you can't win in order to light a fire in others.

But my concern is that the Democrats have for too long been fighting tactically rather than strategically - that there are times when you concede a battle in order to use your resources more carefully. Consider that the shocks from the release of the Woodward book are completely forgotten, even though they're only a couple of weeks in the past. Any expectation that the revelations in the book might damage Trump's reputation are long gone. And it'll be the same with the Supreme Court nomination.

The Democratic Party would be better off concentrating on simply getting as many people out to vote as possible, even if it means getting them to queue up to vote on the day, and educating people to make sure they vote for the House and Senate, and for whatever state elections are happening. Winning the Presidency would be good, but the Dems need to win the Senate as well, and winning control of any state governments up for grabs would be good too. If you want to get democracy back into the USA, you're going to have to start from the bottom as well as from the top.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 28, 2020, 01:13:34 PM
Make no mistake, Donald J. Trump has done more damage to America and Americans than any other single person in recent memory.  And he does it loudly, publicly, and often rudely and childishly.

I just mean that there is much more happening behind the scenes, and it has been happening for a decade at least.  It may not have been their intent to nominate such a horror-clown, but one of the ways the idiot is useful to Republicans is by distracting the media.  Far away from the feeding frenzy that covers Trump tweets and such, others in government can do the legwork of quietly dismantling the institutions and rights that favor the common men and women.

Would it be fair to say things have been leading to this since at least the 1990s, if not since Nixon? It seems to me like ever since Watergate the Republicans have been fighting dirty and doing whatever it took to win, and then it went into overdrive when Bill Clinton took office. And Fox News sure hasn't been helping to improve anything.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 28, 2020, 07:48:19 PM
Make no mistake, Donald J. Trump has done more damage to America and Americans than any other single person in recent memory.  And he does it loudly, publicly, and often rudely and childishly.

I just mean that there is much more happening behind the scenes, and it has been happening for a decade at least.  It may not have been their intent to nominate such a horror-clown, but one of the ways the idiot is useful to Republicans is by distracting the media.  Far away from the feeding frenzy that covers Trump tweets and such, others in government can do the legwork of quietly dismantling the institutions and rights that favor the common men and women.

Would it be fair to say things have been leading to this since at least the 1990s, if not since Nixon? It seems to me like ever since Watergate the Republicans have been fighting dirty and doing whatever it took to win, and then it went into overdrive when Bill Clinton took office. And Fox News sure hasn't been helping to improve anything.

That's certainly how it seems to me.

Junior people in Nixon's team became senior players in Reagan's team, junior players in Reagan's team became senior players in GWB's team...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on September 28, 2020, 07:56:56 PM
...President Trump is both the epitome and the symptom of America's steady loss of prestige and power.  The symptom, because this started long before the Trump Presidency.  Although he has certainly accelerated it, it is by no means valid to lay it all at his feet, or even just to include the circle of enablers around him.  This has been happening for many years, probably since the late 1980s or early 1990s.  And the people responsible for it have been the increasingly blurry combination of U.S. big business and business-friendly politicians.

Donald Trump is the epitome of it because the U.S. is just doing what Donald Trump has done:  play games with brand name recognition in order to squander and plunder it for the benefit of an otherwise indifferent elite.  While the average American doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks about the country, I'm convinced that the average American business mogul or high-ranking politician (if there's even a difference anymore) doesn't care about anything idealist or institutional about any country.  America, Russia, the United Kingdom -- they're all just the same.  As long as there's a capitalist economic system, an exploitable labor force, and a pushover government, it's all just the same to them.  "America" is a just a brand they're going to plunder until the resources are used up.  Then they'll move on.

The difference, of course, is that the populations of other countries seem to catch this before it becomes a chronic problem and reign it in.  But again, the marketing of the American Dream has been so wildly successful that we'll stand on the deck of the sinking ship with our hands over our hearts to the tune of "Stars and Stripes Forever" and listen to people tell us the water lapping around our ankles is just a socialist conspiracy theory.

So what is the end-game for them? Are they just content to accumulate what wealth they can through non-productive means, or do they have thoughts of making money through production and sale of goods and services?

I'm reminded of the board game "Shanghai Trader". The players try to make money from businesses in 1930s Shanghai, knowing the Japanese are coming. If you're still in Shanghai when the Japanese arrive, then you automatically lose. But if you leave Shanghai too soon, then the players who risk staying in Shanghai a little longer may end up with more money, and the player with the most money wins.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on September 29, 2020, 04:35:07 AM
The Democratic Party would be better off concentrating on simply getting as many people out to vote as possible, even if it means getting them to queue up to vote on the day, and educating people to make sure they vote for the House and Senate, and for whatever state elections are happening. Winning the Presidency would be good, but the Dems need to win the Senate as well, and winning control of any state governments up for grabs would be good too. If you want to get democracy back into the USA, you're going to have to start from the bottom as well as from the top.
It's only through the ballot box that real change can be achieved.  However, you now have to take into account just how effective well-targeted propaganda can be, esepecially with the power of modern technology behind it.  UK's C4 has released an expose of Cambridge Analytica and their role in the US election. Effectively a campaign of voter suppression via highly targeted social media ads (the same Cambridge Analytica who were so influential in the Brexit referendum).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/28/trump-2016-campaign-targeted-35m-black-americans-to-deter-them-from-voting



[ I'm surprised nobody's posting about his tax situation, but I'll leave that for now as I think this is far more important. ]
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 29, 2020, 09:37:46 AM
Would it be fair to say things have been leading to this since at least the 1990s, if not since Nixon?

Probably.  Politicians have always manipulated the machinery of the governments they operate to some sort of partisan advantage.  If you want to consider things like that, we'd have to go back to the first parliaments.  But has there been a noticeable shift since, say, Nixon where a political win became the all-encompassing goal?  Maybe.  Keep in mind it was the Democrats who set the precedent of eliminating the filibuster rule on some nominations, leaving the door open for Senate Republicans to simply widen the gap.  That's now going to give us an abominable Supreme Court.

(It was a longstanding rule of the Senate, designed as the more stable, deliberative body, that a vote of three-fifths of those in attendance was required to close debate on many subjects, including the nominations to the executive and the judiciary.)

Since the normal checks and balances are no longer working, the only options left are the nuclear ones.

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And Fox News sure hasn't been helping to improve anything.

No.  Fox News and talk radio have been vigorously stoking the partisan fires.  Whether the media has become more sensationalist as a symptom or as a cause of political breakdown, I can't say.  Grandstanding Presidents give them a steady stream of train wrecks to report on, which then gives them the eyeballs and clicks they seek.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 29, 2020, 09:56:28 AM
So what is the end-game for them? Are they just content to accumulate what wealth they can through non-productive means, or do they have thoughts of making money through production and sale of goods and services?

At a certain point it seems the accumulation of more wealth becomes the only goal.  The non-productive means are generally easier, but of course goods and services have to factor in.  That's why they need cheap labor and why wages in the U.S. are so low for many workers.  There doesn't appear to be an end game.  Which is to say, I don't see any sign that the One Percent desire to transition to some other form of commerce.  It seems they believe their wealth to arise from some inexhaustible source, developed largely through financial structuring and economic rents rather than meaningful investment in actual economic value.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 29, 2020, 10:36:13 AM
UK's C4 has released an expose of Cambridge Analytica and their role in the US election. Effectively a campaign of voter suppression via highly targeted social media ads (the same Cambridge Analytica who were so influential in the Brexit referendum).

Indeed, that was a delightful bit of news to wake up to this morning.  None of what they did is strictly illegal in the U.S., although Cambridge Analytica's acquisition of Facebook data may break European law and may have violated their terms of service with Facebook.  But the latter is a civil matter between the two companies.  It is unlikely any actual voter would have a cause of action to hold anyone responsible.  Targeted campaigning is perfectly legal, as is negative campaigning.  What makes it so terribly insidious in this case is, as you say, the ease with which modern technology can surgically target individual voters.  Like gerrymandering, it has been allowed because it was previously not thought possible to do well or effectively.  We can use high-performance computers to draw district boundaries that statistically guarantee political victory.  And we can now literally target individual voters with messages.  This is pretty scary.

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I'm surprised nobody's posting about his tax situation, but I'll leave that for now as I think this is far more important.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through the article in the New York Times.  It's very dense reading, with lots of facts and figures.  And you're right:  in two weeks we'll have forgotten all about it.

If the evidence is to be believed, then it's almost certain that President Trump has committed tax fraud.  But a great deal of what I've read so far describes common practices in American business to reduce tax liability.  It's part and parcel of the larger problem that much American wealth is held in the private funds of corporations who all pay little or no tax.  The U.S. Tax Code is purposely byzantine in order to allow for such maneuvers, although the rank and file American is generally unable to take advantage of them.  The Trump tax "cut" restructured this further to shift the tax burden: my rental properties saw a net increase in their business tax liability as the result of newly disallowed deductions and limits on expenses while deficit-funding a large tax break for big businesses so they could "create jobs."  (Few used it for that; as has been explained, they used the cash infusion to buy back their own stock and artificially inflate its prices.)

While the shockingly low net taxes paid by the Trump Organization has some people shaking their heads in disgust, Donald Trump's supporters are applauding.  In their world, taxation is theft.  It's basically characterized as wealth transfer from the hardworking people of America (the Makers) to support layabout minorities.  As such, any way you can succeed in paying as little tax as possible -- even if it means bending the rules -- is sticking it to the Takers.  The capitalist conservatives are all taking a victory lap.

But the overall picture I'm gleaning from the Times' reporting is that of an organization deeply in debt, with no credible future revenue and dwindling residuals.  This supports the suggestion that Trump ran for President not expecting to win, but only to increase his prestige.  Now it appears he's using the Presidency quite blatantly to enrich his business interests, either by brokering business deals using the office, or by selecting his business interests to supply services the taxpayers pay for, such as accommodating visitors.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 29, 2020, 10:48:33 AM
It's worth pointing out -- and Gillianren can correct my colonial history recollection, if needed -- but I believe Canada is one of the few countries that has beaten the U.S. militarily.  :P

Quite right!

But my concern is that the Democrats have for too long been fighting tactically rather than strategically - that there are times when you concede a battle in order to use your resources more carefully. Consider that the shocks from the release of the Woodward book are completely forgotten, even though they're only a couple of weeks in the past. Any expectation that the revelations in the book might damage Trump's reputation are long gone. And it'll be the same with the Supreme Court nomination.

I don't think the fight against a Supreme Court Justice is against its reputation.  (And good Lord, that woman's reputation.)  I think it is literally attempting to block an appointment.  It's worth noting that the average appointment takes at least three months, including vetting--which they're I guess just not doing this time--and they're trying to get her in place in five weeks.  And Trump has explicitly said this is to ensure that he will be able to challenge the election and win.  Preventing that is really, really important.  This isn't about persuading voters; this is about the act of governing the country.

Quote
The Democratic Party would be better off concentrating on simply getting as many people out to vote as possible, even if it means getting them to queue up to vote on the day, and educating people to make sure they vote for the House and Senate, and for whatever state elections are happening. Winning the Presidency would be good, but the Dems need to win the Senate as well, and winning control of any state governments up for grabs would be good too. If you want to get democracy back into the USA, you're going to have to start from the bottom as well as from the top.

With the voter suppression permitted by the Supreme Court already, allowing this woman on the Supreme Court is just allowing it to be impossible to start from the bottom.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 29, 2020, 11:04:34 AM
However, you now have to take into account just how effective well-targeted propaganda can be, esepecially with the power of modern technology behind it.  UK's C4 has released an expose of Cambridge Analytica and their role in the US election. Effectively a campaign of voter suppression via highly targeted social media ads (the same Cambridge Analytica who were so influential in the Brexit referendum).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/28/trump-2016-campaign-targeted-35m-black-americans-to-deter-them-from-voting

That is scary. Social analytics like that need to be more regulated.

I just watched a documentary on Netflix called "The Social Dilemma" which was sort of about the same issue (although not specific to just the election, Facebook, or Cambridge Analytica). It demonstrated how social media algorithms feed conspiracy theories to people who are the most susceptible to believing them. It's not so much that the social networks want people believing conspiracy theories, they just want to make sure people spend more time looking at their apps and seeing ads.

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I'm surprised nobody's posting about his tax situation, but I'll leave that for now as I think this is far more important.

I'm just not surprised by it. The New York Times confirmed something we already suspected. I mean, why wouldn't he have shared his taxes if they were above board?

It does scare me that the most powerful man on the planet is so heavily in debt and susceptible to foreign influence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on September 29, 2020, 11:32:20 AM
I'm surprised nobody's posting about his tax situation, but I'll leave that for now as I think this is far more important.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through the article in the New York Times.  It's very dense reading, with lots of facts and figures.  And you're right:  in two weeks we'll have forgotten all about it.

If the evidence is to be believed, then it's almost certain that President Trump has committed tax fraud.  But a great deal of what I've read so far describes common practices in American business to reduce tax liability.  It's part and parcel of the larger problem that much American wealth is held in the private funds of corporations who all pay little or no tax.  The U.S. Tax Code is purposely byzantine in order to allow for such maneuvers, although the rank and file American is generally unable to take advantage of them.  The Trump tax "cut" restructured this further to shift the tax burden: my rental properties saw a net increase in their business tax liability as the result of newly disallowed deductions and limits on expenses while deficit-funding a large tax break for big businesses so they could "create jobs."  (Few used it for that; as has been explained, they used the cash infusion to buy back their own stock and artificially inflate its prices.)

I don't give a crap about taxes or tax avoidance - what disturbs me is the $300 million in personal debt that comes due in a couple of years (not owed by the Trump Org. or any Trump business, but by Donald himself).  That's a helluva lot of leverage to exploit. There's a reason you can't get a security clearance if there's anything hinky in your financial history (such as $300 million in personal debt).  And now we have a freaking President, with access to all the intel, owing 9 figures to God knows whom.  That is scary

Assuming we come out the other side and get these yahoos out of government, just how much damage are we going to find? 

I now have two Constitutional amendments to propose:

Amendment to prohibit family members of prior Presidents and Vice Presidents from being eligible to run for President or Vice President - No person who is related to a President or Vice President by two degrees or less, through birth, marriage, or adoption, shall be eligible to hold the office of President or Vice President.  This shall include but not necessarily be limited to: grandparents; parents and step-parents; siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings, spouses or partners of same; children, step-children, spouses or partners of same; grandchildren, step-granchildren, spouses or partners of same; aunts and uncles; first cousins, spouses or partners of same; nieces, nephews, spouses or partners of same.

Political dynasties are bad, y'all, regardless of political affiliation.  Be it the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Trumps, the Clintons, the Obamas, or any other family. 

Amendment to require financial disclosure prior to running for office - No person shall be eligible to hold office in the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branches who does not also provide an accounting of their personal finances for a period of 5 years prior to running or being nominated for office.

Sorry, national security wins out over privacy.  You want to be President, Congressman, Senator, or Supreme Court Justice, you publicly prove you aren't in somebody else's pocket.  Trump has convincingly demonstrated the honor system doesn't work anymore, assuming it ever did. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 29, 2020, 11:48:28 AM
And another scary thing to keep you up at night is that the national security risk Trump posed won't go away when he is out of office. He knows secrets, and he will sell them in a flat second if someone offers him money.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 29, 2020, 12:17:51 PM
I don't think the fight against a Supreme Court Justice is against its reputation.

Nor an attempt to tarnish the reputation of the President or the Republican party.  They seem to understand how quickly voters forget, and don't care about ideals.  The Democrats are still playing the game with the expectation that they can shame the GOP back into good behavior.  They can't.  And no matter how many principled stands the Democrats take, it cannot substitute for effective action.

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I think it is literally attempting to block an appointment.  ...  And Trump has explicitly said this is to ensure that he will be able to challenge the election and win.  Preventing that is really, really important.  This isn't about persuading voters; this is about the act of governing the country.

Not only would the President be able to challenge the election, but possibly also would candidates for Congress.  Assuming the basis for such a cause of action would be voter fraud, other candidates could argue that any results rejected by the Court as tainted by fraud would also apply to their elections.  Except I think those challenges have to be made in state courts for Senate elections.  And because this is the worst of all worlds, I have to remind us that the Federal Election Commission is presently without a quorum.  This group normally oversees elections to federal office and insures election integrity.  Now little prevents the GOP from doing exactly what it's almost assuredly going to accuse the Democrats of doing.

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With the voter suppression permitted by the Supreme Court already, allowing this woman on the Supreme Court is just allowing it to be impossible to start from the bottom.

Voter suppression and gerrymandering have been essentially given the green light.  These happen at the local level too.  My state is gerrymandered to split up the liberal north-central valley, where a large part of the population is concentrated, into pie slices so that it can be diluted by rural conservative votes.  That's for the House.  It's further gerrymandered within the counties to divide up the local legislature in similar fashion.  By strict population, the Utah legislature should skew just slightly to the right.  But it's overwhelmingly Republican -- a supermajority every session, allowing them to downvote even the most drastic parliamentary maneuvers.

These actions are possible precisely because the U.S. Supreme Court has decided them, in practical terms, for all the states.  No state can pass a law forbidding partisan gerrymandering.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 29, 2020, 04:25:50 PM
And another scary thing to keep you up at night is that the national security risk Trump posed won't go away when he is out of office. He knows secrets, and he will sell them in a flat second if someone offers him money.

Yeah.  It's scary even without the looming debt.  Narcissists are experts at keeping their own secrets, and have no interest in keeping yours.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 29, 2020, 11:01:54 PM
Well, to quote Dana Bash on CNN... that debate was a shit show.

When asked to condemn white supremacist groups, Trump tells them to "stand back and stand by". WTF!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on September 29, 2020, 11:49:08 PM
Well, to quote Dana Bash on CNN... that debate was a shit show.

When asked to condemn white supremacist groups, Trump tells them to "stand back and stand by". WTF!

That was definitely a Charlie Foxtrot. Although Chris Wallace tried to maintain some level of decorum, it just wasn't happening. About a third of the way through, I was thinking that he needed to have a mute button for the microphones and/or a gavel.

Disappointing (and embarrassing) in many ways, but not entirely unexpected, especially in terms of President Trump's behavior.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 30, 2020, 09:44:16 AM
"We've placed each contestant in his own soundproof booth..."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 30, 2020, 10:03:47 AM
"We've placed each contestant in his own soundproof booth..."

 ;D I was thinking that would be the only solution going forward. Either that or make Trump wear one of those dog collars that produce a shock when they bark.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 30, 2020, 10:24:29 AM
I'm hoping the Vice Presidential debate exhibits a little more decorum and substance.  And I'm stoked it's going to take place a little over 1,000 meters from my house, in a hall I've performed in many times.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on September 30, 2020, 10:35:24 AM
Yeah, I expect the Vice Presidential debate to be more civilized. Kamala is going to wipe the floor with Mike Pence though.

Is that something you would have attended if not for the whole COVID-19 social distancing thing?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on September 30, 2020, 10:38:20 AM
I'm hoping the Vice Presidential debate exhibits a little more decorum and substance.  And I'm stoked it's going to take place a little over 1,000 meters from my house, in a hall I've performed in many times.

My favorite VP debate was between Lieberman and Cheney (men I normally loathe), because there were no podiums, no audience to perform to, no artificial debate format, just the candidates and the moderator all sitting at the same table.  It was less formal, less stiff, and far more interesting.  It helped that the candidates and moderator were intelligent and, you know, sane

I really wish we'd use that format for all "debates".  Eliminate the performance aspect, make candidates actually answer questions instead of giving a stump speech. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 30, 2020, 11:31:07 AM
Yeah, I expect the Vice Presidential debate to be more civilized. Kamala is going to wipe the floor with Mike Pence though.

That's the outcome I anticipate.  I just mean here that both participants in this case will be seasoned politicians used to this sort of event.  It should be a vigorous debate, but it won't have the chaos that Pres. Trump injects into the process to disrupt it.  You know, if you can't play chess then kick all the pieces off the board and crap on the table.

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Is that something you would have attended if not for the whole COVID-19 social distancing thing?

Physical attendance at debates at this level is a carefully controlled process.  It's likely I would not have been eligible to attend in person, but if I had really wanted to attend I could probably have pulled some strings.  As it stands, if there is going to be a physical audience, then I'm sure it will be seated and managed according to social-distancing rules.  As a gathering at a state-operated facility (my alma mater), it falls under state emergency guidelines for distancing, mask-wearing, and gathering size.

That said, I may attend after a fashion.  There are likely to be protesters at the event, and therefore a police presence.  My spouse and others are part of the National Lawyers Guild's Legal Observer program, which acts as neutral, non-participant observers of police interaction with protests and demonstrations.  Sometimes I tag along.  This one might not be one to miss.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on September 30, 2020, 12:29:45 PM
It helped that the candidates and moderator were intelligent and, you know, sane.

It has been reported that the President spent very little time preparing for the debate.  I gather his plan all along was to drag Biden down to his level and then flog him with experience.  I don't think Pres. Trump had the slightest delusion that he would win the debate according to the ground rules.  He claimed earlier that Chris Wallace would go easy on Biden and tough on him.  You know -- Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor.  If he's already making excuses for losing, then he probably had no interest in preparing to win.  His plan seems to have been to stump for ninety minutes in his solitary idiom, the rules and format be damned.

Wallace did in fact softball him the question about white supremacist groups.  A skilled politician (or even someone whose brain remotely works) could easily have spun that into the right position.  Some answer such as, "I denounce racial supremacists, and violent agitators on any side of an issue, but it's clear there are great divisions in our country right now that need our attention, and people are frustrated at the inaction."  Sure, it's mealy-mouthed.  But it serves to sever the perceived connection to the lunatic fringe, which otherwise will alienate centrist voters.  At the same time it acknowledges a serious problem in a way that doesn't take sides.  But no, our President gave one of those veiled answers that was clearly interpreted by white supremacists as support for their position and activities, but which is just ambiguous enough that he can flog liberals with it for "misinterpreting as usual" what he meant vaguely by his remarks.

Our President egging on fringe radicals is not someplace I thought we'd be.  Maybe he really is trying to start another civil war.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on September 30, 2020, 12:30:52 PM
I've already seen someone say that they're sure Nancy Pelosi's taxes would prove she's just as bad.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on September 30, 2020, 06:18:50 PM
Maybe he really is trying to start another civil war.

I'm a little undecided. I'm sticking with my prediction with a US civil war after the elections but I am unsure if Trump is trying to start a civil war, or he just doesn't care if he causes one getting what he wants. Or rather, doesn't care what he destroys if he doesn't get what he wants.

I tend to think the latter but....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on September 30, 2020, 06:27:40 PM
I've already seen someone say that they're sure Nancy Pelosi's taxes would prove she's just as bad.

To be honest, it doesn't matter because very few actually inspire me. I think Biden is a terrible choice but at least he is not Trump. I seem to differ from a lot of people with my opinion that the DNC is falling into the same old trap: they are trying to fight asymmetric warfare with the last war's tactics. It didn't work with Hillary Clinton, and it won't work with Joe Biden.

I would have loved to see someone like Pete Buttigieg go against him. When he would go against Trump, he wouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight.

No, despite being under-informed on all the significant US politicians, my opinion is they are all just politicians like all politicians around the world: in it for themselves, and corrupt as all hell.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 01, 2020, 05:15:35 AM
I've already seen someone say that they're sure Nancy Pelosi's taxes would prove she's just as bad.

To be honest, it doesn't matter because very few actually inspire me. I think Biden is a terrible choice but at least he is not Trump. I seem to differ from a lot of people with my opinion that the DNC is falling into the same old trap: they are trying to fight asymmetric warfare with the last war's tactics. It didn't work with Hillary Clinton, and it won't work with Joe Biden.

The exact same thing happened in the UK. Theresa May was the worst PM in generations UNTIL Boris Johnson shuffled onto the scene. Unfortunately Labour chose to put an unelectable idiot in charge (I use the term "in charge" lightly) which meant that the Tory party was virtually unopposed in dragging the country to it's knees and then to inflict the absolute chaos that is Brexit on us.

I am convinced that Putin via people like Steve Bannon had a heavy hand in all of this. If so, the man is a genius....he's destabilised Western Europe, brought America to the brink of civil war and he can act with impunity to destroy any internal opposition.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 01, 2020, 09:01:50 AM
It helped that the candidates and moderator were intelligent and, you know, sane.

It has been reported that the President spent very little time preparing for the debate.  I gather his plan all along was to drag Biden down to his level and then flog him with experience.  I don't think Pres. Trump had the slightest delusion that he would win the debate according to the ground rules.  He claimed earlier that Chris Wallace would go easy on Biden and tough on him.  You know -- Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor.  If he's already making excuses for losing, then he probably had no interest in preparing to win.  His plan seems to have been to stump for ninety minutes in his solitary idiom, the rules and format be damned.

Over at UM one of the Trump supporters claimed Wallace was so soft on Biden and tough on Trump that Wallace must be heading to CNN soon. I'll leave it to those of you who know Wallace better to comment on his political credentials.

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...Our President egging on fringe radicals is not someplace I thought we'd be.  Maybe he really is trying to start another civil war.

I wonder if he's following the Julius Caesar playbook - while he's President he can't be indicted.

If the stories about his taxes are true, and he's likely to be charged once he's no longer President, then the simple solution is to never stop being President. He can start that by winning the election, by whatever means. Alternatively he can be followed by Pence or another Trump...

This is why I don't buy the suggestion that Trump didn't intend to win the 2016 election. I'd have thought instead that he (or his advisors) would have plans for multiple scenarios. If we assume he knew in 2015 that he had tax and loan problems that could turn ugly, then it stands to reason he'd have a plan for if he won and another for if he lost (and yet another if he didn't become Republican candidate). If he loses the election or doesn't even win the nomination he at least gets a lot of free advertising which will help his business. If he wins the election he gets even more publicity, and is protected from prosecution.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 01, 2020, 10:57:24 AM
The softest question of the whole evening--not that I watched the debate, for reasons--was "do you oppose white supremacy?"  And Trump couldn't give the right answer.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 01, 2020, 11:04:23 AM
I've already seen someone say that they're sure Nancy Pelosi's taxes would prove she's just as bad.

To be honest, it doesn't matter because very few actually inspire me. I think Biden is a terrible choice but at least he is not Trump. I seem to differ from a lot of people with my opinion that the DNC is falling into the same old trap: they are trying to fight asymmetric warfare with the last war's tactics. It didn't work with Hillary Clinton, and it won't work with Joe Biden.

I would have loved to see someone like Pete Buttigieg go against him. When he would go against Trump, he wouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight.

No, despite being under-informed on all the significant US politicians, my opinion is they are all just politicians like all politicians around the world: in it for themselves, and corrupt as all hell.

Democratic primary voters chose Biden over everyone else, not the DNC.  I want to make sure everyone understands that.  Yes national committees have influence, yes they can help some candidates and not help others, but at the end of the day the decision is made by voters.  I voted for Warren in the primaries, but I was in the clear minority.

People voted for Biden because he's familiar, was part of a popular Presidential administration, known as about a decent a guy as you'll find in national politics, understands the responsibility of the job and has the temperament to execute it properly, has strong foreign policy and national security credentials, etc.  Maybe he doesn't inspire people  ::), but if getting a criminal and national security risk out of office isn't inspiration enough then you are a failure as a citizen. 

Yes, he's old.  That's part of why I didn't vote for him in the primary.  But if the choice is between him and Trump, then it isn't really a choice; it's a slam-dunk. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 01, 2020, 11:23:08 AM
The softest question of the whole evening--not that I watched the debate, for reasons--was "do you oppose white supremacy?"  And Trump couldn't give the right answer.

Agreed. It's was the easiest question for him to answer, even if he doesn't truly believe it. "I condemn all white supremacist groups". Why can't he do that? Why give an answer that is open enough to interpretation that the Proud Boys celebrated?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 01, 2020, 11:32:22 AM
I wonder if he's following the Julius Caesar playbook - while he's President he can't be indicted.

That playbook didn't end well for Julius Caesar. Give the people a non-violent method of removing their leaders from power or... bad stuff happens. And to be clear, not encouraging bad stuff to happen. I'm encouraging leaders to follow the rules and respect the outcome of elections.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 01, 2020, 09:17:21 PM
I gather his plan all along was to drag Biden down to his level and then flog him with experience.

Chris Wallace just rendered a substantially similar opinion.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 02, 2020, 01:55:58 AM
Breaking news his he and Melania have tested positive for Covid.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 02, 2020, 04:25:42 AM
Breaking news his he and Melania have tested positive for Covid.


Donald, please, please, please don't die of coronavirus and prevent the world from watching your soon to be bankrupted again, racist, white-supremacist supporting, corrupt ass dying in prison.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 02, 2020, 05:38:13 AM
Breaking news his he and Melania have tested positive for Covid.


Donald, please, please, please don't die of coronavirus and prevent the world from watching your soon to be bankrupted again, racist, white-supremacist supporting, corrupt ass dying in prison.

But if it happened, Pence gets sworn in as President, yes? Even if Trump were to die between the election and the inauguration?

What about who appears on the ballot papers if Trump dies before the election?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 02, 2020, 07:59:05 AM
Sorry, have never subscribed to CT of any nature........... But say if he hasn't got the virus and is just getting out of the next debate and possibly a device to suspend elections?

Just saying.......................  ::) ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 02, 2020, 08:13:11 AM
Breaking news his he and Melania have tested positive for Covid.


Donald, please, please, please don't die of coronavirus and prevent the world from watching your soon to be bankrupted again, racist, white-supremacist supporting, corrupt ass dying in prison.

But if it happened, Pence gets sworn in as President, yes? Even if Trump were to die between the election and the inauguration?

What about who appears on the ballot papers if Trump dies before the election?
I'm no expert, but I think that if Big Orange kicked the bucket then the Reps can put a person of their choosing on the ballot paper. It'll be messy, no matter what the outcome.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 02, 2020, 10:38:25 AM
A party's bylaws govern the process of replacing a dead or incapacitated candidate for President prior to the election.   The Republican party's procedure calls for the national committee members each to cast their state's number of votes in the nominating convention for a new candidate.  The problem is that the states operate the election, and the replacement of candidates on ballots is governed by individual state law.  In fact, voting is already underway in some states, which raises the issue of what to do with votes cast for a defunct candidate.  But of course the only election that actually has the effect of selecting a President is that of the Electoral College.  My state requires partisan electors to vote for the candidate selected by their party, "except in the cases of death or felony conviction of a candidate."  This likely means that Donald J. Trump's name would remain on the ballot, because the filing deadline is August 31, but the Republican party could recommend its electors vote for a different person.  If the Electoral College vote becomes so chaotic as to fail to elect a President by a majority, the provisions in the Constitution come into play.  That means the House of Representatives elects the President and Vice President, probably not something the Republican party would want to have happen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 02, 2020, 11:58:43 AM
But if it happened, Pence gets sworn in as President, yes? Even if Trump were to die between the election and the inauguration?

Yes.  The 20th Amendment explicitly provides for this.  If the President-elect dies before he can be inaugurated, the Vice-President-elect is sworn in instead as President.

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What about who appears on the ballot papers if Trump dies before the election?

Appearance on the ballot is governed by individual state law.  In my state, to appear on the ballot, you must declare your candidacy and certify your electors to the Lieutenant Governor by 5pm on August 31 preceding the general election, which is also the last day for the candidate to withdraw or for the party to withdraw its candidate.  The actual preparation of the ballot is the job of each county clerk, as directed by the Lt. Governor.  And since my state votes primarily by mail, ballots have already gone out.  It is allowed under state law for polling places to post notices indicating a ballot error or a candidate who is no longer eligible, or for such notices to be mailed out or appear on the state's website.

But since you're really voting for electors, and the electors themselves are not dead, the name printed on the ballot is largely inconsequential in a Presidential election.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 02, 2020, 01:46:24 PM
Democratic primary voters chose Biden over everyone else, not the DNC.

Thank you--this is a thing that deeply irritates me.  The DNC can't make people run, and it can't keep people from running.  And it can't force votes.  In the end, Biden got more primary votes, and that's what mattered.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 02, 2020, 04:12:31 PM
Democratic primary voters chose Biden over everyone else, not the DNC.

Thank you--this is a thing that deeply irritates me.  The DNC can't make people run, and it can't keep people from running.  And it can't force votes.  In the end, Biden got more primary votes, and that's what mattered.

Yeah, that irritates me too. I tried to explain it to some Bernie Sanders supporters on Twitter the other day, but I'm a Canadian, so what do I know?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 02, 2020, 05:18:31 PM
Democratic primary voters chose Biden over everyone else, not the DNC.

Thank you--this is a thing that deeply irritates me.  The DNC can't make people run, and it can't keep people from running.  And it can't force votes.  In the end, Biden got more primary votes, and that's what mattered.

Yeah, that irritates me too. I tried to explain it to some Bernie Sanders supporters on Twitter the other day, but I'm a Canadian, so what do I know?

Oh God.  Not to paint with a broad brush, but the people who tend to be the most aggressively ignorant of how the process works are Berniebros.  It is a reliable barometer.  Even the most oxy-addled redneck redhat MAGAt understands that you win by actually showing up at the polls, not by tweeting polemics from your basement. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 02, 2020, 06:18:06 PM
Thank you--this is a thing that deeply irritates me.

And it's such an easy trap for me to fall into.  I do it every time.  I hear candidates candidly complaining about all the problems in the state and national committees and all the backroom crap.  I always have to be reminded that there's a bigger, more correct picture.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 03, 2020, 11:06:04 AM
Oh God.  Not to paint with a broad brush, but the people who tend to be the most aggressively ignorant of how the process works are Berniebros.  It is a reliable barometer.  Even the most oxy-addled redneck redhat MAGAt understands that you win by actually showing up at the polls, not by tweeting polemics from your basement. 

The friend I had who was most obsessed with Bernie Sanders four years ago, or perhaps second-most, told me she was going to write in "Yoshua bin Yusuf" on actual election day (she was going through a "Jews for Jesus" phase at the time, and her refusal to listen to me on that point is part of why we're not really friends anymore, as she was not herself Jewish).  She lived in a state where they literally did not count write-in votes, which is true of a lot of states in the general Presidential election.  I explained that to her, and she ranted conspiracist nonsense about Hillary in response.

Mind you, I'm not saying backroom crap is completely irrelevant, but we don't have a Warren G. Harding situation, here.  (For non-Americans, at the time of his nomination only sixteen US states--well under half at the time--even had primaries, and he was definitely nominated in the stereotypical smoke-filled room despite the wishes of pretty much anyone.)  Biden started running so late in the proceedings that several people had pretty well already run through their money and weren't getting support.  (Which is part of why I'm a fan of a mandatory no-campaigning-before-this-date day!)  There were several good establishment Democrat candidates, including my own state's governor--a much better Old White Guy candidate in my opinion--who could've gotten the nomination if the party wanted to force things, and given some of Biden's shady history, it arguable would've been better for them.  There are no allegations of any kind, credible or otherwise, against Jay Inslee.

And now, half my friends seem to have fallen into conspiracist thinking by insisting that the announced positive test is a hoax intended to make us feel sympathy for him before the election or some damn thing.  I've explained to a lot of people that this is not an internally consistent lie with what we know of his psychology, but it seems they don't have a lot of exposure to conspiracism and aren't going to get it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 04, 2020, 04:20:34 PM
She lived in a state where they literally did not count write-in votes, which is true of a lot of states in the general Presidential election.

Including mine.  Write-in candidates, according to our election law, are simply non-partisan candidates.  (Or candidates from parties not officially recognized by our state.). Filing requirements are the same for those, in terms of deadlines.  Presidential write-in candidates must identify their electors and alternates.  That's why states would have a hard time accepting true write-in votes for President.  Who would be the electors?  States typically publish the lists of electors for each candidate well prior to the election, presumably so that the public can form an opinion about whether they will carry out their public trust* accurately.  Identifying them and certifying them after the election tends to invalidate the whole idea of an election.

* The Supreme Court is still wrangling over what sort of federal functionary an Presidential Elector really is.  Defining those contours helps determine to what extent states can regulate the execution of the elector's duty.  This includes, in large measure, faithless elector laws, but it goes beyond that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on October 04, 2020, 04:31:16 PM
If anyone tries a "write-in" (assuming it means what I think it means) in Australia, it invalidates the ballot paper, and your vote becomes an 'informal' vote, going to no-one.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 04, 2020, 07:01:09 PM
That's what confuses me about our state's mail ballots.  Ostensibly, traditionally, a "write-in" vote for a candidate is a vote for a person not listed on the ballot.  In my state, any candidate who has not registered as either a party's nominee or a non-partisan candidate for some office before 5pm on Aug. 31 is ineligible no matter how many votes he receives.  But all the names are listed on the ballot.  Yet there is a blank spot on the ballot, with a line specifically labeled "Write In."  In theory you can write in the name of anyone there.  But it has no effect.  It doesn't invalidate the ballot, but apparently it's simply a placebo vote.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 04, 2020, 07:06:10 PM
I should probably add that, my cousin being a Secret Service agent, the President's latest publicity stunt makes me viscerally angry.  Donald J. Trump has absolutely no respect for any life but his own.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 04, 2020, 08:20:09 PM
I should probably add that, my cousin being a Secret Service agent, the President's latest publicity stunt makes me viscerally angry.  Donald J. Trump has absolutely no respect for any life but his own.

You mean the little drive around the grounds of the hospital?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 04, 2020, 08:43:16 PM
Yes, hot-boxing his protective detail while the Trump supporters all say, "But you said masks work!"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on October 05, 2020, 07:53:58 AM
I should probably add that, my cousin being a Secret Service agent, the President's latest publicity stunt makes me viscerally angry.  Donald J. Trump has absolutely no respect for any life but his own.
Went looking for this, and I agree it's an unconscionable disregard for the safety and well-being of others. Thing is, I don't think Trump is even capable of considering others, not even intellectually. Everything has been all about him from the beginning.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 05, 2020, 10:29:41 AM
I should probably add that, my cousin being a Secret Service agent, the President's latest publicity stunt makes me viscerally angry.  Donald J. Trump has absolutely no respect for any life but his own.

Maybe Ivanka. 

The thing that's made my wife the angriest about this whole mess is how we've done our best to stay safe by staying home, limiting outside contact, giving up on things like eating out, going to movies, hanging out with friends, etc., and it's all been for nothing because too many people (like her sister) are just living life like nothing's wrong, that there's no reason to wear a mask or not rub up against total strangers, and just basically making sure the goddamned plague never goes away.

Even now, even with the President of the United States having contracted the disease (with all the co-morbidities) and having the kitchen sink of meds thrown at him, you still have people going out of their way to act irresponsibly. 

From a national security standpoint this is frightening.  Senior government officials are either sick or have been exposed.  A number of them would be in bad shape if they developed serious symptoms.  We could very well have a good chunk of the Executive on its back in the hospital in a couple of weeks, and even if they survive they won't be anywhere near 100% for months
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 05, 2020, 11:20:12 AM
This was the best chance to prove good leadership he was ever going to get.  Not least because good leadership in this time would've been so easy.  If he'd spoken up in March and said, "We're going to follow the science and do the best thing for the country, ourselves, and each other," we'd be on the other side of this by now.  But because of his arrogance and narcissism, here we are.  And I'm sorry, but I don't believe these people are being allowed to "preemptively" check into the hospital.  I believe they're lying about how bad off they are because they're still pretending the whole thing is no big deal.  Kellyanne Conway apparently lied to her daughter about having tested positive, and the daughter has now herself tested positive.  May that girl get the emancipation she's seeking; in my opinion, her mother just committed attempted murder.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on October 05, 2020, 11:59:59 AM
From CBC (Canada):
Quote from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-positive-covid-19-oct4-1.5749905
Trump has been eager to return home and hates the image of himself at the hospital, according to people familiar with his mood.

From the National Post (also Canada, a conservative news outlet that is the closest thing Canada has to news favourable to Trump):
Quote from: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/trump-makes-surprise-outing-from-hospital-to-greet-supporters
However, The Washington Post reported Sunday that a growing number of Secret Service agents have been concerned about the president’s seeming indifference to the health risks they face when traveling with him in public, and a few reacted with outrage to the trip, asking how Trump’s desire to be seen outside of his hospital suite justified the jeopardy to agents protecting the president.
...
Trump had said he was bored in the hospital, advisers said. He wanted to show strength after his chief of staff Mark Meadows suggested that he was not doing well as he fought the virus, according to campaign and White House officials.

So it's because he's bored, and wants to show his strength. The guy is ... well, I don't have words.


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 05, 2020, 01:30:06 PM
From CBC (Canada):
Quote from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-positive-covid-19-oct4-1.5749905
Trump has been eager to return home and hates the image of himself at the hospital, according to people familiar with his mood.

From the National Post (also Canada, a conservative news outlet that is the closest thing Canada has to news favourable to Trump):
Quote from: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/trump-makes-surprise-outing-from-hospital-to-greet-supporters
However, The Washington Post reported Sunday that a growing number of Secret Service agents have been concerned about the president’s seeming indifference to the health risks they face when traveling with him in public, and a few reacted with outrage to the trip, asking how Trump’s desire to be seen outside of his hospital suite justified the jeopardy to agents protecting the president.
...
Trump had said he was bored in the hospital, advisers said. He wanted to show strength after his chief of staff Mark Meadows suggested that he was not doing well as he fought the virus, according to campaign and White House officials.

So it's because he's bored, and wants to show his strength. The guy is ... well, I don't have words.

I have words.  I have all the best words.  And if I used them LO would ban me so quickly you'd hear the air pop. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 05, 2020, 01:59:39 PM
Secret Service agents famously do not give opinions of their protectees or comment upon what they see and hear while guarding in privacy.  I'm slightly skeptical of the Washington Post's sources.  But I'm also taking into account the sheer inhumanity of this President.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 05, 2020, 03:19:41 PM
Secret Service agents are supposed to take a bullet for the President, not one from him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 05, 2020, 04:00:13 PM
https://twitter.com/nazirafzal/status/1313189422968565761?s=21

Wow he really is totally insane.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 05, 2020, 04:05:38 PM
There is growing skepticism that he actually had the disease.

The Congressman representing my district was one of the first government leaders to have the disease, back in February or March.  He's young and fit, with no comorbidities.  Two months later he gave interviews saying he still could not shake the cough and fatigue.  He was in the hospital for well over a week and lost something like 15 pounds.

But yes, sending the message that COVID-19 really is nothing to fear is just about the worst thing a President could say right now.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Britmax on October 05, 2020, 04:23:28 PM
There is growing skepticism that he actually had the disease.

The Congressman representing my district was one of the first government leaders to have the disease, back in February or March.  He's young and fit, with no comorbidities.  Two months later he gave interviews saying he still could not shake the cough and fatigue.  He was in the hospital for well over a week and lost something like 15 pounds.

But yes, sending the message that COVID-19 really is nothing to fear is just about the worst thing a President could say right now.
You Americans, eh?  You'd never get a British leader pulling a stunt like that.

Oh. Hold on. tho'....?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 05, 2020, 04:28:45 PM
So either Donald Trump hasn't really got COVID-19 and is just pretending so that he can say "See? It's not so bad! And if you do get sick you can just buy these miracle drugs that totally worked for me (and I promise I'm not receiving kickbacks from the companies that make them ;))", or he is incredibly stupid and reckless. I think it's the latter.

If he has it I expect him to be back in the hospital and on a ventilator by this time next week, and dead before election day. He'll probably bring half the White House staff with him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 05, 2020, 04:41:00 PM
The balance of fact still clearly favors that he really did have the disease and that his recovery -- if genuine -- is mostly likely attributable to treatments that aren't available to anyone else.  You can expect the President to continue to receive the best of care from armies of physicians and using that to downplay the seriousness of the epidemic.  But I do expect to see vast numbers of White House staffers, with lesser levels of care available to them, test positive and have a far rougher time of it.

I am fairly amused that the Trump campaign is taking the stance that Donald Trump is now somehow better off or wiser than Joe Biden because he has endured the disease and Biden has not.  That's like telling me the guy who's missing three fingers is an expert on power tools.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on October 05, 2020, 05:01:41 PM
His statement on coming out of hospital is unbelievably irresponsible :
Quote
Don't be afraid of Covid. Don't let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!!

The covidiots will take this as approval to carry on in the same way they have so far, and getting things under control will just get harder.

From what I've read and heard about the progress of this disease, the severity of any given case isn't really known until about the 9th day after infection, and it progresses in "waves", with patients alternating between being relatively OK and quite badly compromised.  Given that Trump has already had two episodes of low blood oxygen, and only four(?) days into it, I really don't think it's wise to be returning to the White House.  I'm sure they have good medical facilities, but not at the same level as they would in hospital.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on October 05, 2020, 05:05:28 PM
I suspect it's Trump pushing for this, and as usual he doesn't pay any attention to experts.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 05, 2020, 06:51:23 PM
I suspect it's Trump pushing for this, and as usual he doesn't pay any attention to experts.

This may be why the doctors are being so coy.  They presumably still want to practice medicine after Donald Trump is gone, so they have to retain some medical credibility.  But Dr. Conley is, for lack of a better word, a Trump appointee.  It is reasonable to expect him to display some loyalty to the President and not contradict the President's likely private wishes in public.

Another point is that the medications listed for the President's treatment have side affects that include an impairment of cognitive function, euphoria, and so forth.  That raises the question of whether there should have been a 25th Amendment declaration prior to the President's receiving these drugs.  Not as if anyone temporarily promoted to outrank Trump would have any success.  But that's part of what the Amendment is there fore.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on October 05, 2020, 07:42:43 PM
Another point is that the medications listed for the President's treatment have side affects that include an impairment of cognitive function...
Not that there was much cognitive function on display there to begin with in the Very Stable Genius.

Edit to add: On the other hand, there's a long tradition of being coy or otherwise ... creative ... with the truth in regards to Presidential medical issues.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 05, 2020, 07:54:44 PM
Not that there was much cognitive function on display there to begin with in the Very Stable Genius.

I wonder if that would qualify the meds as placebos, then.  ;D

He's back at the White House, doing a balcony appearance and gasping like a fish out of water.  My guess is that he ordered his doctors to pump him full of whatever would keep him vertical just so he could boast his strength at beating the disease.  Didn't PM Boris Johnson have a period of reasonably good health a few days after initial treatment, and then relapse so hard he had to be placed in intensive care?

Quote
Edit to add: On the other hand, there's a long tradition of being coy or otherwise ... creative ... with the truth in regards to Presidential medical issues.

For sure.  Notable examples include President F.D. Roosevelt's polio and President Reagan's early-stage dementia.  I think the public feels differently when it's a preventable, communicable disease that he publicly mocked.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 05, 2020, 09:02:02 PM
Really feeling this energy...

(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ShrillDelayedAmphibian-size_restricted.gif)

”Look, am healthy!  Vital like bull!"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 06, 2020, 04:35:57 AM
Not that there was much cognitive function on display there to begin with in the Very Stable Genius.

I wonder if that would qualify the meds as placebos, then.  ;D

He's back at the White House, doing a balcony appearance and gasping like a fish out of water.  My guess is that he ordered his doctors to pump him full of whatever would keep him vertical just so he could boast his strength at beating the disease.  Didn't PM Boris Johnson have a period of reasonably good health a few days after initial treatment, and then relapse so hard he had to be placed in intensive care?



Pumping him full of a strong steroid such as dexamethasone would do that. Looking at the side-effects though makes me hope that the guy carrying the nuke football stays well away from Trump.

Yes to the comment about Johnson. The press was full of "he's doing fine" until he crashed and was placed into ICU. On day 8 of his infection he posted a video saying that he had a temperature and was in isolation. Two days later he was in critical care and being given oxygen although he was never on a ventilator or CPAP machine. It has been reported that he was borderline for being mechanically ventilated.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on October 06, 2020, 08:17:49 AM
There is growing skepticism that he actually had the disease.

The Congressman representing my district was one of the first government leaders to have the disease, back in February or March.  He's young and fit, with no comorbidities.  Two months later he gave interviews saying he still could not shake the cough and fatigue.  He was in the hospital for well over a week and lost something like 15 pounds.

But yes, sending the message that COVID-19 really is nothing to fear is just about the worst thing a President could say right now.
You Americans, eh?  You'd never get a British leader pulling a stunt like that.

Oh. Hold on. tho'....?

It's strange, how that infection varies in effect. I know a girl (bikini-fitness-athlete) who hangs on the back of a dump truck, collecting household garbage, who was tested positive for antibodies in june. Only time she had been sick, was end of feburary, before the nation-wide lockdown. Her symptoms were very mild, over in a couple of days.

She was tested positive, because she woke up, paralysed in one side of her face. That was from borrelia. Took about a month of antibiotics to get back to normal.

edit: spelling
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on October 06, 2020, 08:44:53 AM
Well, this played out pretty much exactly as I expected it to. I hate being right sometimes.

So Trump now thinks the COVID-19 tests are maybe not reliable because someone tested negative repeatedly then their latest test was positive. Clearly there can be no other explanation for this....

I don't wish this illness on anyone, but I find myself fervently wishing that Trump does not get it, because if he gets it and recovers can you imagine what his deuded sense of self-importance would make of that?!

His whole attitude of how 'he' beat the disease is typical Trump, utterly unable to conceive of the fact that he beat it because he had help from medical experts and medication devised by scientists and doctors. Now he's advising people not to let it dominate them when over 200,000 Americans are dead because of COVID. People on his team are criticising Biden for not getting it, as if Trump is now an expert because he's actually had it. I even saw someone tweeting how suspect it was that Trump and his team are getting it and Biden and his cronies are not, even though the reason for that difference is abundantly clear to anyone with half a functioning brain.

I hope America recovers from COVID and Trump, I really do.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on October 06, 2020, 09:09:23 AM
He hasn't beat it yet, though. He's mostly posturing (and, as usual, lying). None the less, I agree with your comment; anything good that happens is his achievement alone, anything bad is someone else's fault.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 06, 2020, 10:40:58 AM
Her symptoms were very mild, over in a couple of days.

Most cases do not require hospitalization.  My two friends, both young professional ballet dancers, simply quarantined at home and had a "couple of rough days."

Yes to the comment about Johnson. The press was full of "he's doing fine" until he crashed and was placed into ICU.

The same was true of our own Herman Cain, one-time candidate for President.  If President Trump follows Cain's timeline, he'll be in the thick of it right around Election Day.

Well, this played out pretty much exactly as I expected it to. I hate being right sometimes.

Mr Trump being so monotonically predictable probably has a little bit to do with that.

Quote
His whole attitude of how 'he' beat the disease is typical Trump, utterly unable to conceive of the fact that he beat it because he had help from medical experts and medication devised by scientists and doctors. Now he's advising people not to let it dominate them when over 200,000 Americans are dead because of COVID.

The President has a whole circle of functionaries willing to feed that ego trip.  Ivanka Trump is purportedly behind the photo ops showing the President allegedly working hard while being treated.  Others such as Kellyanne Conway have praised the President for his personal strength in overcoming COVID-19, ignoring the extraordinary medical care.  And in pure Trumpian form, he hasn't said a single word about the millions of other people who had to suffer through the disease aided only by America's failing healthcare system, and the hundreds of thousands who have died.  No thought for anyone but himself.

Quote
I even saw someone tweeting how suspect it was that Trump and his team are getting it and Biden and his cronies are not, even though the reason for that difference is abundantly clear to anyone with half a functioning brain.

But conspiracy theories are much more fun to believe.

Quote
I hope America recovers from COVID and Trump, I really do.

Some form of America will survive, just as some form of Russia has survived over the past 200 years.  We're a giant, strategically important, resource-rich land mass with hundreds of millions of reasonably intelligent, hard-working people.  That's a juggernaut.  What gets made of that is anyone's guess at this point.

...anything good that happens is his achievement alone, anything bad is someone else's fault.

There's no limit to what you can overcome if you have a taxpayer-funded private helicopter to airlift you from the hospital in your taxpayer-funded house to your other taxpayer-funded private hospital suite.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 06, 2020, 11:04:16 AM
I hope Trump survives if only so there won't be thousands of conspiracy theories about how "the radical left killed Trump with a weaponized Chinese virus". I guess that's coming regardless of whether he survives or not, but it will be worse if he dies.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 06, 2020, 11:06:46 AM
There's no limit to what you can overcome if you have a taxpayer-funded private helicopter to airlift you from the hospital in your taxpayer-funded house to your other taxpayer-funded private hospital suite.

That $750 he paid in taxes sure went a long way.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 06, 2020, 12:04:10 PM
I think it's certain that he has it, and I've followed the same logic to get to that point by which you can refute any other conspiracy theory.

1.  Lying that he has it is internally inconsistent with his known lies.  He never lies to put himself into a position of weakness, even if it's to boast that he then got out of it.  We know he believes weakness, including and perhaps especially sickness, is a moral failing.  About the only thing he considers such.  He would never claim to be sick when he wasn't, and no one would be able to persuade him to.

2.  He's been ignoring basic health precautions all along.  Frankly, it's a miracle he didn't get it long since, despite his germophobia.

3.  Those around him are causing the DC statistics--which were mostly getting under control--to spike.  It's not just his inner circle, either, though that list is long.  It's things like the White House housekeeping staff.  It should start appearing in Secret Service agents, too.

It's also worth noting that, when Herman Cain was at this stage, he was claiming to be fine.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 06, 2020, 12:31:15 PM
I hope Trump survives if only so there won't be thousands of conspiracy theories about how "the radical left killed Trump with a weaponized Chinese virus". I guess that's coming regardless of whether he survives or not, but it will be worse if he dies.

As Jason points out, there are already conspiracy theories that that the President was intentionally infected by his political enemies, and that this is why the other party has fewer infections.  (My Congressman, whom I mentioned yesterday as a survivor, is a Democrat.)  Those will never go away, regardless of the medical outcome in the President's case.  There's also the conspiracy theory that his "miraculous" recovery was the result of his being given the secret serum that we've had all along, the conventional wisdom in American medicine being that it's more lucrative to treat diseases than to cure them.  Those conspiracy theories will never go away either.  And that's because there's profit in them.  Fox News is the biggest example of pushing conspiracies for profit.  But you also have talk radio, their kingpins being Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh.   These appear to be far more insidious mindworms than just the one television channel pretending to be news.  As long as these unchecked sociopaths control the minds of voters, politicians will have to bow to them.

Then there are those who hope the President survives to be defeated at the election and then prosecuted for his various crimes relating to his failed businesses.

That $750 he paid in taxes sure went a long way.

Exactly.  Which is -- from Donald Trump's point of view -- he got a great deal and that's literally all that matters.  Just like Trump got a whole bunch of real-estate work done for free by stiffing his contractors.  This is the great American plutocracy at work.  Trump literally does not care who pays for his world-class health care or his golf trips to Florida.  He's never been on the giving end of anything, or ever had to work his way up from nothing.  He's lived his whole life moving from one grift to another.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 06, 2020, 12:35:05 PM
Lying that he has it is internally inconsistent with his known lies.  He never lies to put himself into a position of weakness, even if it's to boast that he then got out of it.

And more to the point, he would never stage something that he knew would cause the stock market to fall.

Quote
He's been ignoring basic health precautions all along.  Frankly, it's a miracle he didn't get it long since, despite his germophobia.

It's a miracle aided, I would say, by those around him working out of his sight, behind the scenes, to maintain what semblance of sanitation they could get away with.

Quote
Those around him are causing the DC statistics--which were mostly getting under control--to spike.  It's not just his inner circle, either, though that list is long.  It's things like the White House housekeeping staff.  It should start appearing in Secret Service agents, too.

That's what I meant by this being too big for the GOP to stage.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on October 06, 2020, 04:19:28 PM
Quote
Coast Guard aide Jayna McCarron, a member of the White House Military Office, and one of the President's valets also tested positive for the virus on Tuesday. McCarron is part of the crew that safeguards the nuclear "football" containing codes for the US nuclear arsenal. The office is a vital cog in operations that provides communications, food, transportation and valet services at the White House complex. The President's valet, who is also active-duty military, had travelled with the President last week, according to people familiar with the matter.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/trump-back-at-white-house-compares-covid-19-to-seasonal-flu-20201007-p562n7.html
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 06, 2020, 05:10:11 PM
I think even Stephen King has given up.  Nobody would believe this year if it were pitched as a story.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 06, 2020, 05:18:19 PM
Just reading some of his tweets, a question:- If Trump was declared insane (and I seriously think he is) what would happen?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on October 06, 2020, 06:06:06 PM
On the bright side - you can now purchase a unique commemorative coin so you'll always remember how Trump defeated Coronavirus, with only his bare hands...  ;D

https://www.whitehousegiftshop.com/product-p/trump-defeats-covid.htm

The "note from the designer" is worthy of a Bulwer-Lytton prize!

[ Not being familiar with US Presidential affairs, I have to ask if this sort of blatant sales pitch is normal, or something uniquely Trumpian? ]
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 06, 2020, 07:52:14 PM
Just reading some of his tweets, a question:- If Trump was declared insane (and I seriously think he is) what would happen?

We navigate the political and jurisdictional nightmare of the 25th Amendment.  "Declaring" the President insane requires convincing a large number of his toadies to commit political suicide by doing so.  The President may declare himself unfit, even temporarily.  This has been done by other Presidents who underwent anesthesia or other such procedures.  By rights President Trump should have signed a 25th Amendment declaration before decamping to Walter Reed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 06, 2020, 07:53:30 PM
Not being familiar with US Presidential affairs, I have to ask if this sort of blatant sales pitch is normal, or something uniquely Trumpian?

Trumpian.  He doesn't know how to do anything except peddle his name as a brand.  However, Snopes confirms that this site has nothing officially to do with the White House or any other office in the U.S. government.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on October 07, 2020, 05:25:34 AM
Not being familiar with US Presidential affairs, I have to ask if this sort of blatant sales pitch is normal, or something uniquely Trumpian?

Trumpian.  He doesn't know how to do anything except peddle his name as a brand.  However, Snopes confirms that this site has nothing officially to do with the White House or any other office in the U.S. government.
Ah, so just someone cashing in on the Trump frenzy  :D  Well, even though I think it's tacky and tasteless, I have to admire the clever marketing and ability to turn disaster into profit...  ;)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 07, 2020, 07:15:43 AM
Shameless plagiarism but I have no idea who to credit.
Captain Trump of RMS Titanic.


Modified list and still got it wrong..  ::) Ah Third time lucky..
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on October 07, 2020, 07:24:10 AM

  Well, even though I think it's tacky and tasteless,

That could be the title of the next book about Trump.


 However, Snopes confirms that this site has nothing officially to do with the White House or any other office in the U.S. government.

He would make a great member of Donald's inner circle... delusions of grandeur, unbelievable achievments...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianniniceo
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on October 11, 2020, 03:13:50 AM
2000 people at a White House rally, hosted by a positive testing President, just one week after the super spreader event. Many attendees not wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Pure insanity
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 11, 2020, 05:11:13 PM
Not to mention campaigning on government property.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on October 11, 2020, 07:41:25 PM
I don't think he ever really stopped.

And he and his team seem to being doing everything they can to spread the virus; basically take the medical advice and do the opposite. Social distancing? We'll shake hands and hug. Masks? Nope, no masks, up close and personal.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 12, 2020, 11:37:20 AM
I imagine these people are all inherited wealth, the people in Trump's circle.  So being ignorant, smug, selfish, greedy, and indifferent to the plight of others got them where they are.  Why would they do anything different now?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on October 12, 2020, 12:19:37 PM
Well, also "rules don't apply to me." Unfortunately for them, physical rules - physiology, physics, etc. - are indifferent to your wealth & station.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on October 12, 2020, 03:56:23 PM
So, are we going to see a 'Trump Slump' in the next few days, with him collapsing and requiring a return to hospital?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on October 12, 2020, 06:06:08 PM
So, are we going to see a 'Trump Slump' in the next few days, with him collapsing and requiring a return to hospital?

Based on what I understand about the progression of Covid-19, I think he is past the worst of it.  He may continue to suffer some after-effects, such as the noticeable shortness of breath, but he'll probably make a decent recovery.  Despite being older and obese, he also has the best medical care available and access to treatments nobody else will get, so it's not too surprising.

Of course this will play right into his narrative of it being nothing serious, and we'll no doubt here more "pronouncements" on the subject very soon  ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on October 12, 2020, 11:35:18 PM
So, are we going to see a 'Trump Slump' in the next few days, with him collapsing and requiring a return to hospital?
Probably not.  Trump went to the hospital and got the very best of care and follow-up that few other people will get until they are actually very sick.  I don't think we can track Trump's expected course to take during an illness with the average American's
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 14, 2020, 11:32:21 AM
I think it's still the case in my state that you can't even get tested until you have symptoms consistent with the disease.  Access to hospitals is rationed; only cases that require hospitalization are accepted.  The notion that one can check into a hospital (of any quality) "as a precaution" simply doesn't exist in the U.S. for anyone except the most privileged.  But in practical terms, it means that a hospital physician doesn't see an ordinary case until it has progressed already to a life-threatening stage.

Now I don't recall if we ever learned whether the President's blood oxygen level dipped that low, or whether he was on supplemental oxygen.  But those would qualify as hospital cases in my state -- not critical/intensive care, but hospitalization.  And he was already in the hospital when and if that occurred.  Not just Donald Trump, but other Republicans infected recently have gone all out to downplay the seriousness of the disease and to hold up their privileged cases as somehow typical.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 14, 2020, 08:40:38 PM
My wife and I voted this morning - got to the polling place about 10 minutes before it opened, line was already around the back of the building.  Took us about 40 minutes altogether. 

Travis County (Austin and surroundings) is using new polling machines that have a touch-screen interface, but print a paper ballot that you can examine before depositing it in the ballot reader.  The only hitch is the ballot reader doesn't read the human-readable portion, but the barcode printed at the top, so there's still room for shenanigans.  But, it's an improvement over the old system where you didn't have any sort of auditing ability.   

Turnout in TX is at record levels.  Per WSJ:

Quote
In Harris County, the nation’s third-largest county, which includes Houston, turnout surpassed record numbers set the first day in 2016 five hours before polls closed, according to County Clerk Chris Hollins, a Democrat. By the time polls closed in the evening, 128,186 people had voted in person, nearly double the 67,741 on the first day of 2016. Other counties across the state also reported record-breaking first-day numbers.
...
As of Monday, there were 16.9 million Texans registered to vote, up 300,000 from three weeks ago and up 1.8 million since October 2016, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. In Travis County, which includes Austin, 97% of estimated eligible voters are now registered, according to the voter registrar.

Now, that 97% means dick if people don't actually get to the polls, but based on the numbers yesterday, I think most of them will.

Vote by mail?  In TX, mail-in voting is restricted.  You either have to be over 65, disabled, in jail (but otherwise eligible to vote), or prove that you will be out of your home county for the duration of the election.  Abbott's one-mail-in-drop-box-per-county shenanigans may very well bite Republicans in the ass, since that will make it harder for their most reliable demographic (home-bound seniors) to vote. 

As of right now, this minute, Biden has 290 electoral votes based on state polls per 270towin.com.  As of right now, all of FL, GA, NC, OH, and IA are toss-ups - they could all break for Trump and not affect that number.  Biden would have to lose PA and one of MI, WI, MN, or AZ to lose the electoral vote; all currently lean D, but are not anywhere near solid.  OTOH, FL and NC have flipped between toss-up and lean D over the last couple of weeks - it's not inconceivable one or the other could go for Biden. 

I would giggle for a solid hour if TX broke for Biden - that would be the first D we picked since Carter.  Right now we lean R (which is a shock in itself, we're usually much more solid), and I fully expect that to hold through election day, but ... giggle.  For a solid hour. 

But...

This is day 2 of early voting.  There are another 19 days left before the shouting is done.  Things can still go very pear-shaped.  No sleep until Biden takes the oath of office.  If you are a registered voter in the US, VOTE.  Do it tomorrow.  Do not wait until Nov 3. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 15, 2020, 01:11:04 AM
I think it's still the case in my state that you can't even get tested until you have symptoms consistent with the disease.  Access to hospitals is rationed; only cases that require hospitalization are accepted.  The notion that one can check into a hospital (of any quality) "as a precaution" simply doesn't exist in the U.S. for anyone except the most privileged.  But in practical terms, it means that a hospital physician doesn't see an ordinary case until it has progressed already to a life-threatening stage.

Now I don't recall if we ever learned whether the President's blood oxygen level dipped that low, or whether he was on supplemental oxygen.  But those would qualify as hospital cases in my state -- not critical/intensive care, but hospitalization.  And he was already in the hospital when and if that occurred.  Not just Donald Trump, but other Republicans infected recently have gone all out to downplay the seriousness of the disease and to hold up their privileged cases as somehow typical.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/519533-trump-given-supplemental-oxygen-on-friday-white-house-doctor He was at some point, possibly more than once.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 15, 2020, 10:32:14 AM
Travis County (Austin and surroundings) is using new polling machines that have a touch-screen interface

Historically those have had problems with calibration that others have reported as vote-rigging.  The place where you touch isn't properly aligned with the image on the screen.  It makes it look like the machine has been rigged to cast votes for a particular candidate regardless of where you touch.  It's usually not Diebold's fault.  (They make most voting terminals in the U.S., but their bread and butter is ATMs.) Some counties don't store their voting machines in climate-controlled storage when not in use.  Temperature fluctuation causes the alignment to drift.  Then the precinct employees may not be trained in how to calibrate them, or know that it has to be done.  They just set them up and plug them in.

Quote
...but print a paper ballot that you can examine before depositing it in the ballot reader.  The only hitch is the ballot reader doesn't read the human-readable portion, but the barcode printed at the top, so there's still room for shenanigans.  But, it's an improvement over the old system where you didn't have any sort of auditing ability.

Indeed, our county's most modern voting machines have the same paper readout.  Where intentional vote-tampering has been attempted, the voting machine itself was never the target.  It's just too cumbersome to rig enough of them to affect an election of any size.  The soft target is the county- and state-level tabulators that come with the system.  In many cases all you have to do is hack into an unencrypted database on a Microsoft server.  Only in the recent few election cycles have those been adequately secured.

Quote
Now, that 97% means dick if people don't actually get to the polls, but based on the numbers yesterday, I think most of them will.

Good for Texas!  This election will be one for the record books no matter how you slice or who wins.

Quote
Vote by mail?  In TX, mail-in voting is restricted.

The entire state of Utah has voted primarily by mail in the past two national general elections.  My county has voted almost entirely by mail in its local elections for the past 10 years.  Aside from the occasional printer's glitch or a couple of well-meaning parents filling out ballots on behalf of their adult children away on religious ministry, there have been no irregularities.  There is a robust, politically accountable system for canceling ballots that are misdirected or cast improperly.  (Due to a programming error, the county sent primary-election ballots prematurely to 17-year-olds who had pre-registered to vote in the general election after they turned 18.) There is a web site where I can check on the status of my ballot.

My ballot arrived in the mail yesterday.  Once cast, it can either go back out with today's domestic mail, or I can drop it at any polling place, or at any of four official drop boxes in my metropolitan area.  (Several more throughout the county.) None of this has been in response to the pandemic or to the interference with the U.S. Postal Service.  This is simply where Utah -- a staunchly Republican state -- has always wanted to go.  It wouldn't surprise me if the eggheads in the state's technology division were working on a way to vote safely and accountably online in the future.

Quote
Abbott's one-mail-in-drop-box-per-county shenanigans may very well bite Republicans in the ass, since that will make it harder for their most reliable demographic (home-bound seniors) to vote.

I've never figured out that logic either.  The Trump campaign, and a lot of other Republican campaigns, seem to be clinging to lightning rods that will alienate seniors, including cuts to healthcare.  And letting the pandemic run amok as a "Democrat hoax" risks a more sinister reduction of that core demographic.  They seem to be running entirely on the law-and-order against Antifa-terrorists platform.

Anyway, when Utah switched to primarily voting by mail, there was no statistically significant partisan skew in the outcomes.  There was a significant increase in overall voter turnout.  Our state's numbers reflect what's been reported elsewhere:  Republicans love voting by mail and don't see anything wrong with it.  I think voter suppression by other means (e.g., poll taxes, ID checks) have become such an ingrained part of the Republican playbook that they just apply them categorically without stopping to think that those previous efforts relied on voting being an in-person activity.

Quote
I would giggle for a solid hour if TX broke for Biden - that would be the first D we picked since Carter.

The last Democrat who carried Utah was Lyndon B. Johnson.  But then we have a nearly negligible number of electoral votes, so no one bothers to campaign in our state.  I'm still flabbergasted that the VP debate was held just up the hill from my house.  Utah rarely rates political attention beyond accusations of provincialism.  We're still giggling about The Fly.

Quote
Things can still go very pear-shaped.

Remember 2016.  Polls don't tell us the real story.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 15, 2020, 12:04:08 PM
We've got our ballots; I think I'm going to sit down with Simon today and teach him how to vote.  Because that's how you raise new voters, after all; you normalize voting.  Why do I vote in every election?  Because I learned as a small child that voting in every election was just what we do.  He's also going to learn a bit about how I do my research, which is another valuable thing to know, because it's about evaluating sources and so forth.  Something a lot of people clearly cannot do!

But yeah, I wonder if "make voting harder for the elderly during a pandemic" is going to be what turns the tide--I wonder if some of the less hardcore Republican voters are going to realize that their ostensible leadership doesn't care if they live or die so long as there are enough people voting Republican to keep the leaders in power.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 15, 2020, 05:06:24 PM
We've got our ballots; I think I'm going to sit down with Simon today and teach him how to vote.  Because that's how you raise new voters, after all; you normalize voting.

Worked for me.  My parents always conspicuously voted, and took me with them when they did.  It's what you do.

Quote
He's also going to learn a bit about how I do my research, which is another valuable thing to know, because it's about evaluating sources and so forth.  Something a lot of people clearly cannot do!

Not just evaluating sources, but deciding upon criteria.  Are we issue voters?  Candidate voters?  Party voters?

Quote
But yeah, I wonder if "make voting harder for the elderly during a pandemic" is going to be what turns the tide--I wonder if some of the less hardcore Republican voters are going to realize that their ostensible leadership doesn't care if they live or die so long as there are enough people voting Republican to keep the leaders in power.

Fox News and talk radio.

We're not making it harder for the elderly to vote.  We're "Protecting everyone, including the elderly, from the widespread voter fraud that would otherwise result."  Sure it means grandma can't vote.  But it also means -- according to their messaging -- that those evil Antifa/Democrat/anarchists can't stuff the mailboxes with fake ballots.  And we're not taking away your healthcare insurance.  We're "Repealing that failed, unconstitutional, expensive Obamacare that gives your high premiums to freeloaders, so that we can replace it with something better."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 15, 2020, 06:29:14 PM
We've got our ballots; I think I'm going to sit down with Simon today and teach him how to vote.  Because that's how you raise new voters, after all; you normalize voting.  Why do I vote in every election?  Because I learned as a small child that voting in every election was just what we do.  He's also going to learn a bit about how I do my research, which is another valuable thing to know, because it's about evaluating sources and so forth.  Something a lot of people clearly cannot do!

But yeah, I wonder if "make voting harder for the elderly during a pandemic" is going to be what turns the tide--I wonder if some of the less hardcore Republican voters are going to realize that their ostensible leadership doesn't care if they live or die so long as there are enough people voting Republican to keep the leaders in power.

We voted a couple of weekends ago in this weekend's ACT election (yes, amazingly, the US Presidential election isn't the only election affected by COVID-19!).

Of course, so much about the way democracy operates in Australia is different from the USA in subtle ways: voting is compulsory, our electoral system encourages minor parties, election day is a Saturday, elections are run by independent government agencies, electoral redistribution is handled independently of parliament, and so on. (And our elections are simply for the government - I get the impression American elections involve voting on a bunch of issues and positions?)

Up until now we've had paper voting, which might be slow but at least the ballot papers can be scrutinised and stored for later re-counting (lost ballot boxes notwithstanding - that was a scandal!). Thanks to the virus, this is the first time we've done touchscreen voting. I think it was available in the previous election but wasn't nearly as widely used.

And a little over half the electorate has already voted...so there won't be nearly as much opportunity for primary schools to make money out of selling democracy sausages! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_sausage)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 15, 2020, 06:42:58 PM
Incidentally, speaking of democracy sausages, you know the pandemic is under control in a state or territory when Bunnings (chain of hardware megastores) starts offering sausage sizzles to community groups (https://www.bunnings.com.au/about-us/in-our-community)

Quote
Bunnings’ community sausage sizzles returned in Tasmania and the Northern Territory on 11th July 2020 in selected stores. They are also back up and running in selected stores in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia as of 25th July 2020.

Sausage sizzles will return to selected stores in ACT from 3rd October 2020 and in selected NSW stores from 10th October 2020.

In Victoria, we continue to follow the latest government restrictions and guidelines and will look to recommence sausage sizzles when possible.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 15, 2020, 09:19:48 PM
[A]mazingly, the US Presidential election isn't the only election affected by COVID-19!).

Wait, you mean there are other countries besides the United States?  Many Americans would be surprised to learn that.

Sarcasm aside...

I think compulsory voting would be a great thing for the United States, if only to defuse all the childish attempts at voter suppression.  Back in the day, I had two Australian nationals on staff -- back in the dot-com boom.  And yes, I had to give them leave to go to Australia and vote.  I was happy to do it.

There is a growing push to make Election Day a federal holiday in the United States.  As it stands, there are laws requiring employers to give employees time off to vote, on Election Day.  We vote on a Tuesday for...reasons. Weekends are out because traditionally government employees get weekends off.  Monday is out because it would have required the colonials to travel to the polls the previous Sunday, the hallowed Sabbath.  Wednesday is out because that's market day for rural folk, which also takes out Thursday.  If you travel on Thursday and vote on Friday, the poll workers have to count the votes on Saturday.  So you travel on Monday, vote Tuesday morning, then travel back the rest of Tuesday.  We've tried to move Election Day to a weekend.  (The Tuesday after the first Monday in November is not constitutional, merely statutory.)  It never passes.  Americans vote on Tuesdays.  We've always voted on Tuesdays.  We will always vote on Tuesdays.  It is thus.

Electoral districts and constituencies are a lightning rod in American politics.  It seems the Framers actually really did consider that constituent districting should be a political decision.  [Here follows a long stream of profanities.  The dogs are now hiding under the bed.]

At the national level, only candidates are voted on.  But federal elections always coincide with state and local elections, for convenience.  There one unified ballot containing all the votable candidates and issues at the federal, state, and local levels.  Those other issues on the ballot depend on state policy.  Some states, for example, have confidence votes for judges.  Our state requires a full plebiscite vote on proposed amendments to the state constitution -- "Shall the Utah Constitution be amended to...," etc.  It also allows ballot initiatives that are essentially legislation; if they pass, they become law just as if the legislature had passed them and the governor had signed them.  If they pass with more than a two-thirds majority, the legislature may not repeal them.  Not all states provide for this.  Our state's city and county governments require a public vote to authorize issuing bonds, and they're generally noncontroversial

Ironically one of our last election's voter initiatives proposed to turn over electoral redistricting at the state level to a non-partisan commission.  This would have prevented the gerrymandering that is so infamous in American electoral politics.  But since it passed, but not with a two-thirds majority, our state legislature moved quickly to repeal it in substance.

As far as polling "sizzles" go, this seems like something Americans should have though of first.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 16, 2020, 12:06:54 PM
We didn't because, in the old days, the parties offered food and (adult) beverages to people voting for them, and who needed the competition?  Then, it became clear that this was bribery, and I think that's shaded any similar attempt to do fundraisers.

The two US states I've lived in have both had initiative processes, and I didn't realize until adulthood that not all states did.  It's got the failing the Founding Fathers worried about with direct democracy, frankly--my state passed, in the same year, a massive tax cut that we're still not recovered from and a pay raise for state employees without realizing how that would work.  On the other hand, my state also passed legalized marijuana, and we had a formal system of civil unions passed by popular vote . . . and then a few years later passed marriage equality by popular vote.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 16, 2020, 01:12:30 PM
Our legislature is special.  Many members run unopposed because they come from such staunchly Republican districts that no Democrat bothers.  Whoever the local party committee selects as the candidate is who gets the seat.  As such, our legislature never feels especially beholden to the people, either to serve their needs or hide their corruption.

We passed an initiative to legalize medical marijuana.  It was years in the making, with all kinds of studies and input from all sides.  It had polled to pass with a clear majority. The legislature attempted to change the initiative rules at the last minute.  (They're still trying to make it nearly impossible to get an initiative on the ballot.)  When the initiative passed with just under a two-thirds majority, the legislature called itself back into session to "fix" the new law.  Instead of a competitive market for growers, the "fix" included state bid process, a licensing application fee of $100,000, lots of curiously tailored regulations on applicants, and the number of growers capped to six, which happened to coincide with the capability and number of the agrarian interests owned and controlled by prominent legislators and their friends.  The "fixed" regulations governing who could grow, distribute, sell, and buy medical marijuana were a mess of contradictions, largely mandated by the Mormon church.  The legislature is still fixing the "fix," because they rushed it out without really thinking anything through.  This all happened within 30 days after the election.

The fact is that many state legislatures these days don't even really think about or consider the most important bills they pass.  Most are simply copied from model state codes or activist foundations that write them and mail them out.  It's always embarrassing when journalists ask our legislators in the capitol lobby about some particular legislation, and they can't speak even a single intelligent word about it.

Because our legislature is so inept and corrupt and flagrantly disconnected from the public, we really do need the option of voter initiatives, even at the risk of passing uninformed laws.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 16, 2020, 06:00:05 PM
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/california-wildfire-disaster-assistance_n_5f898775c5b6dc2d17f61c28?ri18n=true&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013
There's a simple explanation: revenge. California didn't vote for him last election in any significant quantity, so this is his petty act of retaliation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ajv on October 17, 2020, 01:34:56 AM
amazingly, the US Presidential election isn't the only election affected by COVID-19!

To emphasize the point, I've just got back from voting in the New Zealand general election. Election day is a Saturday. Voting is not compulsory. Turnout last election was about 80%.

The election had been delayed by about a month due to COVID-19, but now the whole country is back at the lowest alert level and life within New Zealand is essentially back to normal.

I normally vote at a nearby school but it has been undergoing some building renovations recently so, at extreme inconvenience ... I had to go two minutes further away to another school. In order to reduce queues, polling places have been open for a few days earlier than usual and there were more voting places around (I counted six polling place signs driving to and from the supermarket.)

The queues certainly were reduced. When I turned up, the school hall was empty of voters and the voting workers (or observers) outnumbered me six to one. I had to hand sanitise and present the torn-off rectangle ("EasyVote" card) of the election information letter that had been sent out earlier. This isn't really a voter ID card - it's just a page and line number reference that helps the voting worker to quickly look up the voter in the electoral rolls.

I was handed two voting papers with a total of four choices to be made (paper voting).

The first was the vote for the general election. We use a voting system called MMP (Mixed-Member Proportional) to elect the members of parliament so you get two votes. The first vote is an electorate vote to select which of the candidates (11 in my case) you would like to represent your electorate. The candidate with the greatest number of votes is elected. The second vote is a party vote. All the party votes across the entire country are totalled and the proportion of votes each party gets determines the proportion of members of that party in the parliament (after some magic rounding). So if a party gets 4 electorate MPs (from the electorate votes) but get 10% of the total party vote requiring 12 (of 120) total MPs they will get 8 additional members from their party list.

The second voting paper was for two referendums. It is pretty rare to have referendums. One was a vote about cannabis legalisation and a second about a euthanasia option for people with terminal illnesses.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 17, 2020, 11:20:57 AM
On my ballot was a proposed amendment to the Utah Constitution repealing the part that said involuntarily servitude could be imposed as a punishment for crime.  Really.  I had to go look it up in the constitution to convince myself it actually said that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 17, 2020, 11:28:28 AM
Ava DuVernay made an excellent documentary on that particular subject that's available on (US) Netflix.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 17, 2020, 12:17:56 PM
Yes, 13th is in my queue.  It's a very long queue.  In anticipation of another winter lockdown, I've been spending most of my free time outdoors.  Living in a relatively desolate place gives me the opportunity to socially-distance at kilometer scale.  The dogs and I have spent a lot of time combing the lake shore around the ruins of Saltair.  It's like mudlarking, except you can't keep anything: it's a state archaeological site.

I'll work through the queue as the weather turns colder.  Thanks for the endorsement, though.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 17, 2020, 08:35:08 PM
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-18/us-tyranny-of-merit/12774726

I think this article crystalises some of my thinking about the USA - and it's certainly not all Trump's fault.

Quote
Regardless of who wins the US election, one thing is certain: it will be a victory for the meritocracy.

The meritocracy are the elite, the richest, most privileged of Americans who have a stranglehold on power and wealth.

Like the aristocracy of old they are distant from the rest of the population, often looking down on them, mocking them or exploiting them.

Like the aristocrats they party together, live alongside each other in the same wealthy suburbs and attend the same weddings, even if they supposedly represent different sides of politics...

The meritocracy has rigged the game to suit themselves, getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. Their children dominate entry to the best universities, a pathway to the richest careers ensuring this new royalty shores up its status for another generation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 17, 2020, 11:19:30 PM
Not sure 'meritocracy' is the right word . . .
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on October 18, 2020, 05:50:33 AM
We've got our ballots; I think I'm going to sit down with Simon today and teach him how to vote.  Because that's how you raise new voters, after all; you normalize voting.

Good on you! Excellent thinking.

My vote for the most intelligent answer to a question on TV throughout all of New Zealand's Election Day, Saturday 17 October 2020, was shown on two of our early-evening news broadcasts, Prime News, 5:30 pm and Newshub Live, TV3 6 pm.

Two children are seen leaving a polling booth with their parents. The video cuts to a close-up of the children.
Reporter: “What's it like seeing your parents going in there?”
Boy aged about 6 or 7 looks to his right and thinks for about one second then replies: “Sort of cool, 'cos I want to do it when I grow up.”
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 18, 2020, 12:38:51 PM
Not sure 'meritocracy' is the right word . . .

Definitely the wrong word.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 18, 2020, 01:46:22 PM
Not sure 'meritocracy' is the right word . . .

Definitely the wrong word.
Aye. Sure, they often claim to be, only getting million dollar loans from their fathers, no biggie, but, yes, most certainly the wrong word.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on October 18, 2020, 07:26:40 PM
The term is 'plutocracy' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy). US is indeed close to that system now, in effect, if not already there. 'Meritocracy' would be a system based on merit.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on October 18, 2020, 09:13:42 PM
Someone has already mentioned this in a regard however...... regardless of the result of the current US elections, when Trump is no longer President, he is going to be liable to a massive number of law suites (saying this caused this person to believe that; tweet incited people to riot, etc).

My understanding is that - short of impeachment - he cannot be held liable for an criminal acts whilst he is the President however once he has left office, he can be held liable. Is that correct? Can he be held liable for acts he committed whilst President? Again, my layman understanding is that he can but I would like to hear comments from people who are smarter and wiser than me.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Kiwi on October 18, 2020, 09:18:30 PM
My local newspaper of Palmerston North, New Zealand, today ran the following piece from The New York Times.
Quote
Manawatu Standard, Monday 19 October 2020, page 10
Views from around the world. These opinions are not necessarily shared by Stuff newspapers.
The New York Times – The case against Donald Trump
   Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.
   The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. But even as Americans wait to vote in lines that stretch for blocks through their towns and cities, Mr Trump is engaged in a full-throated assault on the integrity of that essential democratic process. The enormity and variety of Mr Trump’s misdeeds can feel overwhelming. Repetition has dulled the sense of outrage. This is the moment Americans must recover that sense of outrage.
   Mr Trump is a man of no integrity. He has repeatedly violated his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Now, in this moment of peril, it falls to the American people – even those who would prefer a Republican president – to preserve, protect and defend the United States by voting.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 19, 2020, 03:35:50 AM
Someone has already mentioned this in a regard however...... regardless of the result of the current US elections, when Trump is no longer President, he is going to be liable to a massive number of law suites (saying this caused this person to believe that; tweet incited people to riot, etc).

My understanding is that - short of impeachment - he cannot be held liable for an criminal acts whilst he is the President however once he has left office, he can be held liable. Is that correct? Can he be held liable for acts he committed whilst President? Again, my layman understanding is that he can but I would like to hear comments from people who are smarter and wiser than me.

I believe so. Nixon was pardoned in 1974 by President Ford for crimes committed whilst in office. Its worth remembering that the acceptance of a presidential pardon carries a confession of guilt.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 19, 2020, 04:13:37 AM
Someone has already mentioned this in a regard however...... regardless of the result of the current US elections, when Trump is no longer President, he is going to be liable to a massive number of law suites (saying this caused this person to believe that; tweet incited people to riot, etc).

My understanding is that - short of impeachment - he cannot be held liable for an criminal acts whilst he is the President however once he has left office, he can be held liable. Is that correct? Can he be held liable for acts he committed whilst President? Again, my layman understanding is that he can but I would like to hear comments from people who are smarter and wiser than me.

I believe so. Nixon was pardoned in 1974 by President Ford for crimes committed whilst in office. Its worth remembering that the acceptance of a presidential pardon carries a confession of guilt.

This is why I keep recalling the Julius Caesar scenario. He'd made a number of political enemies, and they wanted to prosecute him. But while he held the office of consul he couldn't be prosecuted. Then after being consul he was granted a province in northern Italy to govern as a proconsul (which was the basis of his conquest of Gaul), during which time he still couldn't be prosecuted. At the end of his governorship he was ordered to give up his command and return to Rome, and as he'd finally be a private citizen he'd be open to prosecution. Instead, he marched on Rome and triggered the first of a series of civil wars which lasted on and off for twenty years and which saw the end of the Republic and the start of the Empire.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 19, 2020, 10:30:02 AM
An ex-President can certainly be tried for crimes committed while in office.  However, the scope of what constitutes a crime doesn't reach as far as one would think.  Exercising poor judgment or dereliction of duty, for example, even to the extent that hundreds of thousands of people die needlessly is not something the judiciary can touch.  Courts can decide only whether an executive has acted lawfully, not whether he has acted wisely.  The latter is the purview of the electorate.  Naturally, ordinary crimes he may have committed are fair game, and that would include such things as corruption and influence peddling.  And I'm sure a U.S. attorney could find plenty of cases in which Donald Trump exercised the office of President unlawfully, not just ineptly or evilly.

There is a scenario in which Biden wins the election, whereupon Donald Trump immediately resigns the Presidency while still in power and the new President Pence grants him a full and complete pardon.  Contrary to some misinterpretations of Burdick v. United States, accepting a pardon is not a confession to judgment or evidence of guilt.  And Pence would be able to pardon Trump only for crimes as defined in federal law -- the United States Code and its subsidiary regulations.  Trump could still be liable under state criminal prosecutions, and the same set of facts can be tried under any jurisdiction that criminalizes them.

This unfolding dilemma may be what prompted the President to say that if he lost the election, he might leave the country.  He probably would have to do so in order to avoid spending the rest of his life defending against criminal charges.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 19, 2020, 11:59:49 AM
I genuinely believe he should be guilty of manslaughter on a massive scale, to the extent of crimes against humanity.  This wasn't just mismanagement; this was deliberate mismanagement in a crucial time that was for personal profit.  However, I'm also quite sure no one's going to prosecute that.  I can also definitely find examples of unlawful actions--can we say "emoluments clause," boys and girls?--that could be prosecuted.  And the State of New York has a list they're hoping to get him on any minute.

As to leaving the country, well, he'd have to find somewhere that would take him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 19, 2020, 01:08:33 PM

As to leaving the country, well, he'd have to find somewhere that would take him.

Or, more likely, somewhere that doesn't have an extradition agreement with the US.....
I'm sure that Putin would have him over for a nice cup of polonium tea. ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 19, 2020, 01:35:21 PM

As to leaving the country, well, he'd have to find somewhere that would take him.

Or, more likely, somewhere that doesn't have an extradition agreement with the US.....
I'm sure that Putin would have him over for a nice cup of polonium tea. ;D

I don't think moving to Russia would end well for Trump. He owes someone a lot of money, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is Putin.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 19, 2020, 01:46:38 PM
Trump could still be liable under state criminal prosecutions, and the same set of facts can be tried under any jurisdiction that criminalizes them.

As an aside, the US has long had a "dual sovereignty" doctrine such that charging someone for the same crime at the federal and state levels doesn't count as double jeopardy - it's not considered "the same offense" in the 5th amendment sense.  So even if Pence pardons Trump for, just for example, money laundering, the State of New York could still charge and try Trump for that same exact offense if it occurred within NY jurisdiction1

Even though SCOTUS recently reaffirmed that doctrine, do not be surprised if there's a challenge to it if such a scenario comes to pass.  I personally doubt such a scenario would happen (Trump manages to somehow surround himself with people ready, nay eager, to take the fall for him, and frankly I'd rather his enablers burn than Trump himself).  Trump has no filter, and he just says whatever pops into his head at that moment.  I'd take his statement of leaving the country at less than face value. 

The question of exactly what crimes he could be charged with is interesting, though.  We know there are all kinds of financial shenanigans at play, and I'm sure there's honest-to-God money laundering going through the White House itself.  But beyond that, I don't know.  Not a lawyer, don't play one on TV.     

1.  And convict.  To quote from a Watergate-era Doonesbury strip, "It would be a disservice ... to prejudge the man, but everything known to date could lead one to conclude he's guilty!  That's guilty!  Guilty guilty GUILTY!!!"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 19, 2020, 08:40:28 PM
As an aside, the US has long had a "dual sovereignty" doctrine such that charging someone for the same crime at the federal and state levels doesn't count as double jeopardy...

Even though SCOTUS recently reaffirmed that doctrine, do not be surprised if there's a challenge to it if such a scenario comes to pass.

Separate sovereignty is a longstanding principle, bolstered by a number of prior cases.  A number of factors mean we're thinking of it again.  Obviously first is that President Trump wants to pardon people and have that extinguish all liability in all jurisdictions.  We're also seeing more parallel prosecutions.  It used to be that if one jurisdiction was prosecuting, other jurisdictions wouldn't waste time and money doing the same thing.  And there are far more federal criminal laws now than there used to be.  Historically, state law defined most criminal activity.  There was no problem with double jeopardy when the actions didn't qualify as a crime under federal law.

Quote
Not a lawyer, don't play one on TV.

Well, I live with one so I can't escape it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 20, 2020, 11:20:53 AM
And convict.  To quote from a Watergate-era Doonesbury strip, "It would be a disservice ... to prejudge the man, but everything known to date could lead one to conclude he's guilty!  That's guilty!  Guilty guilty GUILTY!!!"

As I recall, that's the line that got the strip moved to the Opinions page in a lot of newspapers.  His son designs crossword puzzles, and this Sunday's puzzle had the clue "But ______ e-mails."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 20, 2020, 02:48:01 PM
Donald Trump has proven once again that he is the perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect:

Trump ‘Nobody Gets Hacked’ Video Goes Viral (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2020/10/20/trump-nobody-gets-hacked-video-goes-viral/#1dfe31d0529a)

Quote
Nobody gets hacked. To get hacked, you need somebody with 197 IQ and he needs about 15% of your password.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 21, 2020, 11:14:40 AM
But I thought he understood the cyber!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 21, 2020, 12:03:27 PM
I'm sure hackers around the world took that as a challenge to hack him. If he believes people can't be hacked then it probably means he doesn't take security seriously.

Also, if "people don't get hacked" then why was it such a big deal for Hillary Clinton to have her own email server?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 21, 2020, 01:08:37 PM
I'm sure hackers around the world took that as a challenge to hack him. If he believes people can't be hacked then it probably means he doesn't take security seriously.


Reminds me of this:
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/jeremy-clarkson-victim-of-id-fraud-after-publishing-bank-details/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 21, 2020, 01:28:52 PM
Reminds me of this:
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/jeremy-clarkson-victim-of-id-fraud-after-publishing-bank-details/

Wow.  ;D

Why would anyone tempt fate like that?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on October 21, 2020, 03:54:35 PM
Reminds me of this:
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/jeremy-clarkson-victim-of-id-fraud-after-publishing-bank-details/


Wow.  ;D

Why would anyone tempt fate like that?

You mean like tempting the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on October 21, 2020, 08:57:44 PM
Reminds me of this:
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/jeremy-clarkson-victim-of-id-fraud-after-publishing-bank-details/


Wow.  ;D

Why would anyone tempt fate like that?

You mean like tempting the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing?
"He'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards!” to quote the late, great, Sir Terry.
In Trump related news, his nominee for the US Supreme Court was a trustee of a school with very, very discriminatory policies, both before and during her trusteeship.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amy-coney-barrett-was-trustee-at-private-school-with-anti-gay-policies_n_5f8ff442c5b62333b2408c19?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013&utm_source=politics_fb&section=politics&utm_medium=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0uv3_g9qFujmKkw9iEZ9nd3Yqc5KyWP4lTmMR1HO3-oyF8sDazEFvgBQ4
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on October 21, 2020, 11:01:57 PM
Reminds me of this:
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/jeremy-clarkson-victim-of-id-fraud-after-publishing-bank-details/


Wow.  ;D

Why would anyone tempt fate like that?

You mean like tempting the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing?

It's okay, he can just go outside, turn around 3 times, and spit and curse.   
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 22, 2020, 12:22:29 PM
I'm sure hackers around the world took that as a challenge to hack him. If he believes people can't be hacked then it probably means he doesn't take security seriously.

Also, if "people don't get hacked" then why was it such a big deal for Hillary Clinton to have her own email server?

It didn't take long, did it?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/22/trump-twitter-hacked-dutch-researcher-password?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1603381243
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 22, 2020, 02:29:56 PM
Oh my god. Apparently his password was "maga2020!". If that is true he is a bigger idiot than I thought.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 22, 2020, 09:08:00 PM
Guessing obvious passwords still works.  The most effective technique is still spear-phishing.  You don't need to "know 15% of the password."  That's not even remotely close to how cryptography works, as most of you probably already know.  And you don't need a super high I.Q.  Most effective hacks are actually done with automated tools that even a teenager could download and apply.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 23, 2020, 04:05:32 AM
Oh my god. Apparently his password was "maga2020!". If that is true he is a bigger idiot than I thought.

Given that the alleged breach happened before Trumps speech, and given the way the autonomous sensory bulb that he refers to as his brain works, I'd hazard a guess that the speech was prompted by his security detail briefing him on the hack. Trump could not possibly conceive that his actions, his utter failure to understand basic security and his stupidity were responsible for someone guessing his password, so the way that he internalized the news was that he was breached by someone with superhuman intelligence or that they already had part of his password. Clearly someone who's uncle was in MIT and who posses such "good genes" would never be dumb enough to choose a simple guessable password! ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 23, 2020, 04:25:28 AM
Oh my god. Apparently his password was "maga2020!". If that is true he is a bigger idiot than I thought.

Colonel Sandurz: So the combination is one two three four five.

Lord Helmet: That's the stupidest combination I ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

President Scroob [entering the room]: Well, did it work?

Colonel Sandurz: We have the combination.

President Scroob: Great! What is it?

Colonel Sandurz: One two three four five.

President Scroob: One two three four five? That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!

Thank you Spaceballs.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 23, 2020, 04:32:30 AM
For 20 years the paasscode to the "nuclear football" was 8 zeroes.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/11/for-nearly-20-years-the-launch-code-for-us-nuclear-missiles-was-00000000/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 23, 2020, 12:01:02 PM
Do I tend to have fairly obvious passwords?  Yes.  No one wants my identity.  I don't have any money for them to steal.  Heck, the bills aren't even in my name.  They can't ruin my credit; I don't have any, and if they do, I wouldn't really notice, as I don't use my credit.  If I had money worth protecting, I'd take more care with my passwords.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on October 23, 2020, 04:52:00 PM
For 20 years the paasscode to the "nuclear football" was 8 zeroes.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/11/for-nearly-20-years-the-launch-code-for-us-nuclear-missiles-was-00000000/

I haven't checked out the link yet but if it is what I think then yes. They built various safety interlocks into the weapons but the DoD (USAF?) was afraid that complex codes were going to impede the ability to retaliate effectively, so they didn't "set" any codes.

Did it mention one of the Broken Arrow incidents where six of the seven interlocks failed?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 24, 2020, 10:16:53 PM
So, a data point in case anyone’s interested...

I live in Texas, just outside of Austin, often described as "the blueberry in the tomato soup."  Largely urban, populated mostly by lawyers, musicians, and code monkeys.  Strongly liberal, at least by Texas standards.  Today I had to drive out to Navasota, which is pretty much the polar opposite - largely rural, lots of farmers and ranchers, very conservative (socially more so than politically, but they do hate the soshulizm), home of billboard-sized yard signs for whichever Republican is running that year.  Back in 2016 all the signs were for Trump.

This year there were still plenty of Trump signs, but there were a significant number of Biden signs (including a billboard-sized one in front of one farm), along with Hegar signs (Dem candidate for Senate) and Siegel (House candidate).  In both Brenham and Navasota, I’d say it was between 7-3 and 6-4 Republican to Democratic signs, which is remarkable. 

I’m not going to say Texas is actually in play, but ... this is not following the pattern of the last few decades.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 25, 2020, 11:58:13 AM
There's one guy a few blocks away from me with a banner, which I firmly believe is why so many people around him have Biden signs.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 25, 2020, 12:48:29 PM
I live in Texas, just outside of Austin, often described as "the blueberry in the tomato soup."  Largely urban, populated mostly by lawyers, musicians, and code monkeys.  Strongly liberal, at least by Texas standards.

That describes Salt Lake City to a tee too.

Quote
I’m not going to say Texas is actually in play, but ... this is not following the pattern of the last few decades.

Utah is not in play, not like our whopping six electoral votes matter anyway.  The state is gerrymandered as perma-red.  Lyndon B. Johnson was the last Democratic candidate for President who carried Utah.  But the the eyes of the world are upon Texas.  This will be interesting.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on October 26, 2020, 09:48:29 PM
I hope this doesn't make me sound like too bad a person* but I figure the best outcome for the US right now is for Biden to win, but then die in office (or resign due health) a couple of months later, allowing Kamala Harris to take his place.




* I am a little evil but don't hold that against me.....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on October 27, 2020, 02:55:13 AM
I hope this doesn't make me sound like too bad a person* but I figure the best outcome for the US right now is for Biden to win, but then die in office (or resign due health) a couple of months later, allowing Kamala Harris to take his place.




* I am a little evil but don't hold that against me.....


I am sure you are not the only person who has.... ahem... entertained this thought.... I for one!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on October 27, 2020, 07:13:36 AM
I hope this doesn't make me sound like too bad a person* but I figure the best outcome for the US right now is for Biden to win, but then die in office (or resign due health) a couple of months later, allowing Kamala Harris to take his place.
Two years and one day later...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 27, 2020, 09:14:54 AM
I hope this doesn't make me sound like too bad a person* but I figure the best outcome for the US right now is for Biden to win, but then die in office (or resign due health) a couple of months later, allowing Kamala Harris to take his place.




* I am a little evil but don't hold that against me.....


I am sure you are not the only person who has.... ahem... entertained this thought.... I for one!

And just as strongly I hope not...

This is exactly what Trump supporters are predicting (Biden resigning, that is), and this is a particularly good example of not doing what your opponent wants - simply because that's what he wants. I think America can do without Trump supporter I-told-you-soes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 27, 2020, 01:57:13 PM
I fear a a greater dysfunction moving forward.  The Senate convened and worked in record time to put that horrible woman on the Supreme Court, precisely so that she could be in place to rule favorably on what is almost surely to be a contested election.  Then the Senate adjourned (not recessed -- that's important) for two weeks without passing sorely needed relief bills sent it it by the House, which have languished for weeks because the Senate Majority Leader (not an office spelled out in the Constitution) has partisan priorities.

As the White House, House of Representatives, and the Senate inevitably change hands, I fear that all productive lawmaking will cease as factions in Congress and the executive endlessly investigate each other, impeach each other, and wrestle for control over the judiciary.  Depending on the makeup of Congress during a prospective Joe Biden term as President, I predict he will be impeached as well.  And I fear impeachments will simply be a new feature of American politics.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Von_Smith on October 28, 2020, 11:03:32 AM
So, a data point in case anyone’s interested...

I live in Texas, just outside of Austin, often described as "the blueberry in the tomato soup."  Largely urban, populated mostly by lawyers, musicians, and code monkeys.  Strongly liberal, at least by Texas standards. 

There's a quote I've heard attributed to LBJ that in Texas politics there are three types of counties:  urban counties, rural counties, and Travis County.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 28, 2020, 03:58:11 PM
So, a data point in case anyone’s interested...

I live in Texas, just outside of Austin, often described as "the blueberry in the tomato soup."  Largely urban, populated mostly by lawyers, musicians, and code monkeys.  Strongly liberal, at least by Texas standards. 

There's a quote I've heard attributed to LBJ that in Texas politics there are three types of counties:  urban counties, rural counties, and Travis County.

Hah!  That's likely apocryphal, but that doesn't make it any less funny (or true).

I don't expect Biden to run for a second term, but he damned well better make it all the way through this one. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on October 29, 2020, 03:55:20 AM
I fear a a greater dysfunction moving forward.  The Senate convened and worked in record time to put that horrible woman on the Supreme Court...

Strong words. Do you mind expanding on this for the benefit of us out-of-towners who don't know her background?

Quote
...precisely so that she could be in place to rule favorably on what is almost surely to be a contested election.  Then the Senate adjourned (not recessed -- that's important) for two weeks...

In what way is it important?

Quote
...without passing sorely needed relief bills sent it it by the House, which have languished for weeks because the Senate Majority Leader (not an office spelled out in the Constitution) has partisan priorities...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on October 29, 2020, 01:05:52 PM
That Horrible Woman is quite firm that her religion is more important to the running of the country than the words of the Constitution, and that's just for starters.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on October 29, 2020, 01:08:51 PM
Oh my god. Apparently his password was "maga2020!". If that is true he is a bigger idiot than I thought.

And again.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/hackers-steal-2-3-million-from-trumps-wisconsin-re-election-fund/

Funny how old Trumpy and his campaign keeps coming across those people with 197IQs and 15% of the passwords..... ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 29, 2020, 01:12:39 PM
Funny how old Trumpy and his campaign keeps coming across those people with 197IQs and 15% of the passwords..... ::)

If people never get hacked then it must be an inside job.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on October 29, 2020, 01:29:41 PM
I fear a a greater dysfunction moving forward.  The Senate convened and worked in record time to put that horrible woman on the Supreme Court...

Strong words. Do you mind expanding on this for the benefit of us out-of-towners who don't know her background?

That Horrible Woman is quite firm that her religion is more important to the running of the country than the words of the Constitution, and that's just for starters.

Imagine if Barack Obama had nominated a Muslim woman who had made comments along the lines of "My legal career is but a means to an end…and that end is building the Kingdom of Allah." The Republicans would be up in arms. And yet that is apparently what Amy Coney Barrett has said (just substitute "Allah" with "God").

Not everyone in the United States is a Christian. The courts should be fair to everyone, and that means keeping religious beliefs out of the decision making process. I'm sure a Christian traveling in the Middle East would hope for the same if they ever found themselves on trial there.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on October 29, 2020, 03:22:57 PM
I fear a a greater dysfunction moving forward.  The Senate convened and worked in record time to put that horrible woman on the Supreme Court...

Strong words. Do you mind expanding on this for the benefit of us out-of-towners who don't know her background?

That Horrible Woman is quite firm that her religion is more important to the running of the country than the words of the Constitution, and that's just for starters.

Imagine if Barack Obama

Ahem - I think you meant Barack HUSSEIN OMG SCARY NEGRO ISLAMOFASCIST SOCIALIST WHARGARRBL Obama, but carry on...

Quote
had nominated a Muslim woman who had made comments along the lines of "My legal career is but a means to an end…and that end is building the Kingdom of Allah." The Republicans would be up in arms. And yet that is apparently what Amy Coney Barrett has said (just substitute "Allah" with "God").

Not everyone in the United States is a Christian. The courts should be fair to everyone, and that means keeping religious beliefs out of the decision making process. I'm sure a Christian traveling in the Middle East would hope for the same if they ever found themselves on trial there.

I get less grief for being an atheist compared to the vitriol I see against Muslims, Jews, and others.  Ain't nobody leading any tiki torch parades and shouting about us. 

I don't know if it was how or where I was raised or what, but I've never understood the kind of anti-semitism and Islamophobia on display now.  That kind of thinking just never computed for me. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 29, 2020, 03:38:53 PM
Strong words.

Indeed, it's more accurate to say I think it's horrible that this particular candidate has replaced Justice Ginsburg.  Justice Barrett is eminently unqualified and/or distasteful in all the ways Justice Ginsburg excelled.

Quote
Do you mind expanding on this for the benefit of us out-of-towners who don't know her background?

She's only been a judge for 2 years.  She's one of President Trump's railroad-through-the-Senate nominees.  Normally the process of vetting a judge takes considerable time, so that scholars can research the candidate thoroughly.  Normally a judge is in one office for long enough that a different Senate confirms her to the next higher judgeship.  She has had only cursory hearings before the McConnell Senate, with the 2018 election replacing only one-third of the senators who previously confirmed her.  A key element of her background is her work on the Bush v. Gore case.  It is widely thought that the only reason she was nominated was to rule in favor of Trump in a "contested" election.  She has one relevant, short-term qualification, and afterwards she's just an inexperienced, largely unknown judge.

She does have a highly conservative religious background.  That's nothing new.  Her religion is a source of concern for many, especially her former involvement in a particular sect of Catholicism.  As if there were any question where a Trump nominee would stand on questions like abortion and marriage equality, it is widely believed that she will do all in her power to enforce her conservative religious views.

But two aspects of her legal decision-making are especially disturbing.  Briefly, she's a Constitutional originalist.  This means she interprets the Constitution, as did her mentor Justice Scalia, according to the meaning of the text as it would have been understood in the days when it was written.  Originalism raises many questions.  But its central tenet is that where the Constitution is specifically silent on some particular question, the Court is not to invent a new right.  The right to marriage privacy was considered a "new" right, but the Roe court was not dominated by Originalists.  Justice Scalia's dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges railed against the "new right" of "gay marriage," which wasn't a right guaranteed in the Constitution.  These important rulings will now be almost certainly eroded if not outright overturned, now that the balance of ideology on the Court is shifting toward Originalism.

Justice Barrett's writings as a professor challenge the solidity of stare decisis, the core value of Common Law which means that issues once settled by a court should remain settled.  Justice Gorsuch was content to consider such things as abortion and marriage equality to be "settled" law when asked about them.  Justice Barrett likely will not be.  And since it takes only four Justices' concurrence to grant certiorari, these cases are likely to be reheard in some form or another.

Quote
In what way is it important?

Adjournment does not end the session.  Recess does, and it allows the President then to make recess appointments to high offices without the immediate consent of the Senate.  Those appointees would then have the plenary power of their offices, rather than the limited power afforded by Congress to acting or temporary appointees.  But in the case of a recess appointment, Senate rules are invoked which then require the Senate to take up consideration of those appointments within the next session.  This allows Senate Democrats to question them in open hearings.  The President's temporary officers face only the scrutiny that ordinary public inquiry affords, and can therefore hide a multitude of sins.  Because Sen. Mitch McConnell does not fully trust the President, he prevents the President from forcing exposure on the Senate floor of all that's behind those who are leading the various offices of the executive.  Sen. McConnell is an experienced politician; Trump is not.  Also, Sen. McConnell is still busy appointing judges to the federal bench.  He does not want precious hearing time forcibly taken up by hearings for appointees who probably will not be in office past January 20 anyway.

But neither house of Congress can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other house.  So right now, every day, one senator goes into the chamber and performs the minimal duty required to allow the Senate to be "in session" for that day.  Then it is adjourned until the next day.  This may be repeated indefinitely.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on October 30, 2020, 10:38:53 AM
Briefly, she's a Constitutional originalist.  This means she interprets the Constitution, as did her mentor Justice Scalia, according to the meaning of the text as it would have been understood in the days when it was written.

Were I feeling cynical, I'd suggest that what this actually means is 'in the way they assume it would have been understood a couple of centuries ago based on their own modern prejudices, and only where those prejudices align.' Resistance in some quarters to changing a document that includes well-known amendments is nonsensical, since there clearly is precedent for updating it as situations and understandings change.

And only because it's the one I keep hearing about over this side of the pond, the second amendment seems to be supported by originalists in the context of it being an unchangeable right to own a firearm, but not in the context of the very clear differences between what is now understood by 'bearing arms' compared to what was understood when the amendment was written....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on October 30, 2020, 07:27:47 PM
You hit two of the major criticisms against originalists with one post.

But first, the position of the originalists is of course not that the Constitution is immutable.  It is indeed amendable, and that is the mechanism by which they argue new constitutional rights and limitations should be added to it.  Want marriage equality?  Write an amendment that says marriage cannot be denied based on the relative sexes of the participants.  Or better, leave it up to Congress or the states to legislate as they see fit, if it's something that might change over time as people come to understand each other differently, or from place to place.  (Except there's the full faith and credit clause to contend with.)

Ditto abortion; the characterization of the right to abortion as one of marriage privacy derives from the important case that defined the concept: Griswold v. Connecticut.  Judge Barrett was adamant that she had no designs on overturning Griswold, which identifies a right to obtain and use contraception.  In doing so, it defined a larger right to privacy from government intrusion, and behind this bulwark sits decades of privacy rulings on a number of subjects.  Originalists hate this case for that, for the fact that it was decided by a 7-2 majority (thus placing originalism historically in the small minority of jurisprudential thought), but mostly because it's an example of the kind of thinking they are dead-set opposed to.

A right to privacy for Americans infamously does not exist as a clear statement in the Constitution.  Instead, the Griswold Court inferred it from other explicit rights.  By requiring the government to obtain a warrant before entering your home, for example, the Fourth Amendment creates a right of more general right to privacy from government intrusion, they argued, in the "penumbra" of that and other explicit restrictions.  Similarly the right to intimate association exists nowhere in the Constitution, but it lives -- says the Court -- in the "penumbra" of the First Amendment.  Specific cases such as Roe v. Wade (the right to an abortion as contraception), Loving v. Virginia (the right to marry a person of another race), and Obergefell v. Hodges (the right to marry a person of the same sex) all either derive from these foundational cases, or echo their reasoning.

In contrast, originalists see no value in trying to reason from vague concepts such as "emanations" and "penumbras." They toss the whole exercise out as reading rights into the Constitution that it simply does not contain.  In their rhetoric these are termed "new" rights, and other justices are acting improperly in the place of the legislature to determine whether these "new rights" should exist or not.  In Griswold, the dissent doesn't dispute that the several examples raised by the majority are valid and vital; it simply says that construing them further to create a generalized "right to privacy" in the periphery of areas touched by those examples is an undesirable form of legal reasoning.  (But in doing so it equivocates the meaning of "privacy" as intended by the majority, so there's a reason it didn't fly as a sound legal opinion.)

One flaw of originalism you identify is its reliance on putting oneself in the intellectual and political shoes of people long dead.  I doubt even the most conscientious and well-read jurist could do that any more than I can convincingly and accurately engineer in the idiom of Isambard Brunel upon command.  It's the same failed argument that fundamental religion makes when arguing that they don't interpret their religious texts, but merely read them literally.  It is impossible to read without interpretation, and it is impossible to immerse oneself in a vision of the past without some amount of imagination, ignorance, and bias.  Under the pretext of scrupulously avoiding conscious reinterpretation of the text, they simply pretend no unconscious reinterpretation occurs.  I'd rather have someone admit his new interpretation so that it can be debated, rather than pretend it doesn't exist.

The other major flaw you mentioned -- but certainly not the end of the flaws in originalism -- is, as you point out, best revealed by the example of the Second Amendment.  A strict originalist interpretation of the right to bear arms struggles to keep its head above water.  Originalists like strictly original interpretations of certain things.  But only certain things.  While an originalist might insist that encrypted computer storage is not "papers" as the Fourth Amendment would have described it, he has no problem arguing that "arms" as written in 1791 can certainly mean a semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle toted by a disgruntled teenager.  In this and many other instances, it's a Saturday-sinner approach to interpretation.  If the canons of originalist interpretation must stretch to incorporate the new facts of the modern age, and thus create a "penumbra," that accommodates truly terrifying weapons without restriction, then the doctrine loses its purity.  Originalists are simply being just as wishful as anyone else in obtaining desirable rights by judicial fiat.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 01, 2020, 10:39:49 AM
And of course they definitely ignore all eighteenth-century definitions of "militia" to maintain that the weapons that didn't exist at the time are perfectly okay in the home of any rando who wants them.  Because what they're missing is that "militia" had a specific meaning at the time, the US didn't have a standing army at the time, and that nobody intended what they're currently insisting is the meaning of the Amendment.

Which is another major problem with "originalism."  It doesn't come with a real grounding in history.  If you can get inside the head of James Monroe or similar, the first thing you have to do in order to do it is really learn about not Monroe himself necessarily but the world in which Monroe lived.  You have to learn etymology, to learn what words meant in those days.  You have to learn sociology, to learn what the situations they experienced were like.  You need to study their writings outside just the Constitution, to understand what they were saying to each other and what assumptions they were making.  And originalists aren't doing any of that, because they somehow believe that only the words that actually made it into the Constitution matter to define what the words in the Constitution mean.

And they assume all the Founding Fathers thought the Constitution meant the same thing, which they manifestly did not.  Which, again, they'd know if they ever read the Founding Fathers' writings.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 01, 2020, 04:48:38 PM
As usual, Gillianren's contributions are right on point.

And of course they definitely ignore all eighteenth-century definitions of "militia". to maintain that the weapons that didn't exist at the time are perfectly okay in the home of any rando who wants them.

The individualist faction of the American gun cult essentially ignores the first clause of the amendment altogether.  This is definitely the position of the NRA.  They might just as well argue that every individual American has the absolute right to own any kind of firearm that exists.

The technological difference between today's assault weapons and even the most advanced and effective weapons of 1790 -- say, the Kentucky long rifle -- should not be overlooked.  It takes a fair amount of skill to be able to correctly load, fire, clean, and maintain a muzzle-loading long rifle.  The reason one was part of a "well-regulated militia" is so that a gun owner would be given the means to maintain proficiency.  In contrast, with a few exceptions, a modern handgun is a point-and-click interface.  In 1790, the ability to operate a state-of-the-art firearm at all usually coincided with membership in a group governed by a sense of discipline.

Quote
Because what they're missing is that "militia" had a specific meaning at the time, the US didn't have a standing army at the time, and that nobody intended what they're currently insisting is the meaning of the Amendment.

The United States especially eschewed a national standing army precisely so that a despot couldn't use it for precisely what President Donald J. Trump is using federal troops and federal law enforcement for:  to defy state and local authority by means of overwhelming force.  A standing navy was deemed necessary simply for logistical reasons.  But if the need suddenly arose for national defense, the U.S. was expected to compose an army ad hoc from the state militias. Naturally the ability to do that effectively is predicated on a certain kind of organization and training that occurs on an ongoing basis, which is the original footing of the Second Amendment.

More importantly, today's so-called militias have nothing to do with what the Framers understood, and how Congress has historically regulated the concept.  What they understood by "militia" in the day is more properly approximated in modern times by the National Guard.  That's a codified term for modern military units organized in each state, with officers appointed by state governors out of those ranks.  The Framers certainly did not mean reclusive bands of heavily-armed randos, garbed in Cabela's hunting camouflage, beholden to no authority but themselves, riding around in their own trucks running campaign buses off the road.  Frankly, those are more likely to be the "insurrections" a well-regulated militia would be called up to confront.

"Well-regulated," as Alexander Hamilton understood the term, meant it would remain under the authority of the state government, and its officers would derive their authority from a commission or warrant from the state governor.  This concept ties into the Second Amendment by means of a hierarchy envisioned by the Framers that would extend from one extreme of relatively professional "regulars" -- a small number -- down to a militia force of last resort composed, if needed, from all able-bodied young men of the territory.

Hamilton recognized that an effective militia needed to train often enough to be proficient.  Hence he envisioned a small corps of semi-professional soldiers in each state. Then he envisioned the entire male cohort of a state being available to fight in a larger conflict using their own arms and according to skill and discipline built through a less formal, less frequent, and less rigorous training exercise conducted by state-commissioned officers.  Such a citizen militia would be "well regulated" in the sense of coming under the authority of professional officers commissioned by state government authority and more beholden to military decorum than to personal fealty.  Hamilton is clear in his desire that such force be used to protect the state government's concept of law and order, not to wield military force according to a private interpretation of the law.

The Second American Revolution War of 1812 proved the folly of trying to stand as a national power without a largely professional army.  State militias proved to be too difficult to organize, train, and deploy as an army to defend the entire nation.  The original justification of the Second Amendment mostly disappeared a mere 20 years after being proposed.  And the standardization and specialization of modern military equipment for good reasons has all but precluded the need for potential militiamen to keep and provide their own weapons if called up.  (However, this is how originalists get around the assault-rifle issue; the Framers "clearly" intended the Second Amendment to refer to weapons that could be used to fight a war, however characterized from time to time.)

Quote
Which is another major problem with "originalism."  It doesn't come with a real grounding in history.  If you can get inside the head of James Monroe or similar, the first thing you have to do in order to do it is really learn about not Monroe himself necessarily but the world in which Monroe lived. ... And originalists aren't doing any of that, because they somehow believe that only the words that actually made it into the Constitution matter to define what the words in the Constitution mean.

Indeed, the textualists are criticized for the arrogance of presuming what words mean today to the people who hear them today is what should dictate the contour of laws that people today must obey.  They interpret the Fourth Amendment's "secure in their papers" to mean, naturally, all that might today serve the purpose that "papers" did to people in the past:  hard disks, USB thumb drives, etc.  Originalists simply commit the converse arrogance of assuming they can understand a time and place largely removed from their experience well enough to justify binding others to that understanding.  You mention the several fields of scholarship that would have to be mastered.   But that still presumes the information is available to study.  And it also presumes you apply no bias.  As I'll discuss later, the last element is crucial.

The worst form of originalism is intentionalism, which presumes not just to be able to determine what words meant in 1790, but what certain men might have intended in 1790, whether they externalized those thoughts or not.  Imagine having the final say in a capital case, but you base your decision on what you guess people originally intended who lived long ago in a different place.  This is the worst case of government by men and not by laws.  So originalists try very hard not to delve into original intent because of the inherent subjectivity.  This is why they draw a bright line cutting off anything that didn't actually make it into the text of the Constitution.  Everything else is, according to them, and improper attempt to infer intent.

Quote
And they assume all the Founding Fathers thought the Constitution meant the same thing, which they manifestly did not.  Which, again, they'd know if they ever read the Founding Fathers' writings.

Originalism tries to escape all its hermeneutical failures by committing still more of them and sweeping them all under an increasingly lumpy rug.  They don't consider extra-textual expressions of the Framers' intent, because that falls victim to speculation and to the academician's selection of sources.

They then don't limit the understanding of the text to that of the Framers, but rather expand it to that of the mythical ordinary, reasonably-educated person of the day.  They think that by broadening the definition of original understanding they escape the need to define who was communicating, and to whom.  This has always baffled me.  I trust that a reasonable scholar can delve into the world of, say, James Madison and come to a reasonably defensible understanding of what Madison might have meant by not abridging the right to keep and bear arms.  But I would not at all trust that Edward Rutledge, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, or Alexander Hamilton necessarily understood the text of the Second Amendment in precisely the same way.  So whose interpretation holds sway, and why?

The originalists then commit the same error as Bible literalists.  They simply treat the text as having been brought down from Mount Sinai in a nimbus of glory that they dare not attempt to penetrate.  They make the interpretational problems worse by expanding the number and type of people whose potential "understanding" needs to be considered as somehow relevant and binding.

The words of the Second Amendment came from Madison's pen.  But they were debated by a number of people without necessarily arriving at a perfect consensus.  Just because the words are Madison's doesn't mean his personal understanding matters more if its authority comes from broad ratification.  Hamilton wrote Federalist 29, which probably gives us the most direct picture of the original debate.  But the originalists say we don't have to consider whether Madison, Hamilton, or the entire group of Framers had a cohesive idea of what the text means. We have to also consider what James Wilson might have understood, or Philip Schuyler, or Samual Seabury, or, for that matter, some guy in the pub, even though none of them had a hand in producing it.  It's not what Madison understood, or the Framers understood, but the entire group of people that included the Framers.  They simply lived at the time and spoke English, so somehow this should be the governing rule.

In a bizarre twist of rhetorical gymnastics, neither the original author of the Second Amendment nor its most eloquent (thought, it turns out, misguided) defender is specially relevant.  While this agnosticism broadens the scholarship that can be brought to bear to discover historical meanings, it doesn't guarantee that the meaning will be any better refined (likely the opposite), nor that the breadth of scholarship will actually occur, nor that the meaning arrived at will be anything more than the statistical centroid of a linguistic shotgun blast.

The Fourteenth Amendment originally had a very narrow application.  We know this because the guy who wrote it in the mid-1860s left us plenty of his own scholarship to help us understand it.  Its original limited application is why the Mormons didn't bring it to bear in litigating polygamy before the Supreme Court.  For decades it was widely understood that it had only a limited role in allowing Congress to compel states to honor the emancipation of Black slaves.

Now, of course, it's the HP Brown Sauce of constitutional litigation -- it gets applied to everything.  And the originalists don't stand in its way.  Practically nowhere in their treatment of Equal Protection do you read John Bingham's name or see a summary of important questions like federalism and incorporation of Constitutional rights against state government.  Instead, an originalist today will try to argue that modern applications of the amendment to "sex" cannot be stretched to include "sexual orientation," as if either term were even on Bingham's horizon.  What they consider "original" on that point came much later.

Remember it took until the Nineteenth Amendment for a basic right like voting to be upheld regardless of sex.  Clearly sex descrimination was not originally part of the Fourteenth Amendment.  But so-called originalists have no problem with the non-Constitutional concept of a "protected class" arising "in the penumbra" of the Amendment.  Why? Because one of the protected classes is religion, and originalists tend also to favor expansive defense of freedom of religion.  It's the desired outcome, so they simply define the origin of Equal Protection at a point considerably along its life cycle and stake their position there.

Or the originalist will argue that the particular set of facts arising in one state should be governed by an original 18th-Century interpretation of one of the Bill of Rights, omitting that the very incorporation of those other rights against the states via the Fourteenth Amendment was not originally a foregone conclusion.  Incorporation is what the originalist argument should be.  The cases turned on incorporation, which is a Bingham doctrine, not on, say, whether garroting would have been allowable punishment in Madison's time.  But it's harder to argue originalism when the origin in 1866 has so much more around it to prevent the waters from getting muddy enough to support the desired outcome.  It's much more fun to pretend one's argument is the rhetorical successor of such luminaries as Madison and Hamilton.

The Second and Fourteenth Amendments are the best examples of why originalism fails as the best overall way to interpret a constitution.  You can't posture it as something that proposes to take human bias and sentiment out of the equation, and then just ignore it when sentiment dictates.

Without question the textualist interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment is the correct one, and the one that most closely fits classical American ideals.  That it cannot be supported in its present form by an originalist argument is a testament not to John Bingham's failure to elaborate his cause, but to the failure of originalism to decide outcomes that customers of the judiciary recognize as equitable and well-reasoned.  (We could get into the whole Dead Hand of History argument, but this is already monumental.) The very existence of an ongoing, vital judiciary in the American system is evidence that the Framers probably did not expect originalism to be the order of the day going forward.

And how judiciaries work is really the final nail in the originalist coffin.  You submit a set of facts to a court because the facts, as eventually established, identify an area of conflict between two laws or legal principles.  The right of the people to bear arms will always stand in conflict with the right of the people to life and liberty.  There are numerous laws in my state which, the Second Amendment notwithstanding, criminalize various ways in which firearms may be possessed, carried, and discharged.  Any court in the United States will recognize these as reasonable attempts to balance the individual's right to own a firearm with his neighbors' right to be reasonably free from the risk of undeserved bodily harm.

Most court cases are unremarkable because they present no new difficulties in interpreting the scope of one law versus the other.  The cases that present interesting new sets of fact are those that rise to the level of attention in high courts.  I have in my collection of law books a tome -- a "reporter" -- dated 1702 of the various cases of the illustrious Sr. Hen. Pollexfen, Kt., Late Lord Chief Justife of the Court of Common Pleas. Together with divers decrees in the High Court of Chancery.  There's a surprising amount of material in there about sheep.  But even in 1691 the jurisprudence is, "This law or custom says this, but this other law or custom says something different; which should hold?"  And the decisions, in all their ligatured glory, draw a thin, often circuitous line among the facts and determine the boundary of the laws on facts of this ilk.  This is the essence of Common Law, which in each case is the essence of precision.

Originalist arguments, based on a statistical, linguistic abstract of original meaning, can't be holding the stylus in a very steady hand.  The jurist must choose one precise meaning out of several possibilities, and use that to draw his line.  But if his method casts a broad net over murky waters filled with varied meanings, there is no guarantee his preferred meaning is any more the product of a dispassionate exercise than occurs in textualism.  Moreover, all the originalist has to do is selectively present the historical reasons for his decision; rebutting an originalist then requires an affirmative argument and its own original research.  Textualism may be inventive, but its inventions are on display for all to see, to agree with, and to rebut.  If, in the end, all you can say is, "But that's not what people in Madison's time meant," then maybe you should consider that the hundreds of judges since Madison, collectively, with their eye on evolving times, can be considered a better judge than Madison (or the person channeling him) on what should be the case today.

Oh, by the way, the guy in 1691 got his sheep back.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 01, 2020, 04:56:53 PM
https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/is-america-on-the-brink-of-a-second-civil-war/news-story/538195d2b05052f6842e297208a7c9f8
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 01, 2020, 08:24:39 PM
Some are already calling it the Cold Civil War.

I think some of the analysis is overblown.  It's claimed that the U.S. is in an unprecedented crisis.  I think the U.S. is in crisis -- a serious crisis.  But I don't think it's exactly unprecedented.  We just haven't seen it recently.  We've had severe wage inequality before.  We've had race divisions before.  We've had violent social activism before.  These are actually chronic problems in the American experience.  In one sense it's just more of the same.  In a different perspective, maybe it's unique in that all of it is coming to a head at once.

I agree that the outcome of the election will have little effect on the underlying social, political, and economic factors.  These have been building up for decades, and have previously shown no sign of being abated by political effort.  I agree that there will likely be violence in the streets starting Tuesday night into the rest of the week, regardless of who wins.  And there is likely to be continued violence until the social and economic inequalities are addressed.

I predict that if President Trump loses reelection, he will challenge the results in the Supreme Court using Bush v. Gore as his template.  The legal scholars I've spoken to agree that Bush v. Gore was badly reasoned, but stare decisis applies.

Apropos to the Fourteenth Amendment (see wall o' text above), votes should be counted according to a uniform process of resolving ambiguity in paper or punched ballots.  Florida election law provides that for the initial election, but didn't do it effectively for manual recounts.  On the other hand, by federal law [3 U.S.C. § 5 (1948)], controversies regarding Electors for President have a deadline.  Despite assurances that uniform standards could be established to govern a recount, it couldn't be implemented before the deadline in law.  The Court ruled that the law superseded, and that since a properly regulated recount couldn't practically occur before then, none should be attempted.

According to many legal scholars -- and all the scholars I've spoken to personally -- this was wrong.  A more straightforward application of the Fourteenth Amendment is that every lawfully cast vote must have effect, regardless of the difficulty or delay in counting it.  Any law that prevents a state from counting its votes in a way that guarantees Equal Protection in suffrage would be what's unconstitutional.  The Constitution overrules laws made by Congress or representations made under law by any state.  The Bush Court sends the message that a timely, convenient counting of votes is more important than counting every lawfully cast vote.

This doctrine will undoubtedly factor into the 2020 election.  As many states have scrambled to provide new safe voting options, the notion of what constitutes a lawfully-cast vote will almost certainly be challenged in a way that selectively disenfranchises unwanted groups of voters.  Let's be clear:  there will be irregularities vote counting.  It's an inevitable consequence of trying new polling methods for the first time.  And nearly all of them will be innocent and correctible.

But Bush v. Gore paints a target on them anyway.  And this time around, the lawyer who wrote some of the winning briefs in that case is now sitting on the Court alongside similarly predisposed newcomers.  If this goes to litigation, it will be a mess and no one will be happy.  My primary fear in the next two months is that the Supreme Court will hand President Trump a second term in flagrant disregard of the vote, and of good law.  My secondary fear is a repeat of 2016:  polls showing Hilary Clinton in a clear lead that simply fails to materialize in the Electoral College.  I think it's unlikely Pres. Trump will win the popular vote this time around either, but he still may manage to eke out another Electoral College win.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 02, 2020, 12:54:44 AM
The individualist faction of the American gun cult essentially ignores the first clause of the amendment altogether.  This is definitely the position of the NRA.  They might just as well argue that every individual American has the absolute right to own any kind of firearm that exists.
Not anymore.  Since Trump has imposed his anti-gun agenda, the NRA in their zeal to support him have abandoned the position that Americans should be able to own any kind of firearm they wish.  They have stepped back to only support those kinds that Trump approves of.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on November 02, 2020, 02:52:29 AM
The individualist faction of the American gun cult essentially ignores the first clause of the amendment altogether.  This is definitely the position of the NRA.  They might just as well argue that every individual American has the absolute right to own any kind of firearm that exists.
Not anymore.  Since Trump has imposed his anti-gun agenda, the NRA in their zeal to support him have abandoned the position that Americans should be able to own any kind of firearm they wish.  They have stepped back to only support those kinds that Trump approves of.
"Don't Tread on Me, Except With Trump Brand Boots©", eh? Not so pithy, admittedly. How about, "From my cold, dead hands, except for with your small, little ones"? Snarky jokes aside , the amount of cult of personality Trump has acquired rather alarming. Like, threatening to leave the country if he doesn't win. To the rest of us, "Great!" but to the cult members, the idea of their Messiah leaving must have felt crushing and a call to do anything to keep him in power.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 02, 2020, 03:04:16 AM
Cult member is right.  When I complain about Trump's anti-gun crap, the typical Trump supporter responds with the usual kind of (no one needs that kind of gun) stuff we're used to hearing from Clinton, Brady, Biden and Buttigieg.  When I mention this, they tend to clam up and refuse to discuss the issue any further. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 02, 2020, 04:08:58 AM
The individualist faction of the American gun cult essentially ignores the first clause of the amendment altogether.  This is definitely the position of the NRA.  They might just as well argue that every individual American has the absolute right to own any kind of firearm that exists.
Not anymore.  Since Trump has imposed his anti-gun agenda, the NRA in their zeal to support him have abandoned the position that Americans should be able to own any kind of firearm they wish.  They have stepped back to only support those kinds that Trump approves of.
"Don't Tread on Me, Except With Trump Brand Boots©", eh? Not so pithy, admittedly. How about, "From my cold, dead hands, except for with your small, little ones"? Snarky jokes aside , the amount of cult of personality Trump has acquired rather alarming. Like, threatening to leave the country if he doesn't win. To the rest of us, "Great!" but to the cult members, the idea of their Messiah leaving must have felt crushing and a call to do anything to keep him in power.

To be fair, a lot of Clinton supporters said the same thing in the first few months after the 2016 election.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 02, 2020, 11:38:04 AM
I know people who did.  I know a lot more people who can't afford to this time around, either.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 02, 2020, 02:31:05 PM
Clinton/Biden supporters would be welcome in Canada. I can't say the same about Trump supporters.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on November 02, 2020, 03:20:44 PM
The National Post, and Conrad Black in particular - who writes op-eds for the National Post - are trying to promote Trump. I don't think it will go over very well, something like north of 80% of Canadians don't like Trump. (Black is also a climate change denier, among other things.)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 02, 2020, 03:59:42 PM
I know people who did.  I know a lot more people who can't afford to this time around, either.
Why would someone do that instead of sticking around to change things?  I can understand the desire to seek refuge in another country for security or economic reasons, but to protest the election of a politician?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on November 02, 2020, 04:28:42 PM
As many states have scrambled to provide new safe voting options, the notion of what constitutes a lawfully-cast vote will almost certainly be challenged in a way that selectively disenfranchises unwanted groups of voters.  Let's be clear:  there will be irregularities vote counting.  It's an inevitable consequence of trying new polling methods for the first time.  And nearly all of them will be innocent and correctible.

As a Brit, I have to say I stare in slack-jawed amazement at the system in the US that allows politicians and courts to mess around with how votes are collected and counted during an election. Challenging the outcome is one thing, but actively seeking to count or discount votes that have been cast, changing how many polling stations are set up in any given county, and arguing over when the final result is actually in and valid, all while votes are being cast, is just incredible to me.

When I vote in an election, I know what day to go to the nearest polling station, and I know we have so many in the area that if I go to my local one at any given time of day the chances are I will have to stand in line for maybe ten minutes if at all. We have had so many elections in the last few years for one thing or another over here, and I haven't had to stand in line once. No-one, not politicians, not courts, gets to challenge how an election is conducted during it. Calls for reform may happen after unpopular outcomes (as they often do), but never in my lifetime have we had anyone try to change how an election is carried out and how votes are considered valid while one is actually taking place. That's not to say the system is perfect, far from it. But at least it is stable and I have no reason to be concerned that my vote will not be counted if I either mail it in by the appropriate deadline or go to a polling station on election day.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on November 02, 2020, 04:56:07 PM
"Don't Tread on Me, Except With Trump Brand Boots©", eh? Not so pithy, admittedly. How about, "From my cold, dead hands, except for with your small, little ones"? Snarky jokes aside , the amount of cult of personality Trump has acquired rather alarming. Like, threatening to leave the country if he doesn't win. To the rest of us, "Great!" but to the cult members, the idea of their Messiah leaving must have felt crushing and a call to do anything to keep him in power.

To be fair, a lot of Clinton supporters said the same thing in the first few months after the 2016 election.
Yes, but I'm talking about Trump himself threatening to leave if he doesn't win. Sorry I wasn't clear on that.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/trump-may-leave-country-if-he-loses-prison-criminal-prosecution.html
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 02, 2020, 05:12:03 PM
Yes, but I'm talking about Trump himself threatening to leave if he doesn't win. Sorry I wasn't clear on that.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/trump-may-leave-country-if-he-loses-prison-criminal-prosecution.html
It would be the smartest thing he has done in a while provided he goes to a country that will not extradite him at the request of the United States.  :)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 02, 2020, 05:28:23 PM
As many states have scrambled to provide new safe voting options, the notion of what constitutes a lawfully-cast vote will almost certainly be challenged in a way that selectively disenfranchises unwanted groups of voters.  Let's be clear:  there will be irregularities vote counting.  It's an inevitable consequence of trying new polling methods for the first time.  And nearly all of them will be innocent and correctible.

As a Brit, I have to say I stare in slack-jawed amazement at the system in the US that allows politicians and courts to mess around with how votes are collected and counted during an election. Challenging the outcome is one thing, but actively seeking to count or discount votes that have been cast, changing how many polling stations are set up in any given county, and arguing over when the final result is actually in and valid, all while votes are being cast, is just incredible to me.

When I vote in an election, I know what day to go to the nearest polling station, and I know we have so many in the area that if I go to my local one at any given time of day the chances are I will have to stand in line for maybe ten minutes if at all. We have had so many elections in the last few years for one thing or another over here, and I haven't had to stand in line once. No-one, not politicians, not courts, gets to challenge how an election is conducted during it. Calls for reform may happen after unpopular outcomes (as they often do), but never in my lifetime have we had anyone try to change how an election is carried out and how votes are considered valid while one is actually taking place. That's not to say the system is perfect, far from it. But at least it is stable and I have no reason to be concerned that my vote will not be counted if I either mail it in by the appropriate deadline or go to a polling station on election day.

It's mindbogglingly shocking, isn't it? Especially from a nation that shouts about democracy at every opportunity. It's like watching some banana republic at work.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 02, 2020, 08:25:59 PM
Not anymore.  Since Trump has imposed his anti-gun agenda, the NRA in their zeal to support him have abandoned the position that Americans should be able to own any kind of firearm they wish.  They have stepped back to only support those kinds that Trump approves of.

That's certainly not the move I would have predicted.  The NRA has rarely deferred to any single politician.  The Trump personality cult must indeed be powerful.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 02, 2020, 08:36:21 PM
It's mindbogglingly shocking, isn't it? Especially from a nation that shouts about democracy at every opportunity. It's like watching some banana republic at work.

What can I say?  I have no defense for the deplorable condition of American electoral policy and practice.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 03, 2020, 02:52:36 AM
It's mindbogglingly shocking, isn't it? Especially from a nation that shouts about democracy at every opportunity. It's like watching some banana republic at work.

What can I say?  I have no defense for the deplorable condition of American electoral policy and practice.

There s no defense for it. The sooner America realises that the GOP is little more than a death cult that will do and say ANYTHING to cling to power the sooner it can start to repair.
Good luck today and for the next month or two. It's going to be very, very messy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 03, 2020, 04:51:23 AM
Im waiting for the first shooting at a polling booth by some Trump-supporting knuckle-dragger.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 03, 2020, 07:42:27 AM
Im waiting for the first shooting at a polling booth by some Trump-supporting knuckle-dragger.

I'm expecting there to be some major voter intimidation happening. I wouldn't be surprised to see militia groups show up at polling stations with guns to "monitor for cheating". We'll see if the police will do anything to stop it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 03, 2020, 10:32:23 AM
I know people who did.  I know a lot more people who can't afford to this time around, either.
Why would someone do that instead of sticking around to change things?  I can understand the desire to seek refuge in another country for security or economic reasons, but to protest the election of a politician?

Um . . . because in their case, they fear for their security under the Trump administration, and rightly so?  I have many LGBTQ friends.  I have friends who are immigrants--brought here as children, but we see how much that matters to this administration.  I myself have serious health problems; one of my friends who moved abroad is a schizophrenic, and good luck getting insurance as a schizophrenic if the Republicans' goals succeed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on November 03, 2020, 10:41:16 AM
Im waiting for the first shooting at a polling booth by some Trump-supporting knuckle-dragger.

I'm expecting there to be some major voter intimidation happening. I wouldn't be surprised to see militia groups show up at polling stations with guns to "monitor for cheating". We'll see if the police will do anything to stop it.

If it hasn't already happened, I would expect it in certain parts of Pennsylvania.  It's one of the top 5 most at-risk states, according to at least 1 source:  https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ACLED_MilitiaWatch_StandingByMilitiaGroups_2020_Web.pdf

I would be shocked, albeit very pleasantly, if at the end of the day there are no shootings and no major reports of voter intimidation.

On a good note, I just voted. Took 8 minutes in total, with social distancing being enforced. Admittedly I vote in a very small city park building, but still, I was one of only 2 people on line.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on November 03, 2020, 10:50:58 AM
As a Brit, I have to say I stare in slack-jawed amazement at the system in the US that allows politicians and courts to mess around with how votes are collected and counted during an election. Challenging the outcome is one thing, but actively seeking to count or discount votes that have been cast, changing how many polling stations are set up in any given county, and arguing over when the final result is actually in and valid, all while votes are being cast, is just incredible to me.

You're not alone. It's truly amazing that there aren't set deadlines for these things, subject, of course, to reasonable situational issues, such as we are currently facing. As you said, once the process of voting has started, there's little valid argument for challenging the process. It's somewhat like an ex post facto law approach. I voted on date X, following all laws and regulations at that time, but on date X + 30 days, someone said that my vote is no longer legal, and won't be counted. Um, no. And that doesn't even get into the issues Jay and others raised about polling and drop-off locations, changes to ID requirements, etc.

One thing I haven't seen people address in the whole, "mail-in voting is going to be riddled with fraud" argument is that it's the responsibility of the current administration to ensure that the voting process is valid, to protect it from interference and fraud. Therefore, if there is fraud, it will literally be due to a failure of the administration that is worried it will happen; they won't have done their jobs. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on November 03, 2020, 10:52:38 AM
It's mindbogglingly shocking, isn't it? Especially from a nation that shouts about democracy at every opportunity. It's like watching some banana republic at work.

What can I say?  I have no defense for the deplorable condition of American electoral policy and practice.

Uh-oh, you used a buzz-word.  *tsks*   ;)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Britmax on November 03, 2020, 11:21:53 AM
Yes, well...

https://newsthump.com/2020/11/03/american-electorate-excited-to-choose-their-favourite-creepy-old-white-man-accused-of-sexual-misconduct/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 03, 2020, 11:25:48 AM
As a Brit, I have to say I stare in slack-jawed amazement at the system in the US that allows politicians and courts to mess around with how votes are collected and counted during an election.
...
I'll echo Jason's thoughts and add that it's also surprising that there are no national regulations on voting procedures, dates, times, using postal ballots or voter registration.  It seems to be different from state to state (possibly even for counties?) with some very strange decisions being made on these.  Surely these should have been made consistent across the country years ago.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 03, 2020, 11:32:27 AM
I'm expecting there to be some major voter intimidation happening. I wouldn't be surprised to see militia groups show up at polling stations with guns to "monitor for cheating". We'll see if the police will do anything to stop it.

Trump's army of poll watchers is turning out to be more of a platoon. (https://www.propublica.org/article/so-far-trumps-army-of-poll-watchers-looks-more-like-a-small-platoon)  It looks like Trump and Don Jr's exhortations for the faithful to man the barricades has gone down like a lead Trump-boat  :D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: apollo16uvc on November 03, 2020, 12:49:08 PM
I expect Antifa to commit suicidal acts of terrorism if Trump wins again.

And if Biden wins, they will still. Because Antifa will believe this to be the wild card they need to completely take over cities, rural areas and private land/buildings to enforce (their Idea of) communism.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 03, 2020, 01:27:22 PM
I expect Antifa to commit suicidal acts of terrorism if Trump wins again.

And if Biden wins, they will still. Because Antifa will believe this to be the wild card they need to completely take over cities, rural areas and private land/buildings to enforce (their Idea of) communism.

 ::)

Antifa/socialism/communism are just boogeymen that Trump uses to scare people into voting for him, just like MS-13, migrant caravans, etc.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 03, 2020, 02:22:18 PM
I expect Antifa to commit suicidal acts of terrorism if Trump wins again.

And if Biden wins, they will still. Because Antifa will believe this to be the wild card they need to completely take over cities, rural areas and private land/buildings to enforce (their Idea of) communism.

(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/80449594/not-sure-if-stupidly-serious-or-seriously-stupid.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 03, 2020, 02:50:21 PM
That's certainly not the move I would have predicted.  The NRA has rarely deferred to any single politician.  The Trump personality cult must indeed be powerful.
I bought an NRA life membership for $300 a few years ago so I could keep my membership at a local gun club that requires NRA membership.  So now I get their magazine.  A recent issue had a glowing opinion piece on Trump's devotion to the 2nd Amendment which was obviously written by a person who thinks the average NRA member is a complete idiot.  The article was more anti-Biden than pro-Trump though.

My opinion on gun forums is that Biden is not capable of grabbing as many guns as Trump did with his bump stock ban unless he does it using the authority of his office and has the CFR amended to classify any semi-auto firearm capable of bump fire (nearly all of them) as a machine gun.  This would make all semi-autos made after May 1986 contraband.  Mine is not a popular opinion.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 03, 2020, 02:52:47 PM
Trump's army of poll watchers is turning out to be more of a platoon. (https://www.propublica.org/article/so-far-trumps-army-of-poll-watchers-looks-more-like-a-small-platoon)  It looks like Trump and Don Jr's exhortations for the faithful to man the barricades has gone down like a lead Trump-boat  :D
How does one monitor for cheating at the polling place?  Do they just see if anyone votes then gets back in line?  Keep a list of names/photos to identify those who known to be ineligible?  I've only voted by mail since 1984.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 03, 2020, 04:23:53 PM
Trump's army of poll watchers is turning out to be more of a platoon. (https://www.propublica.org/article/so-far-trumps-army-of-poll-watchers-looks-more-like-a-small-platoon)  It looks like Trump and Don Jr's exhortations for the faithful to man the barricades has gone down like a lead Trump-boat  :D
How does one monitor for cheating at the polling place?  Do they just see if anyone votes then gets back in line?  Keep a list of names/photos to identify those who known to be ineligible?  I've only voted by mail since 1984.

"That guy looks like an illegal immigrant! He can't vote! Shenanigans!" - a Trump supporter
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 03, 2020, 04:43:09 PM
My opinion on gun forums is that Biden is not capable of grabbing as many guns as Trump did with his bump stock ban unless he does it using the authority of his office and has the CFR amended to classify any semi-auto firearm capable of bump fire (nearly all of them) as a machine gun.  This would make all semi-autos made after May 1986 contraband.  Mine is not a popular opinion.

What are they going to do about Miculek's finger?

Or this?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 03, 2020, 07:06:17 PM
It's truly amazing that there aren't set deadlines for these things, subject, of course, to reasonable situational issues, such as we are currently facing.

There are deadlines.  According to 3 U.S.C. § 5, states are required to complete any dispute-resolution procedures by the sixth day before the Electoral College is to vote.  Not all those procedures are people trying to steal elections.  For example, lots of places require a recount if the margin of victory is too small.  That's something that would have to be completed by the deadline.  But this year it will certainly apply to all the festivities that will likely arise.

Quote
...someone said that my vote is no longer legal, and won't be counted. Um, no. And that doesn't even get into the issues Jay and others raised about polling and drop-off locations, changes to ID requirements, etc.

Yeah, that's really the meat of it.  Yes, it's a bit more chaotic than usual this time around.  But the real problem is the disqualification of a vote that was cast presumptively legally.  It should be extremely difficult to create a situation in which a vote is deemed ineffectual after the fact, and for there to be no remedy such as a new election that restores disenfranchised voters their right to cast a lawful vote.  Yet we see a mad dash to the courts waving a number of legal theories.  We've had challenges before the fact that affect various local governments' readiness to conduct polling.  We have challenges during ongoing voting that might end up discarding ballots cast in good faith.  I can't wait to see the nonsense that starts tomorrow.

Almost all of this is intended not to ensure election integrity, but to suppress the vote.  Republicans presume the easier it is to vote, the more people will vote who oppose their policy and leadership.  None of the measures they've proposed has any evidence to support the claim that it reduces election fraud.  It simply places more barriers in the way.

Quote
...it's the responsibility of the current administration to ensure that the voting process is valid, to protect it from interference and fraud.

It's not quite as straightforward as that.  Since the federal government has no power to regulate a State's method of choosing electors, it has no additional duty to sustain whatever infrastructure a State, by its own discretion, has allowed as part of that process.  The U.S. government has a responsibility to ensure a certain acceptable level of operation of the U.S. Postal Service for many reasons.  But it's not responsible for others' discretionary use of it.  We don't send cash through ordinary mail because it's understood the service is not reliable enough to guarantee delivery.  And some States don't yet consider it reliable enough to use it exclusively for voting, along with the other uncertainties that can arise when voting is not in person.  That others have greater faith can certainly factor into the reasoning in U.S.P.S applies when designing and operating the service.  But ultimately the buck stops at the States in deciding how to handle ballots.

There really isn't much of a Gotcha here.  The federal government can certainly do much to hamper election integrity -- especially by undermining the mail.  Those are criminally actionable offenses, if overt enough.  But it has little responsibility to ensure or guarantee something that is the States' duty to do.  In this case President Trump can "credibly" whine about the States allegedly falling short in stopping fraud and therefore being unfair to his election chances.  Credible only in the sense that it correctly outlines the responsibilities; not credible in the sense that any facts support those claims.

I'll echo Jason's thoughts and add that it's also surprising that there are no national regulations on voting procedures, dates, times, using postal ballots or voter registration.  It seems to be different from state to state (possibly even for counties?) with some very strange decisions being made on these.  Surely these should have been made consistent across the country years ago.

In a word, federalism.

We do have a body called the Federal Election Commission, but they look only at how campaigns are financed.  And they're presently impotent because they currently lack a quorum and cannot therefore sit.

But back to the question, it doesn't just seem like each State is different, it's expressly the case.  The federal government has no power under the Constitution to govern how elections are run in each State.  Originally the States were expected to have much more sovereignty for themselves, and the Union kept its hands off.  The badly-worded passage in Article IV of the Constitution basically says only that some form of "republican" government is required of a State.

We have a National Electrical Code and all sorts of other standardized federal regulations, so why can't we have a national electoral code?  Because the regulation of interstate commerce doesn't cover that.  The only things that are exported from the state following an election are the successful candidates.  That each state is allowed to set its own rules is simply part of the federalist nature of the United States.  You can certainly argue that it's becoming more of a bug than a feature.

There may be a strength here.  State laws vary, of course.  But what's universal is the extremely low rate of voter fraud in all States.  Any argument that challenges a particular practice in one State cannot rely on facial arguments.  In some hypothetical State that has newly expanded voting by mail, it will be hard to argue, "That State's vote must be dismissed because voting by mail is unreliable."  Here in Utah, and in a few other States, we've voted almost exclusively by mail for years, with only a tiny handful of instances of attempted fraud.  It's annoying to have so many different ways of doing it.  But so far, it has been very difficult to exploit any of the systems in ways that Republicans will likely argue compromise the results.

How does one monitor for cheating at the polling place?
"That guy looks like an illegal immigrant! He can't vote! Shenanigans!" - a Trump supporter

Pretty much.  Normally "poll monitoring" means assuring that the poll workers are properly carrying out their duties such as checking IDs, verifying signatures, preserving the integrity of the cast ballots, handling irregularities properly.  What's really happening is that the Trump "poll monitors" would probably be breaking those laws, not enforcing them.  Ordinary American citizens have very little authority to oversee election operations.  In contrast, many state laws require onlookers to keep their distance.  Impersonating an election official or a law enforcement officer is a crime, so it's not very likely that poll mobs will try that.

They might try stopping people before they enter the polling place and ask them for IDs or something.  Of course no one is obligated to provide it, but that won't stop the boldest of the mob.  What's really happening is just subtle intimidation.  I imagine a bunch of overweight, heavily-armed guys wearing camo or "Trump Poll Watcher" T-shirts trying to look as official and imposing as they can, staying just outside the minimum distance, shouting slogans and generally getting all up in people's faces.  That's all you need.  If you have to run the gauntlet, you may decide not to.  Doubly so for minorities, even if they're perfectly legitimate citizens.  Yes, voter intimidation is illegal.  Do you really think there will be consequences this time?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on November 03, 2020, 07:55:15 PM
There are deadlines.  According to 3 U.S.C. § 5, states are required to complete any dispute-resolution procedures by the sixth day before the Electoral College is to vote.  Not all those procedures are people trying to steal elections.  For example, lots of places require a recount if the margin of victory is too small.  That's something that would have to be completed by the deadline.  But this year it will certainly apply to all the festivities that will likely arise.

I actually was thinking more about deadlines in terms of procedures for polling locations and times, requirements for ID, what criteria trigger a recount, that sort of thing, that would have to be set prior to election day, not so much the actual vote tally.  But I definitely take your point.


It's not quite as straightforward as that.  Since the federal government has no power to regulate a State's method of choosing electors, it has no additional duty to sustain whatever infrastructure a State, by its own discretion, has allowed as part of that process.  The U.S. government has a responsibility to ensure a certain acceptable level of operation of the U.S. Postal Service for many reasons.  But it's not responsible for others' discretionary use of it.  We don't send cash through ordinary mail because it's understood the service is not reliable enough to guarantee delivery.  And some States don't yet consider it reliable enough to use it exclusively for voting, along with the other uncertainties that can arise when voting is not in person.  That others have greater faith can certainly factor into the reasoning in U.S.P.S applies when designing and operating the service.  But ultimately the buck stops at the States in deciding how to handle ballots.

There really isn't much of a Gotcha here.  The federal government can certainly do much to hamper election integrity -- especially by undermining the mail.  Those are criminally actionable offenses, if overt enough.  But it has little responsibility to ensure or guarantee something that is the States' duty to do.  In this case President Trump can "credibly" whine about the States allegedly falling short in stopping fraud and therefore being unfair to his election chances.  Credible only in the sense that it correctly outlines the responsibilities; not credible in the sense that any facts support those claims.

That makes sense. I know that the States are responsible for enforcing their own election laws, which vary state to state, but was thinking that, due to the use of the USPS, that there would also be some responsibility at the federal level to ensure that its use was valid. But, reading what you wrote, I understand that, as you said, the federal level can mess things up through its actions or inaction, but doesn't have the duty to secure the vote's integrity. Of course, they could certainly encourage it (rather than whine and threaten), but I can understand that going beyond that (e.g. offering funding that is state-specific or advisors) could easily be corrupted. I was also - I have no idea why - forgetting that the vote isn't for the person, it's for the electors that then elect the person, and therefore that's at the state level.

Appreciate, as always, your perspective and knowledge, Jay. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 03, 2020, 11:18:46 PM
I actually was thinking more about deadlines in terms of procedures for polling locations and times, requirements for ID, what criteria trigger a recount, that sort of thing, that would have to be set prior to election day...

Oh, I see.  Is there a deadline for getting everything ready for an orderly election?  No, not really.  Now most of that is already statutory or regulatory.  So it's not like we devolve into chaos every two years.  This year is special because there is a sudden new need for innovative polling procedures, and because the stakes for so many elections are so very high.  It's a perfect storm for contention.

As with all things federal, it's going to vary from state to state.  Our State has a comparatively small amount of election law, but conveys substantial authority in that respect to the Lt. Governor's office.  Thus it becomes regulatory -- administrative law rather than statutory law.  In U.K. terms (for our friends overseas) it's the difference between primary legislation and secondary legislation.  Most electoral law in most U.S. States is secondary legislation.  Our Lt. Governor, subject to the rules on administrative law, can simply decree that polling stations can remain open longer.  Recount policy here is statutory, so there's very little that has to be understood prior to Election Day.

Okay, but deadlines.  Let's say our Lt. Governor (in other States, the Secretary of State) decided a month ago that polls should stay open until 9 pm, whereas previously the polls closed at 8 pm according to regulations previously issued by the office.  There is usually an artificial limit to the consideration of changes to executive regulation.  But then administrative law can also be challenged in court, and there is no natural or artificial time limit to the resolution of such claims.  Obviously by 9 pm on election night the question becomes moot, but you're still open to Due Process and Equal Protection claims after the fact.  The justiciability of such claims is suspect in this particular example because you would need to know which ballots had been cast between 8 pm and 9 pm in order to determine which ballots had been lawfully cast should subsequent authority rule that the polling-hours extension was improper.

Would all this be solved by a national statutory rule on polling hours?  Yes.

Consider in contrast what's happening, as I write this, in Nevada.  Technical issues have delayed voting.  How to deal with these unforeseen issues?  A state judge has ruled that affected polling locations must remain open longer tonight in order to compensate for the effect.  This is the right answer; it errs on the side of recording votes that, but for the State's failure, would have been lawfully cast prior to poll closure.  But the losing party could easily challenge that on Fourteenth Amendment grounds.  Let's say Jose, who lives in Clark County, didn't get off work until 7 pm.  Since the polls in that county are open longer, he can vote.  Shirley, who lives in Winnemucca, also gets off work at 7 pm.  But those polls closed on time.  She wasn't able to vote.  Jose wasn't delayed by technical failure, merely the circumstances of his life.  Shirley's circumstances are similar, but the law hasn't treated her equally to Jose.

These things are happening now, in real time.  It's not possible to resolve emergent conditions according to a pre-election deadline.  And it's not advisable to preclude such challenges simply because some arbitrary deadline has passed.  Clark County, Nevada, voters who reasonably presented themselves at the polls in plenty of time to vote, deserve to have their votes counted.

The process of changing electoral law in the several States is lengthy.  Most state legislatures sit in the Spring and then adjourn for the rest of the year.  In March the effects of the pandemic on the election were uncertain.  Consequently the administrative and regulatory folk have been persuaded to push the limits of their authority under existing statute to provide safe access to voting.  Their intentions are honorable.  But it opens them up to challenges in the name of electoral integrity.  Pushing the boundaries of acceptable ballot-handling in the name of ensuring everyone can vote can be argued to push the boundaries in favor of relaxing security.

Quote
That makes sense. I know that the States are responsible for enforcing their own election laws, which vary state to state, but was thinking that, due to the use of the USPS, that there would also be some responsibility at the federal level to ensure that its use was valid.

Not in this way.  Certainly 18 U.S.C. § 1341 criminalizes mail fraud and empowers the postal service to investigate and prosecute it.  But voter fraud doesn't fit the elements of mail fraud, nor any of the other illegal activities the U.S. Postal Service has the duty to prevent.  Having the duty to detect and prevent certain specific unlawful uses of your service is different than being responsible for providing a level of service which, if not met, defeats some specific desired purpose.  There's some gray area here.  But the dynamics of general U.S. postal service are formulated according to a broad spectrum of needs and abilities.  That doesn't necessarily change because some State has decided those dynamics suit its election laws.

The postal question is really a red herring.  The perceived issues of voting by mail have little to do with mail delivery.  Did the ballot for John Doe get mailed to the address where John Doe actually lives?  That's not a postal service problem.  Did a ballot get mailed to someone who isn't eligible to vote?  Again, not a mail problem.  Was the ballot filled out and submitted by a different person than the intended recipient?  Sure, stealing ballots from mailboxes would possibly be a postal service concern.  So would someone else in the household marking the ballot.  All of these are authentication problems that mostly concern the county clerks and precinct captains.

The problems we can lay at the feet of a postal service include whether the ballots arrive on time at the addresses of voters, and whether the returned ballots arrive on time at the address of the election official.  Ordinarily it's no different than whether the Christmas letter arrived on time or whether your tax return was postmarked in a timely fashion.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 04, 2020, 12:34:49 AM
It shouldn't be close.  I literally do not understand people who can look at [gestures vaguely] and say, "Yes, this is how I want my country to look."  Or all those people who somehow believe the current administration has done the best they can with the pandemic, which is one of the most demonstrably untrue things ever.

At least our governor's getting a third term and our state's comprehensive age-appropriate sex ed remains in place?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 04, 2020, 01:34:10 AM
What are they going to do about Miculek's finger?
They'll (the Trump supporters) will say "no one needs to shoot like that", "no need for that kind of shooting for hunters" or "what do you want to shoot like that for?".  It is weird.  I only used to hear that from my "less gun enthusiastic" friends.  :)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 04, 2020, 02:59:50 AM
Looks like Trump will win again. Well done America, you can complete your slide into fascism.
<slow handclaps>
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 04, 2020, 09:18:29 AM
Looks like Trump will win again. Well done America, you can complete your slide into fascism.
<slow handclaps>

I'm not giving up hope that Biden will end up winning. But regardless, it is shameful that it is this close and that so many people continue to support Donald Trump. I can forgive people for falling for the con in 2016 and voting for Trump because they didn't know he was a racist scumbag. There is no excuse now.

There should be an investigation into how the USPS handled their role. A judge ordered them to sweep all mail sorting facilities for over 300,000 outstanding ballots and Postmaster General Lois DeJoy refused to do so. That is election interference, and it almost certainly benefitted Trump.

Postal Service misses court-ordered deadline for unsent mail ballots (https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/524347-postal-service-misses-court-ordered-deadline-for-unsent-mail-ballots)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 04, 2020, 09:23:04 AM
Looks like Trump will win again. Well done America, you can complete your slide into fascism.
<slow handclaps>

I'm not giving up hope that Biden will end up winning. But regardless, it is shameful that it is this close and that so many people continue to support Donald Trump. I can forgive people for falling for the con in 2016 and voting for Trump because they didn't know he was a racist scumbag. There is no excuse now.

There should be an investigation into how the USPS handled their role. A judge ordered them to sweep all mail sorting facilities for over 300,000 outstanding ballots and Postmaster General Lois DeJoy refused to do so. That is election interference, and it almost certainly benefitted Trump.

Postal Service misses court-ordered deadline for unsent mail ballots (https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/524347-postal-service-misses-court-ordered-deadline-for-unsent-mail-ballots)

Like I said, these are banana republic style tactics.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 04, 2020, 09:54:55 AM
Everyone's showing it as too close to call; Politico still thinks Biden has more paths to victory than Trump.  But it absolutely should not be this close; it should have been a foregone conclusion that no one would want a second term.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 04, 2020, 11:18:22 AM
There should be an investigation into how the USPS handled their role.

USPS failed to deliver 27 percent of mail-in ballots in South Florida: report (https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/usps-failed-to-deliver-27-percent-of-mail-in-ballots-in-south-florida-report)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 04, 2020, 12:05:42 PM
Trump is likely to win GA, NC and PA.  If he also gets WI or MI, he wins.  I think Biden is more likely to be elected.  This is based upon CNN's estimates.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 04, 2020, 12:23:58 PM
There are apparently a lot of mail-in ballots to be counted in PA, and that might favor Biden since Trump, the stable genius that he is, discouraged his supporters from mailing in their ballots. So we will see.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on November 04, 2020, 01:53:18 PM
Do you have an idea by when the final results will be out?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 04, 2020, 02:22:59 PM
The final projections should be complete by the end of the week.  But because there's a "safe harbor" law to allow for the inevitable disputes that will arise in various states, the final result won't be assured until Dec. 8, the deadline for slating the electors.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 04, 2020, 02:27:42 PM
The presumption has been that the mail-in and absentee ballots will skew heavily toward Biden.  We saw some evidence of that in Wisconsin and Michigan.  I'm hoping that when they're finally counted, not only will Biden have won but the difference in the popular vote won't be so depressing.  This should have been a landslide.  If people cared at all about leadership and representative government, this should have been a landslide.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 04, 2020, 02:33:36 PM
It shouldn't be close.  I literally do not understand people who can look at [gestures vaguely] and say, "Yes, this is how I want my country to look."  Or all those people who somehow believe the current administration has done the best they can with the pandemic, which is one of the most demonstrably untrue things ever.

I couldn't agree more. I simply do not understand: this man (and I use the term loosely) is an openly admitted misogynist, bigot, racist, narcissist and possibly the biggest liar in US political history.... and people still want him?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 04, 2020, 02:41:51 PM
this man (and I use the term loosely) is an openly admitted misogynist, bigot, racist, narcissist and possibly the biggest liar in US political history.... and people still want him?

And on top of that (as if that wasn't enough) he doesn't do anything. He has spent over a year of his term in office playing golf. Anyone else (with the exception of professional golfers) would be fired from their job if they slacked off at work that much. And every time he visits one of his properties the taxpayers have to pay HIM to provide accommodations for his Secret Service protection and other aides. He is a government employee who is stealing from you. Fire him.

I will never understand why people like him. He has zero redeeming qualities.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: mako88sb on November 04, 2020, 02:46:37 PM
Was just reading a Quora post by a lawyer who brought up some points about how long Trump could legally drag this out if he loses. The guy is talking about months possibly and I could certainly see Trump doing everything to win because if Obama got 2 terms, then he sure as hell should get 2 terms as well. Here’s a link to the post. I don’t know how accurate his info is as well as his reasoning for what could happen but it’s pretty troubling to say the least that it could happen:
https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-Donald-Trump-lost-and-refused-to-concede-the-election
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 04, 2020, 03:31:43 PM
I couldn't agree more. I simply do not understand: this man (and I use the term loosely) is an openly admitted misogynist, bigot, racist, narcissist and possibly the biggest liar in US political history.... and people still want him?
Who do you think is voting for him?  It is the misogynists, bigots, racists, narcissists and liars who are in his corner.  I'm certain that many for them wish they could assault women as a perk of wealth, take credit for anything they want while denying responsibility for everything and run away from their debts.  You know, the scum of the country.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Von_Smith on November 04, 2020, 03:33:23 PM
As usual, Gillianren's contributions are right on point.

Agreed.  It's almost like she's smart and knowledgeable or something.

Quote
The worst form of originalism is intentionalism, which presumes not just to be able to determine what words meant in 1790, but what certain men might have intended in 1790, whether they externalized those thoughts or not.  Imagine having the final say in a capital case, but you base your decision on what you guess people originally intended who lived long ago in a different place.  This is the worst case of government by men and not by laws.  So originalists try very hard not to delve into original intent because of the inherent subjectivity.  This is why they draw a bright line cutting off anything that didn't actually make it into the text of the Constitution.  Everything else is, according to them, and improper attempt to infer intent.

Another problem, I think, with "intentionalism" or other forms of "strict construction" is that laws are all too often written vaguely on purpose to placate different factions.  So not infrequently the law's "intent" is to be as vague as possible while still seeming to say something that enough people want.  Such laws *have* to be interpreted, sometimes creatively, to be anything at all.

ETA [edited because I didn't like the word "aggressively" for what I had in mind]

Also, AIUI, saying that people don't have rights unless they are *explicitly* enumerated in the US Constitution contradicts the Ninth Amendment.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on November 04, 2020, 03:41:30 PM
The final projections should be complete by the end of the week.  But because there's a "safe harbor" law to allow for the inevitable disputes that will arise in various states, the final result won't be assured until Dec. 8, the deadline for slating the electors.

Pheww..that's a long time :(
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 04, 2020, 04:06:27 PM
I understand that your method of electing a president funnels you into a two-party system.

Where I live, anybody can start a new party, collect supporters (usually by having people sign up in the streets) and present a certain number of written endorsements. It's not exactly like that, dunno the exact lingo, but if enough people will put their name on "I think this party might be a good idea"-paper, then that person can run for the danish parlament. The backers don't have to vote for this party or pay a fee to this party. They just have to say "I think this party should be allowed to be on the ballot for the next election".

Then that party must acheive at least 2% of the votes to actually get a seat (two seats, since there are 179 seats in total). This system ensures there's a wide number of parties to represent the citizens. After the election, the Queen appoints a Royal Negotiator, usually the foreperson of the largest party, who then attempts to form a government with 90 members of parliament behind it. By negotiating with other parties, promising ministery posts and changes to laws in exchange for votes in the parliament, the Royal Negotiator hopefully reaches a solution which can then be presented to the Queen. The Prime Minister usually is the foreperson of the largest party in the coalition of parties working together.

That way, small parties with only a few seats in the parliament can effect significant influence, by "selling" its votes to the coalition which offers the most in return.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 04, 2020, 05:30:01 PM
Negotiation and consensus was a large part of how the U.S. Senate was originally supposed to operate.  You needed supermajorities to get anything of consequence accomplished.  Now instead we have Mitch McConnell ruling over the body from an office that's nowhere named in the Constitution, having eroded all semblance of cooperation and decorum.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 04, 2020, 06:07:25 PM
A quick look at my ballot makes it clear that anyone can start a party.  They won't win any of the major offices, but there's no reason they can't, say, run against that guy in my district who was unopposed and still didn't get anywhere near 100% of the vote; in addition to unknown numbers of people who just didn't vote in that race, or who figured "sure, vote for the only person running," 6% of voters wrote someone in.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 04, 2020, 06:07:40 PM
This is a worrying development - mobs of people deciding to take the law into their own hands, and trying to interfere with the electoral process.  I suppose it was inevitable given Trump's ongoing calls for "poll watchers" and claims of fraud.

https://twitter.com/PattersonNBC/status/1324086177885003778

Quote
Large, animated crush of “stop the count” protestors trying to push their way into TCF hall in #Detroit where ballots are being counted.

They’re being blocked by guards at the door.

Pizza boxes are pushed against the window to obstruct view. It’s tense.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 04, 2020, 06:36:20 PM


Note the guy in the hat. A well-known danish comedian, musician, writer and ex-alcoholic with a daughter with muscle wasting disease, and usually a conferencier at a series of open-air concerts to benefit a foundation for people with muscle wasting disease. He founded a party called "The society for deliberately work-dodging elements", on a programme promising more following wind on bike-paths. And Nutella in field rations, among other things.

He got elected, and was a member of parliament for four years.



And people were deeply surprised when he actually was very serious. In Denmark, political parties are paid after an electrion from public funds relative to their number of votes. He used his money to serve hotdogs and beer on a public square.

Didn't get the following wind through parliament though. But he DID get real Nutella in the army's field rations.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 05, 2020, 03:41:47 AM
I understand that your method of electing a president funnels you into a two-party system.

Where I live, anybody can start a new party, collect supporters (usually by having people sign up in the streets) and present a certain number of written endorsements. It's not exactly like that, dunno the exact lingo, but if enough people will put their name on "I think this party might be a good idea"-paper, then that person can run for the danish parlament. The backers don't have to vote for this party or pay a fee to this party. They just have to say "I think this party should be allowed to be on the ballot for the next election".

Then that party must acheive at least 2% of the votes to actually get a seat (two seats, since there are 179 seats in total). This system ensures there's a wide number of parties to represent the citizens. After the election, the Queen appoints a Royal Negotiator, usually the foreperson of the largest party, who then attempts to form a government with 90 members of parliament behind it. By negotiating with other parties, promising ministery posts and changes to laws in exchange for votes in the parliament, the Royal Negotiator hopefully reaches a solution which can then be presented to the Queen. The Prime Minister usually is the foreperson of the largest party in the coalition of parties working together.

That way, small parties with only a few seats in the parliament can effect significant influence, by "selling" its votes to the coalition which offers the most in return.

My understanding is that whether a political system veers into a two-party system or a multi-party system depends on whether it has single-member electorates or multi-member electorates.

Britain can take credit for introducing single-member electorates, and this system was copied in the USA, Canada and Australia among other countries. All these countries have largely gone to a two-party system (yes, there are exceptions, but they are usually based around very specific ethnic issues).

Countries which have introduced some form of multi-member electoral system - most of Europe I understand - have a broad range of political parties.

The difference is that the target number of votes required is much more concentrated in single-member electorates, and this is hard for a party with broad but diffuse support to achieve. Here in Australia the Greens generally get a higher proportion of the vote than the Nationals (junior coalition partner to the Liberals), but the Nationals' support is concentrated in rural electorates while the Greens' support is spread across the whole country. The result is that the Nationals have 10 seats in the House of Representatives while the Greens have only 1.

However, in Australia (unlike in the UK and Canada) our Senate is elected, with equal numbers of senators from each state. But while that might seem to make Australia like the USA, we have 12 senators per state (and two per territory), with six seats up for grabs each election. But in the USA only one Senate seat is ever up for grabs at each election, meaning that Senate elections in the USA are like Reps elections, meaning the two-party system applies in the Senate too. But in Australia we have a proportional representation voting system for the Senate, and this means that minor parties can win Senate seats with relative ease.

So our Senate has a cross bench of 14 out of 76 Senate seats (including 9 Greens). This means the government of the day usually has to work to pass legislation, either by enlisting Opposition support or assembling some one-off coalition of cross-benchers. On the one hand we have the political stability of a government which holds a majority in the House of Representatives, and on the other hand minor parties are able to influence legislation as it works its way through the Senate so the government doesn't have it all its own way.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 05, 2020, 03:49:39 AM
A well-known danish comedian, musician, writer and ex-alcoholic with a daughter with muscle wasting disease, and usually a conferencier at a series of open-air concerts to benefit a foundation for people with muscle wasting disease. He founded a party called "The society for deliberately work-dodging elements", on a programme promising more following wind on bike-paths. And Nutella in field rations, among other things.

He got elected, and was a member of parliament for four years.

And people were deeply surprised when he actually was very serious. In Denmark, political parties are paid after an electrion from public funds relative to their number of votes. He used his money to serve hotdogs and beer on a public square.

Didn't get the following wind through parliament though. But he DID get real Nutella in the army's field rations.

It's a bit of a Thing to have comedians become politicians: https://www.ft.com/content/5d25d042-756e-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab

Here in Australia it seems we elect footballers instead. Or journalists.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 05, 2020, 03:59:35 AM
Incidentally, a bit of a comment about the election. There were a couple of observations by the presenters of the Australian ABC show "Planet America".

One was that the millions of dollars spent on TV ads by the Democrats appear to have had no effect on changing people's minds.

The other was that the success of the Democrats in Georgia has been due to the work of Stacey Abrams in building the party up by the grassroots.

I do believe I've made a couple of comments in the last year or so about the importance of doing exactly that. Assuming it's an accurate assessment, hopefully the party in other states will follow her example.

(Which raises the obvious question, if the party can raise such massive amounts of money as Biden did, can it be used to pay people to do work for the party rather than for TV ads?)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on November 05, 2020, 04:58:00 AM
Who do you think is voting for him?  It is the misogynists, bigots, racists, narcissists and liars who are in his corner.

It's no surprise that those were voting for him, but that
- they are so many of them
- enough voters were willing to believe Trump's "Fake news" denials
- enough voters were willing to ignore his behavior, and vote for him anyway
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 05, 2020, 05:55:49 AM
... But he DID get real Nutella in the army's field rations.
Now that's something worth voting for.  Nutella should be a basic human right for everyone  ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 05, 2020, 06:02:57 AM
Who do you think is voting for him?  It is the misogynists, bigots, racists, narcissists and liars who are in his corner.

It's no surprise that those were voting for him, but that
- they are so many of them
- enough voters were willing to believe Trump's "Fake news" denials
- enough voters were willing to ignore his behavior, and vote for him anyway

A lot of voters may be looking at single issues and ignoring the other aspects of his personality - "Well, he may be a bit homophobic, but he's trying to stop illegal immigrants.", "Well, he may be a bit racist, but he's pro-life." ... mix & match as required.  They'll give him a pass on all his other flaws, as long as he's supporting (or claiming to) the issue they see as most important.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 05, 2020, 06:58:25 AM
Who do you think is voting for him?  It is the misogynists, bigots, racists, narcissists and liars who are in his corner.

It's no surprise that those were voting for him, but that
- they are so many of them
- enough voters were willing to believe Trump's "Fake news" denials
- enough voters were willing to ignore his behavior, and vote for him anyway

A lot of voters may be looking at single issues and ignoring the other aspects of his personality - "Well, he may be a bit homophobic, but he's trying to stop illegal immigrants.", "Well, he may be a bit racist, but he's pro-life." ... mix & match as required.  They'll give him a pass on all his other flaws, as long as he's supporting (or claiming to) the issue they see as most important.

An important point, that. While there's been a lot said (including here) about people who cheer everything Trump has said, there are also many who've said they voted for him with a degree of reluctance.

But I read an article somewhere in the last week or so which said the strongest indicator of whether someone would vote for Trump was, simply, that they usually voted Republican.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on November 05, 2020, 08:12:33 AM
But I read an article somewhere in the last week or so which said the strongest indicator of whether someone would vote for Trump was, simply, that they usually voted Republican.

As Tom Clancy once had one of his characters claim "About forty percent of the people vote Democrat. About forty percent vote Republican. Of those eighty percent, most wouldn't change their votes if Adolf Hitler was running against Abe Lincoln"

It seems he wasn't far from the truth.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on November 05, 2020, 08:13:00 AM
A lot of voters may be looking at single issues and ignoring the other aspects of his personality - "Well, he may be a bit homophobic, but he's trying to stop illegal immigrants.", "Well, he may be a bit racist, but he's pro-life." ... mix & match as required.  They'll give him a pass on all his other flaws, as long as he's supporting (or claiming to) the issue they see as most important.
Well, the GOP had control of the White House and Congress from 2016-2018.  No significant action on abortion, curbing illegal immigration (especially punishing like Trump those who employ them) or gun control unless you count his gun grab.  Trump did manage to change many self-professed gun nuts into whiney anti-gun weasels.  :)   
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 05, 2020, 08:56:01 AM
One was that the millions of dollars spent on TV ads by the Democrats appear to have had no effect on changing people's minds.

I don't know how many minds were changed, but voter turnout was way up across the board so I'm guessing the advertising did motivate people somewhat.

People think the "blue wave" failed to materialize, but it did. It was just met with an almost equal red wave.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 05, 2020, 10:17:52 AM
I talked to some black women in this election cycle who are single-issue abortion voters.  They ignore that the Democrats' policies are the ones that actually reduce abortion (increased access to birth care, a greater social safety net, etc.) and the non-zero chance that Trump has personally pressured women into abortions and vote for the party that hates them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: theteacher on November 05, 2020, 01:23:22 PM
He got elected, and was a member of parliament for four years.

I actually voted for the guy. It was in 1994 :) I think he did a fairly decent job in the parliament after all.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 05, 2020, 02:19:24 PM
One was that the millions of dollars spent on TV ads by the Democrats appear to have had no effect on changing people's minds.

The other was that the success of the Democrats in Georgia has been due to the work of Stacey Abrams in building the party up by the grassroots.

I feel old-guard Democrats are still deluded into believing elections are still all about issues and candidates and rational evaluation.  There's a great piece in today's Washington Post about Republican victory simply being making the liberals cry.  Beyond that there's really no policy, no agenda, no sense that they're actually now going to have to lead a country and make decisions.  Electoral politics in America seem now to be simply about winning as an expression of dominance.

Quote
I do believe I've made a couple of comments in the last year or so about the importance of doing exactly that. Assuming it's an accurate assessment, hopefully the party in other states will follow her example.

I think younger Democrats would be very open to that.  Evan McMullin started a right-of-center party here in Utah with just grass-roots efforts to lure moderate Republicans away from the Tea Party.  They're still one of our recognized state parties.  It proves the effect of bottom-up coalition instead of top-down indoctrination.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on November 05, 2020, 07:02:37 PM
Listening to Trumps speech live, he is clearly insane.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 05, 2020, 07:08:05 PM
Listening to Trumps speech live, he is clearly insane.

I half expected him to declare himself Emperor. It turned out to be nothing but a bunch of false claims about fraud, and a pity party. He's pathetic.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 05, 2020, 07:26:49 PM
Listening to Trumps speech live, he is clearly insane.

Maybe Dr. Grande will have an analysis up soon.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Count Zero on November 05, 2020, 09:19:25 PM
Here in Australia it seems we elect footballers instead. Or journalists.

In Italy, they had Ilona Staller, a.k.a. Cicciolina...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 05, 2020, 09:44:28 PM
Here in Australia it seems we elect footballers instead. Or journalists.

In Italy, they had Ilona Staller, a.k.a. Cicciolina...

We had an olympic medalist shortputter for 4 years. What a waste of oxygen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 05, 2020, 10:17:08 PM
Here in Australia it seems we elect footballers instead. Or journalists.

In Italy, they had Ilona Staller, a.k.a. Cicciolina...

We had an olympic medalist shortputter for 4 years. What a waste of oxygen.

Australia has Pauline Hanson. Absolutely an oxygen bandit.

Her claim to fame was she owned a fish & chip shop.....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 05, 2020, 11:39:56 PM
Her claim to fame was she owned a fish & chip shop.....

Did it lose $900 million?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 06, 2020, 08:13:32 AM
Not relevant to anything in particular, but something I found really uplifting in the last week or so before the election: hearing Barack Obama in full flight.

Such a great speaker...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 06, 2020, 10:21:52 AM
Indeed, we can cite many past Presidents who were thoughtful, articulate, compassionate, and intelligent.  And it's hard to imagine how anyone could disagree with that.  But in fact a large fraction of America has come to regard such talents as signs of liberal elitism.  Rather than being comforted and inspired by such performances, they're put off by them.  They've been conditioned to regard them as Establishment leadership that's far removed from their everyday problems.

In contrast, there was a guy reviewing The Comey Rule in some ephemeral video who pointed out that Donald Trump has never finished a sentence in his life.  Hyperbole aside, he's not very wrong.  It's something I've always referred to as a "stream of semi-consciousness."  And ironically this appeals to vast numbers of Americans.  Despite his being inarticulate and illiterate, Trump comes across to his base as speaking from the heart directly to them, instead of carefully-prepared, politically-vetted speeches.

They're already talking about running Trump again in 2024.  I honestly don't think he'll live that long.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 06, 2020, 10:35:41 AM
Indeed, we can cite many past Presidents who were thoughtful, articulate, compassionate, and intelligent.  And it's hard to imagine how anyone could disagree with that.  But in fact a large fraction of America has come to regard such talents as signs of liberal elitism.  Rather than being comforted and inspired by such performances, they're put off by them.  They've been conditioned to regard them as Establishment leadership that's far removed from their everyday problems.

In contrast, there was a guy reviewing The Comey Rule in some ephemeral video who pointed out that Donald Trump has never finished a sentence in his life.  Hyperbole aside, he's not very wrong.  It's something I've always referred to as a "stream of semi-consciousness."  And ironically this appeals to vast numbers of Americans.  Despite his being inarticulate and illiterate, Trump comes across to his base as speaking from the heart directly to them, instead of carefully-prepared, politically-vetted speeches.

They're already talking about running Trump again in 2024.  I honestly don't think he'll live that long.

But it's okay if their pastors are articulate?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on November 06, 2020, 10:51:23 AM
So what odds are being given for Trump to actually concede the election?
Come on Donny be the big man. 1000-1 on him actually doing it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 06, 2020, 11:03:56 AM
They're already talking about running Trump again in 2024.  I honestly don't think he'll live that long.

I'm genuinely shocked he's lived this long.  Clearly he's not a man who let the stress of the Presidency get to him; I suppose that would have required actually doing the work of being President.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 06, 2020, 11:18:59 AM
So what odds are being given for Trump to actually concede the election?
Come on Donny be the big man. 1000-1 on him actually doing it.

I don't think he will concede because that would be an admission that he lost. He will accuse people of stealing the election, call it a coup, and maintain that until the day he dies.

I do think he will flip his desk and quit, making Pence a temporary seat warmer for Biden (I hope Biden hasn't made any merchandise with the number 46 on it yet). At the very least Trump will just play golf until January 20th. Why would he start doing the job now?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 06, 2020, 11:33:05 AM
So what odds are being given for Trump to actually concede the election?
Come on Donny be the big man. 1000-1 on him actually doing it.

Not even that high.  Voluntary concession of failure is not in his character.  I gather his strategy is to be handed the Presidency by the judiciary his party has spent so much time packing with allies, irrespective of what voters actually say.  And if they fail to do that, he'll blame them for being corrupt.  Yes, he may relinquish the White House, but only under whiny protest.  And his followers will spend four years claiming Joe Biden stole the election.  Keep in mind what happened in 2016 when he legitimately won the Electoral College vote, but claimed he would have won the popular vote too if not for millions of fraudulent votes.  He will never, ever concede that he lost the election.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 06, 2020, 11:34:46 AM
At the very least Trump will just play golf until January 20th. Why would he start doing the job now?

That's what I'd prefer he do.  I shudder to think about what a highly-motivated lame-duck Trump Administration might try to pull off out of spite.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 06, 2020, 11:48:39 AM
But it's okay if their pastors are articulate?

Sure, because that's God putting eloquence and wisdom in the mouth of his chosen vessel, not some atheist leaning to his own understanding.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on November 06, 2020, 12:17:51 PM
I must confess I have never followed an American election so avidly. Some of the American commentators are really showing their distain for Trump. As for the Republicans on the various panels trying to justify Trumps actions, you can feel them squirming.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 06, 2020, 01:47:30 PM
We haven't had a President like Donald J. Trump in recent memory.  There have been hated Presidents before (Andrew Johnson), but we relegate them to history and nobody goes through all that journalists and commentators said about them at the time.  And we've had a surge of reporting on politics, both formal and informal, but our recent Presidents have generated comparatively little controversy.  It's a perfect storm of lots of new people having lots to say about a truly odious person.

I would hate to be a Republican politician today.  As a Biden victory looks more in the bag, they're going to have to figure out what role a rampaging Donald J. Trump is going to play in their party moving forward.  I can understand the sycophancy during his actual Presidency, because they have to respect the power of the office to make their lives miserable.  But if he has no actual power except that of tweeting ex officio, some of them might be thinking it's time to publicly jump ship.  For now he's still the President, even if he's way off the rails.  That still holds some sway over the party and its other members.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 06, 2020, 02:36:40 PM
Indeed, we can cite many past Presidents who were thoughtful, articulate, compassionate, and intelligent.  And it's hard to imagine how anyone could disagree with that.  But in fact a large fraction of America has come to regard such talents as signs of liberal elitism.  Rather than being comforted and inspired by such performances, they're put off by them.  They've been conditioned to regard them as Establishment leadership that's far removed from their everyday problems.

In contrast, there was a guy reviewing The Comey Rule in some ephemeral video who pointed out that Donald Trump has never finished a sentence in his life.  Hyperbole aside, he's not very wrong.  It's something I've always referred to as a "stream of semi-consciousness."  And ironically this appeals to vast numbers of Americans.  Despite his being inarticulate and illiterate, Trump comes across to his base as speaking from the heart directly to them, instead of carefully-prepared, politically-vetted speeches.

They're already talking about running Trump again in 2024.  I honestly don't think he'll live that long.

But it's okay if their pastors are articulate?

Trump can't even manage that mediocre feat....


https://twitter.com/i/status/1324175651515949056
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 06, 2020, 04:04:18 PM
Saw that last night.

What a nice lady...

 :o
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 06, 2020, 05:11:43 PM
I hate to say it, but that's part of American Fundamentalist vernacular worship.  There are people in American who would take that very seriously, and dutifully vote for Donald Trump as the candidate God has chosen based on little more than such obviously incoherent rants speaking in tongues.  Thankfully not many people, but the poll numbers make me wonder just how many.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on November 06, 2020, 05:28:43 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/mSghmjn.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 06, 2020, 08:01:01 PM
More religious nonsense. :o

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/524794-trump-supporters-pray-outside-of-clark-county-election-department-in
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 07, 2020, 08:23:15 AM
Aha!  I think we have some evidence of attempted voter fraud :

https://eu.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/06/trumps-wisconsin-campaign-asks-pennsylvania-cast-late-ballots/6182506002/

Quote
President Donald Trump's campaign helped recruit volunteers in Wisconsin this week to call supporters in Pennsylvania to urge them to mail in absentee ballots by Friday — even as the president rails against late ballots and the ongoing vote count.

Only votes that were cast or postmarked by Tuesday are legal, according to Pennsylvania and federal election laws. Trump has described any effort to vote after Tuesday as clear election fraud.

The speculation is that if any of these late ballots ended up being counted, they could be used as evidence that the counting was incorrect, and that other invalid votes could have been included.  Unfortunately for them, all ballots received after a certain date are being held separately for detailed checking - something they insisted on themselves when trying to reduce the effects of postal votes.

Their success rate with legal challenges is also impressive, with some scathing comments by various judges about the competence of those involved.  Although achieving new levels of incompetence does seem to have been a recurring theme throughout this presidency  ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 07, 2020, 11:12:19 AM
Last night, a friend expressed the wish that he would wake up in the morning to finalized news and then joked that he would wake up this morning, check the results, and say, "What the--how did Sy Ableman* reach 270?"  I told him that would not be weirder than anything else about this year.

*Sy Ableman is a character from the 2009 Coen Brothers comedy A Serious Man.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 07, 2020, 04:20:09 PM
My first chance to check the news this morning (it's 8.20am here).

I'm willing to admit I have tears in my eyes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on November 07, 2020, 05:03:03 PM
Even Fox has called it for Biden. Trump must be very annoyed with them (and he, predictably, has not conceded; apparently one of his tweets - that got hidden - said he has an overwhelming majority of the votes).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 07, 2020, 06:10:43 PM
I've had a bottle of Moët 2009 in the studio refrigerator for four years waiting to celebrate this day.

And yes, the States are well aware of when they need to segregate late-arriving absentee ballots, and the tally systems are ever so capable of segregating the tallies for ballots that may be in dispute for one reason or another.  And the operation of these systems is, and has always been, overseen by previously selected inspectors from all interested political parties.

And yes, the few lawsuits I have been able to read, questioning the votes or tallies, are comically inept.  And I read many of Orly Taitz's filings during the Birther era.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 07, 2020, 06:14:37 PM
I've had a bottle of Moët 2009 in the studio refrigerator for four years waiting to celebrate this day.

And yes, the States are well aware of when they need to segregate late-arriving absentee ballots, and the tally systems are ever so capable of segregating the tallies for ballots that may be in dispute for one reason or another.  And the operation of these systems is, and has always been, overseen by previously selected inspectors from all interested political parties.

And yes, the few lawsuits I have been able to read, questioning the votes or tallies, are comically inept.  And I read many of Orly Taitz's filings during the Birther era.

I'm surprised by this. I thought he would have been able to afford skilled lawyers who could present a challenging case. Like the way Alan Dershowitz was part of his team for the impeachment trial.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 07, 2020, 06:23:47 PM
I'm surprised by this. I thought he would have been able to afford skilled lawyers who could present a challenging case. Like the way Alan Dershowitz was part of his team for the impeachment trial.

The quality lawyers recognize a weak case when they see it and don't want to tarnish their reputation by being associated with it. Plus, they probably know Trump's dire financial situation and his reputation for stiffing people, and probably doubt that they will be paid.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 07, 2020, 06:32:31 PM
It must be a huge psycological burden, to be rejected after all his blustering. How will he cope?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 07, 2020, 06:59:18 PM
I'm surprised by this. I thought he would have been able to afford skilled lawyers who could present a challenging case. Like the way Alan Dershowitz was part of his team for the impeachment trial.

My understanding is that the campaign spent more money on advertising than planned and, as a result, left too little money to pursue the legal challenges that were part of their strategy all along.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 07, 2020, 07:17:27 PM
I'm surprised by this. I thought he would have been able to afford skilled lawyers who could present a challenging case. Like the way Alan Dershowitz was part of his team for the impeachment trial.

The quality lawyers recognize a weak case when they see it and don't want to tarnish their reputation by being associated with it. Plus, they probably know Trump's dire financial situation and his reputation for stiffing people, and probably doubt that they will be paid.

So, along the lines of...

Trump: So we've got the best lawyers?

Aide: We've got the best lawyers money can buy.

[Pause]

Trump: Oh...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 07, 2020, 08:04:08 PM
The best lawyers YOUR money can buy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on November 08, 2020, 12:06:43 AM
The circular logic on display over the last few days has been truly dizzying. 'Trump is losing the election because it's rigged, and we know the election is rigged because Trump is losing.' I can't make up my mind if Trump is deliberately playing on the ignorance of many of his base as to how the system actually works or if he himself is actually ignorant of it. That he has been reduced to all caps rage tweeting is pretty much just what most expected from him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on November 08, 2020, 12:26:54 AM
The former, the man is a textbook demagogue, mixed with the narcissism to believe the latter despite any evidence to the contrary, I'd wager.
Anyone else feel that Biden didn't win so much as Trump lost?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 08, 2020, 01:25:42 AM
The best lawyers YOUR money can buy.

Ah, so the good lawyers think he can't win, and the smart lawyers think he can't pay.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 08, 2020, 01:41:24 AM
The former, the man is a textbook demagogue, mixed with the narcissism to believe the latter despite any evidence to the contrary, I'd wager.
Anyone else feel that Biden didn't win so much as Trump lost?

I wonder if he's a bit like those cult leaders who come to believe the lines they feed to their followers.

I'm reminded of an Australian politician from the 1960s to the 1980s - Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the premier (~ US state governor) of Queensland. He was conservative, had an idiosyncratic speaking style, and retained power due to fairly outrageous gerrymandering. But after serious corruption was demonstrated under his rule his party turned against him, an action which Joh refused to accept. I remember a cartoon in the local paper showing a baffled policeman outside a house, explaining on the radio to his sergeant about how this old man was mumbling incomprehensibly and holding himself hostage...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 08, 2020, 03:50:25 AM
I've never been so happy to be incorrect. Well done Biden and Harris!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 08, 2020, 05:09:06 AM
I've just had a bit of a laugh over a couple of issues which I'll leave the resourceful people here to find for themselves (if you haven't already):

- Rudi Giuliani at Four Seasons; and

- Alex Zdan's response to being heckled.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 08, 2020, 08:25:28 AM
I've just had a bit of a laugh over a couple of issues which I'll leave the resourceful people here to find for themselves (if you haven't already):

- Rudi Giuliani at Four Seasons; and


Oh man, did you ever see anything like that??? I couldn't believe it when Trump tweeted about a major press conference at the Four Seasons and then clarified that it was a gardening place in the middle of an industrial estate in what looks like a very rundown part of town. I nearly coughed a lung up from laughing when I saw the livestream with a hastily erected Trump/Pence backdrop in the parking lot of this tiny business.  And yes, that is a rolled up garden hose in the background...

(https://i.postimg.cc/Jzy4vKFf/Untitled.png)

(https://i.postimg.cc/rw57DrRd/viber-image-2020-11-07-17-04-25.jpg)

Then came Rudi and a bunch of nobodies. Rudi has clearly gone full Tonto batcrap crazy. He then handed over to some bloke who claimed there was fraud because a couple of ballots looked to have similar handwriting....and he spotted this from 5 metres distant. The next headbanger was a woman who claimed that there was fraud because she had a feeling that there was fraud being committed.  ::)

In a bizarre four years, this was yet another completely nuts episode.

In Michigan a judge threw out the Trump campaign case to have the counting stopped. The judgement read:
(https://i.postimg.cc/pXLDhb9K/Em-KVB0k-Wo-AE7-Zdi.jpg)
In all seriousness, how nuts do you have to be to go to court and base your argument on what an unknown individual was told by other poll workers at her table?

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiqv5L-g_PsAhXRoVwKHbeKDDkQFjACegQIBxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.michigan.gov%2Fdocuments%2Fag%2F20201106_Opin_and_Ord_707156_7.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1INI-Nt1Lsvo-2ziN_xb6C

It's my opinion that Trump knows that these cases have no legal merit. They are a salve for his psyche that allows him to convince himself that he was robbed. it also reminds me of Nigerian 419 scammer ploys. Their spam emails are designed to be unplausible as only the most gullible of the gullible would accept them. Anyone with an IQ higher than their belt size would recognise them as a scam. In effect, responders have self-selected themselves as being the most gullible and hence the most susceptible to being conned. Likewise these nonsense court cases will only be accepted by the dumbest of the dumb. Good voting stock for the Republican party....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on November 08, 2020, 09:37:53 AM
And it's across from a crematorium damn near an adult toy store apparently. Perfect location for the man whose political career has just died and gone up in smoke after over half of America tells him to go self fornicate.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 08, 2020, 11:00:40 AM
And it's across from a crematorium damn near an adult toy store apparently. Perfect location for the man whose political career has just died and gone up in smoke after over half of America tells him to go self fornicate.

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 08, 2020, 11:48:01 AM
I think that history will not be kind to Trump (or his enablers).

Oh for a time machine, to see what's written in a couple of hundred years about the events of the last few months...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 08, 2020, 12:02:46 PM
I think that history will not be kind to Trump (or his enablers).

Oh for a time machine, to see what's written in a couple of hundred years about the events of the last few months...

There'll be a bazillion political science degrees awarded on the analysis of this current era.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 08, 2020, 01:15:12 PM
All I am left feeling is relief.  I don't particularly like Biden, as it happens.  For one thing, I'm not best thrilled at having yet another President who demonstrably can't keep his hands to himself.  But he'll be better, and he'll be enough better so that things will get better.

Last night, a friend called one of the hotlines for reporting having observed voter fraud as Charles Foster Kane.  (My friend does a spot-on Orson Welles.)  And reported having observed plot points from Citizen Kane.  We then had a lengthy conversation about whether the people manning the hotlines are volunteers or paid; whether we felt bad for them depended on which it was.  But they keep changing the numbers, because they keep getting--well, people like us calling them.  Which just proves they're theatre, because if you did spot voter fraud, how would you know where to call?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on November 08, 2020, 01:35:43 PM
His hair has already left..

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 08, 2020, 02:50:04 PM
I'm also still sticking with my prediction of a civil war starting over the next few weeks, as Trump tries to destroy everything with his death throes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on November 08, 2020, 07:11:54 PM
The best lawyers YOUR money can buy.

Don't forget his Official Election Defense Fund, where, surprise (not), "50% of each contribution, up to a maximum of $2,800 ($5,000), to be designated toward DJTFP’s 2020 general election account for general election debt retirement until such debt is retired." 

Not that I think that those who contribute will have a problem with this, but it is interesting that a site so-named is also there to help him pay off his campaign debt. 

And can someone check me on this (I'm pretty tired), because I can't see this as anything other than an example of someone where English is not a primary language:

"Please contribute ANY AMOUNT in the IMMEDIATELY to the Official Election Defense Fund and to claim your 1000%-MATCH!"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on November 09, 2020, 09:02:39 AM
I couldn't believe it when Trump tweeted about a major press conference at the Four Seasons and then clarified that it was a gardening place in the middle of an industrial estate in what looks like a very rundown part of town.

Poor Rudi...  he wanted to avoid another embarrassing scene in a Hotel, and ended up next to Fantasy Island Adult Books.


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 09, 2020, 11:49:29 AM


Now and then some people address the result of your election without filter.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on November 09, 2020, 12:09:14 PM
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 09, 2020, 02:46:34 PM
I'm also still sticking with my prediction of a civil war starting over the next few weeks, as Trump tries to destroy everything with his death throes.

Well, that's one way of getting out of paying his debts...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 09, 2020, 03:05:12 PM
A civil war will not happen.  Not enough of his sycophants actually care enough to do it.  Certainly they have no concept of working together, kind of necessary for that sort of thing.  He doesn't have the generals--they hate him--so the military isn't on his side.  And frankly, a lot of his gun nut followers are cowards who like talking a big game but wouldn't risk themselves.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 09, 2020, 03:41:23 PM
A civil war will not happen.  Not enough of his sycophants actually care enough to do it.  Certainly they have no concept of working together, kind of necessary for that sort of thing.  He doesn't have the generals--they hate him--so the military isn't on his side.  And frankly, a lot of his gun nut followers are cowards who like talking a big game but wouldn't risk themselves.

There will be violence, it just won't be coordinated or large scale.  Less a civil war, more stochastic terrorism. 

We've been marinating in our own adrenaline since 2001, with FOX News and "personalities" like Limbaugh and Beck skating right up to the "incitement" line and pushing the "FEAR" button on a daily basis and slowly radicalizing an entire demographic.  Thanks to this longterm hormone imbalance over half the country is primed to believe any batshit conspiracy theory about "them". 

And I do not believe we will make any headway unless we start playing by those rules.  If yanking on the lizard brain is what we're reduced to, then we need to yank harder than the opposition until we get in a position to deprogram people. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 09, 2020, 03:41:37 PM


I enjoyed that. :)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 09, 2020, 03:44:24 PM
A civil war will not happen.  Not enough of his sycophants actually care enough to do it.  Certainly they have no concept of working together, kind of necessary for that sort of thing.  He doesn't have the generals--they hate him--so the military isn't on his side.  And frankly, a lot of his gun nut followers are cowards who like talking a big game but wouldn't risk themselves.

I'm not so worried about a full scale civil war, but I do worry about the small number of lone gunmen and Timothy McVeighs that might be out there.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 09, 2020, 04:09:52 PM
I enjoyed it too. He made a few good points as well as been quite funny.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 09, 2020, 05:43:22 PM
I'm waiting for the first Judge to label Trump as a vexatious litigant with respect to the fraud claims.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 09, 2020, 05:47:53 PM
Y'all need to check out Chapelle's monologue on SNL. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 09, 2020, 06:41:12 PM


I enjoyed that. :)

I realise this is a few years old, but it still seems relevant today:


I showed it to my kids a couple of nights ago and they laughed themselves silly (we've been discussing politics at the dinner table and they've been quite engaged).

If you can't click on a link, search on vimeo donny goes to school.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 09, 2020, 06:49:22 PM
I realise this is a few years old, but it still seems relevant today

 ;D ;D ;D

That's pretty much how Trump is behaving right now. "I don't wanna go! I don't wanna go!"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 09, 2020, 07:23:33 PM
I realise this is a few years old, but it still seems relevant today

 ;D ;D ;D

That's pretty much how Trump is behaving right now. "I don't wanna go! I don't wanna go!"

Now that they've seen the video, I think I might start using the phrase "We have to talk to the President of Argentina" on my kids when they're slow to get ready...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 10, 2020, 04:18:12 AM
Looks like Trump was correct all along about voter fraud!

Pennsylvania has arrested someone for faking his dead mother's signature on a mail-in ballot. First case in three decades. Guess which candidate the accused supported?


https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/-trump-supporter-arrested-voter-fraud-pennsylvania_n_5f91e43ec5b61c185f4848de?ri18n=true&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS92Mi9jb2xsZWN0Q29uc2VudD9zZXNzaW9uSWQ9M19jYy1zZXNzaW9uXzE0YTk1ZGI4LWEyMzEtNDViYi1iMDQ3LTBhYjU3ODhlMjNkYg&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAE5LLpyExhuOKrBqv62RppM8FCv9iLRVw8fUQ5Uj80qKB8trGgIbPNp3NVyPPwNPDjxiX41T9GPav9HnNwMir8Z8gjbfdL5Qn1PZ7Zbf-6c2iUAggQbZx6bTLoVU_SPKTmAh8GvFnAIW_WfbsIC7Iq-0JlzTsicz3g3Fhw7T1llm
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 10, 2020, 04:19:42 AM
Quelle surprise......the incompetence continues.

(https://i.postimg.cc/mk9GJjXR/Em-ZWHx-HW8-AAmx-T3.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on November 10, 2020, 06:46:50 AM
A civil war will not happen.  Not enough of his sycophants actually care enough to do it.  Certainly they have no concept of working together, kind of necessary for that sort of thing.  He doesn't have the generals--they hate him--so the military isn't on his side.  And frankly, a lot of his gun nut followers are cowards who like talking a big game but wouldn't risk themselves.

I'm not so worried about a full scale civil war, but I do worry about the small number of lone gunmen and Timothy McVeighs that might be out there.
That's my worry as well. That said, I do think the Trump presidency is going to be remembered by future historians as a definite weakening in The Rise and Fall of the American Hegemony.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on November 10, 2020, 08:16:45 AM
So... um... is the USA going to remain intact?

It does seem like a lot of the Republican establishment is going along with this and the bulk of Republican supporters are onboard too.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 10, 2020, 10:36:52 AM
Looks like Trump was correct all along about voter fraud!

Pennsylvania has arrested someone for faking his dead mother's signature on a mail-in ballot. First case in three decades. Guess which candidate the accused supported?


https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/-trump-supporter-arrested-voter-fraud-pennsylvania_n_5f91e43ec5b61c185f4848de?ri18n=true&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS92Mi9jb2xsZWN0Q29uc2VudD9zZXNzaW9uSWQ9M19jYy1zZXNzaW9uXzE0YTk1ZGI4LWEyMzEtNDViYi1iMDQ3LTBhYjU3ODhlMjNkYg&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAE5LLpyExhuOKrBqv62RppM8FCv9iLRVw8fUQ5Uj80qKB8trGgIbPNp3NVyPPwNPDjxiX41T9GPav9HnNwMir8Z8gjbfdL5Qn1PZ7Zbf-6c2iUAggQbZx6bTLoVU_SPKTmAh8GvFnAIW_WfbsIC7Iq-0JlzTsicz3g3Fhw7T1llm

While I have...issues...with most of what Erik Erickson writes, he is an actual subject matter expert on vote fraud, having prosecuted and defended cases in court regarding improper voting, and he has 2 main points:

 - True fraud (deliberately voting under false pretenses) is rare; most of the time, any irregularities are due to unclear instructions, confusion, poor ballot design, etc.  People who vote by mail are told their vote won't count and vote in person, winding up voting twice, stuff like that.  That sort of stuff happens all the time in every election.   

 - It doesn't happen in numbers large enough to queer anything but the smallest local elections, where the voter pool is like a hundred people or so. 

What most people call "voter" fraud is better termed "campaign" or "election" fraud because it is perpetrated by election officials, not individual voters.  As I always say, all those dead people didn't vote for LBJ by walking into their local polling place with fake ID.  The use of the term "voter" fraud is deliberate, though - it's to subtly imply "those people" should not have their votes counted. 

But yeah, most recently reported cases of actual, documented fraud seem to be perpetrated by Republicans.  Funny, that. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 10, 2020, 10:45:34 AM
I'm not so worried about a full scale civil war, but I do worry about the small number of lone gunmen and Timothy McVeighs that might be out there.

Sure, absolutely, and I'm worried about that, too.  But I was told recently that I needed to get a gun in my house to protect myself against rampaging mobs of conservatives, and leaving aside that they'd have to do quite a bit of driving to get to me (there's one house in my neighbourhood that had a Trump sign, and I taught the kids the meaning of "schadenfreude" when he took it down), I just don't think it's a bigger problem than the danger of having a gun in a house with kids.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 11, 2020, 07:17:41 AM
Quelle surprise......the incompetence continues.

(https://i.postimg.cc/mk9GJjXR/Em-ZWHx-HW8-AAmx-T3.jpg)

The conspiracist in me says that if they don't fix the defect, then it gets thrown out on a 'technicality', which, as we all know from Hollywood, is how criminals avoid being found guilty of their crimes...!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 11, 2020, 01:35:07 PM
The conspiracist in me says that if they don't fix the defect, then it gets thrown out on a 'technicality', which, as we all know from Hollywood, is how criminals avoid being found guilty of their crimes...!

Ha ha, sure.  The Trump campaign has an airtight case, and some corrupt Deep State judge dismisses it on a "technicality."  I'm sure that's the impression they want to create.  The Trump campaign is something like 0-10 on their lawsuits.  They fail either for lack of evidence or lack of standing.  The point is not to win the election.  There's no credible path to victory for Pres. Trump.  Joe Biden now has more of the popular vote than Pres. Reagan won in his 1980 "landslide."  My impression is that the total number of popular votes at stake in all these lawsuits is probably far below what it would take to even change the picture of the Electoral College, much less swing it to Trump.  The Republicans are just trying to erode faith in the kinds of elections they know they can't win:  the kind where everyone gets to vote.  This is probably so that they can continue to dog a Biden Presidency with the narrative that he cheated to win.

Anything that's not the merits of the case can be considered a "technicality," but in terms of how courts decide things, many of them are extremely important.  It's the essence of Due Process and other important rights.  In many cases the courts make an important, conscious decision to let an apparently guilty person go free rather than taint Due Process.  A defendant may be guilty as sin according to a laissez-faire view of the evidence, but in order to allow that evidence to appear, for example, the court might have to chip away at an important Fourth Amendment point.  It's more important to preserve the sanctity of rights for everyone than to convict any one person by bending the rules.  Those are usually the "technicalities" courts speak of when it seems there has been a miscarriage of justice.  And of course it's the incentive for law enforcement not to invade those rights in an investigation.  Prosecutors will try to get away with as much as they can.  In many cases there really are substantive due-process violations, but the defendant is unwilling to take them to trial and chooses a plea agreement.

But there are technicalities and technicalities.  Missing a filing deadline or filing a defective complaint, motion, or petition is incompetence on a level that would probably get you fired at a big firm.  A filing that's missing required documents is never a good thing.  The clerk of the court wields a fair amount of practical power (subject to the Justices, of course), and it's never a good idea to waste their time.  Plus, I went to the Michigan Court Rules web site to read how difficult it is to file an appeal.  It took me a little over one minute to read the relevant section.  I guarantee the judge in the case heard from the clerk what happened.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 11, 2020, 01:55:58 PM
The conspiracist in me says that if they don't fix the defect, then it gets thrown out on a 'technicality', which, as we all know from Hollywood, is how criminals avoid being found guilty of their crimes...!

Ha ha, sure.  The Trump campaign has an airtight case, and some corrupt Deep State judge dismisses it on a "technicality."

I'm worried that the opposite could happen. The Trump campaign has an extremely weak case, but some corrupt judge that he appointed will allow it to proceed due to a biased interpretation of the law.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 11, 2020, 03:57:14 PM
I'm worried that the opposite could happen. The Trump campaign has an extremely weak case, but some corrupt judge that he appointed will allow it to proceed due to a biased interpretation of the law.

Yup, Bush v. Gore.

And let's be frank: that's exactly what the Republican plan is.  They want at least one case to get to the Supreme Court so that the conservative supermajority they railroaded into it can provide a nationally-binding precedent on some key issue.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 11, 2020, 04:06:38 PM
Sigh. I hope you guys get through this. If Trump somehow manages to overrule 76 million voters there will be riots that make the BLM protests look like a church picnic.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 11, 2020, 07:00:37 PM
Thanks.  It actually means a lot to me to know that there are non-Americans out there who want Americans to succeed on the right terms.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on November 12, 2020, 08:31:26 AM
And let's be frank: that's exactly what the Republican plan is.  They want at least one case to get to the Supreme Court so that the conservative supermajority they railroaded into it can provide a nationally-binding precedent on some key issue.

Let's hope even the conservative judges don't share Trump's disregard for democracy.

It seems they are not going not follow his personal Agenda, so  he will insult them soon...

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/10/politics/supreme-court-obamacare-oral-arguments/index.html

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 12, 2020, 10:49:42 AM
I'm worried that the opposite could happen. The Trump campaign has an extremely weak case, but some corrupt judge that he appointed will allow it to proceed due to a biased interpretation of the law.

Yup, Bush v. Gore.

And let's be frank: that's exactly what the Republican plan is.  They want at least one case to get to the Supreme Court so that the conservative supermajority they railroaded into it can provide a nationally-binding precedent on some key issue.

You mean all the protestations that Bush v. Gore was meant to be a one-and-done, non-precedent-establishing case were hollow and insincere?

Knock me over with a feather.

Every case sets a precedent one way or the other.  Doesn't matter what the Court says, somebody will use that result to argue a case in the future.

It just won't be Team Trump.  They're not going to get a case before SCOTUS.  Bush v. Gore came after what, almost a month of counting hanging chads?  And the margin there was a literal handful of votes (between 500 and 600 IIRC), where the recount could shift the result.  None of the current races are that close; no recount will overturn any result.  And I don't think any recounts are going to drag on for an entire month.  And given the level of competence we've come to expect from Trumpers, even if they do find a case that isn't thrown out by the lower courts in the first 10 minutes, they won't be able to successfully navigate the appeals process. 

Their aim is to thoroughly delegitimize a Biden presidency, as they tried to delegitimize the Obama presidency with all the birther crap.  And they're going to get away with it, because our media refuses to hold any but the most batshit, head-trauma crazy Republicans to account.  They're already rehabilitating the Trumpers who've jumped ship. 

Quote
Sigh. I hope you guys get through this. If Trump somehow manages to overrule 76 million voters there will be riots that make the BLM protests look like a church picnic.

I wish our internal politics didn't have such a huge effect on the rest of the world.  I understand why it does (we gots da nukes), but frankly we're currently in a very bad, very scary place, and I fervently hope that we can keep it contained and beat it back.  Like I've said before, Trump isn't the problem, he's a symptom of the problem, and voting him out of office doesn't make the problem go away. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on November 12, 2020, 11:52:00 AM
Yeah.
It will take quite a while for us to trust America not to go crazy again.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 12, 2020, 11:56:42 AM
I wish our internal politics didn't have such a huge effect on the rest of the world.  I understand why it does (we gots da nukes), but frankly we're currently in a very bad, very scary place, and I fervently hope that we can keep it contained and beat it back.  Like I've said before, Trump isn't the problem, he's a symptom of the problem, and voting him out of office doesn't make the problem go away. 

I live less than 90km (55 miles) from the nearest US border crossing, so it annoys me whenever a Trump supporter says "You're Canadian, why do you care? Mind your own business!". If things get bad down there it will inevitably bleed over into Canada.

It's a sign of things to come. If we don't deal with things like the growing divisiveness in the United States, wealth inequality, and climate change there will be major global problems. I mean, if people don't like when immigrants swarm over their country's borders and "take their jobs" just wait until millions of people are displaced from flooded coastal cities. If we can't all figure out how to work together we are doomed to live in a Mad Max world.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 12, 2020, 12:05:11 PM
Yeah.
It will take quite a while for us to trust America not to go crazy again.

And frankly, they shouldn't.  Getting the current administration out doesn't solve the problem.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 12, 2020, 03:02:04 PM
https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/us-election-eerie-prediction-a-year-ago-of-donald-trumps-defeat-and-denial-and-what-happens-next/news-story/45427e1939a391edbc132d7699165fb7
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 12, 2020, 04:19:09 PM
Doesn't matter what the Court says, somebody will use that result to argue a case in the future.

Of course.  Even if it specifically says it doesn't establish precedent, the reasoning expressed in the opinion is still fair game for reuse.  Nothing in Supreme Court jurisprudence prevents a new Court from nodding to the same reasoning and producing another one-off, non-precedential ruling that just happens to arrive at the same conclusion as before, by total coincidence.

Quote
They're already rehabilitating the Trumpers who've jumped ship.

Nothing would make me happier than to have a sane, credible Republican party.  There needs to be credible opposition in any viable democracy.

Quote
Trump isn't the problem, he's a symptom of the problem, and voting him out of office doesn't make the problem go away.

Donald Trump is the symptom of a problem that I feel has been decades in the making.  It's probably not going to go away overnight.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on November 13, 2020, 12:33:23 PM
A question, how are these law suits being paid for? By the presidents office? From party funds? I think trump should be sent the Bill personally, for both sides, if he loses.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 13, 2020, 01:23:18 PM
A question, how are these law suits being paid for? By the presidents office? From party funds? I think trump should be sent the Bill personally, for both sides, if he loses.

Apparently they sent out an email to Trump's supporters asking for donations to fund the legal fights, but the fine print said a percentage of it would be used to pay for other campaign debts. So I kind of think they are drawing out the fight until their debts are paid for.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 13, 2020, 01:25:27 PM
If an election is disputed in court by a candidate, the candidate's campaign pays its legal expenses.  Where the money ultimately comes from depends on how the campaign is funded, but ostensibly from donors.  The candidate's party has standing under Article III to sue on its own, without involving the candidate's expense.  They would naturally have to pay their own expenses from party funds.  Nothing I'm aware of compels the party to subsidize the legal expenses of a candidate who brings suit on his own initiative, but there may obviously be an incentive from time to time to share the expense.  This all proceeds under rules made by the Federal  Election Commission, which is the body charged with enforcing campaign finance laws, which also allows donations to go toward debt relief, so long as the debts were incurred for allowable campaign expenses.

It's very much against the law for an incumbent candidate to use public funds he controls to pay for lawsuits arising out of his run for re-election.  However, as many of these lawsuits will be defended by State attorneys general, the taxpayers will have to fork over money to litigate in defense of any state or local authority sued in his or her official capacity.  The so-called American Rule makes it quite difficult to recover legal expenses incurred while defending yourself against a lawsuit.  You have to meet the high bar of showing that the suit was filed vexatiously or in flagrant disregard of law and fact, which requires the moving party to demonstrate that mens rea on the part of the campaign.

Naturally I would expect any legal bills presented to Donald J. Trump from any party to be ignored.  He simply doesn't pay the people who do work for him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on November 13, 2020, 03:13:11 PM
So that's that. 306-232. BBC said it, so it must be true. Though is it really beyond their wit to represent Nebraska and Maine accurately?

So that's 5 states flipped. And also a Nebraska district?

BTW, has anyone worked out what it would be if every state did what Maine and Nebraska do? That would seem to be a better way to do it. Though, it probably wouldn't be favourable to Biden since Trump gets to the 3 ECV states, which would be unchanged by such a practice.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: inconceivable on November 13, 2020, 06:47:17 PM
The electorates don't vote until Dec. 14.  That is when the Presidency is decided.  Electorates can vote any way they decide. 76on..
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 13, 2020, 07:10:14 PM
The electorates don't vote until Dec. 14.  That is when the Presidency is decided.  Electorates can vote any way they decide. 76on..

The word you're ignorantly groping for is "elector."  And no, they can't.  And no, the Presidency is not decided (in the sense you mean) when the Electoral College votes are cast, but rather when they're counted and certified in a joint session of Congress.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 13, 2020, 07:53:32 PM
So that's that. 306-232. BBC said it, so it must be true. Though is it really beyond their wit to represent Nebraska and Maine accurately?

So that's 5 states flipped. And also a Nebraska district?

BTW, has anyone worked out what it would be if every state did what Maine and Nebraska do? That would seem to be a better way to do it. Though, it probably wouldn't be favourable to Biden since Trump gets to the 3 ECV states, which would be unchanged by such a practice.

Apparently so, though I don't know where it is.

The Australian ABC is running a daily blog of US election news, and someone asked this question a couple of days ago. The answer was that someone has done the exercise, and they discovered it rarely changed the election result. One case where it did, though, was the 2012 election, which would have resulted in Romney beating Obama.

Of course, if the states changed their voting systems to match Maine and Nebraska, then the parties would change the way they'd campaign, so I don't think we can draw too much from saying a past election result would have changed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on November 14, 2020, 12:11:38 AM
I live less than 90km (55 miles) from the nearest US border crossing, so it annoys me whenever a Trump supporter says "You're Canadian, why do you care? Mind your own business!".

Indeed, it's not like the United States is constantly telling every country in the world what it ought to be doing, and sometimes forcing them to do it, is it?

But to me, the kicker is that the current and previous two administrations have had a common policy, which is that foreigners (unless they have been lawfully admitted to the United States) have no rights, including the right to be alive.  A legal researcher for the Obama administration spelled its reasoning out pretty clearly.  The United States is at war with an unspecified enemy.  The entire world is a battlefield.  So if you are a non-American located on this battlefield, then you are a combatant.  And combatants may be killed.

Nice, eh?  I wonder how many minutes it would take for the US to invade any country that took that attitude towards Americans.

The FBI's own documents referred to Posada as a terrorist, and there he was, living in the US.  The Bush administration, which brought the world "enhanced interrogation", refused to extradite him to Venezuela, for fear he might face "enhanced interrogation" there - in other words, the US decided to harbour a terrorist, because they thought Venezuela might treat terrorists the same way the US did.  Do Venezuela and Cuba have the right to invade and occupy the US, killing a few million "combatants" (people located on the battlefield, which is the United States), because they are "fighting terrorism"?  Does Turkey have the right to launch drone strikes on the battlefield that is Pennsylvania, because Gülen is there?

So a country has, for three successive governments, claimed it has the right to kill any foreigner it likes, any time it feels like it, and has made good on that a few hundred thousand times.  And possibly more than a million, depending on whose counts you use.  Even US figures indicate that more than one hundred thousand "combatants" (as per the above, non-Americans who are located on the battlefield, which is planet earth) have been killed; nearly everyone else's figures are much higher.

So their government claims it has the right to kill you any time it likes, and you should mind your own business?

I don't know whether Biden will continue the "foreigners do not have the right to be alive" policy.  When he was vice-President, his boss definitely didn't think foreigners had the right to be alive.  And the person who ran against Trump in 2016 - well, there were few things that upset her more than the existence of a live foreigner.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on November 14, 2020, 05:23:45 AM
Of course, if the states changed their voting systems to match Maine and Nebraska, then the parties would change the way they'd campaign, so I don't think we can draw too much from saying a past election result would have changed.
It would also change how people vote, and who votes.

There being little to no chance of your favourite winning any electors if you happen to live in a state that is strongly the other colour no doubt discourages many voters.
Splitting the electors also slightly reduces the spoiler effect, people would feel more confident voting 3rd party.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 14, 2020, 11:30:51 AM
I used to have a defense for the Electoral College, but the last twenty years have frustrated me so much that I don't even remember what it was anymore.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on November 14, 2020, 12:30:40 PM
One of its apparently intended functions, Protection from Demagogues, isn't doing so hot.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 14, 2020, 04:27:57 PM
One of its apparently intended functions, Protection from Demagogues, isn't doing so hot.

One person's demagogue is another person's savior.  I think I could come up with a reasoned argument for the Electoral College as it was first formulated.  But it's very hard to justify it in modern times under modern theories of democratic government and with modern partisan politics.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 15, 2020, 12:15:07 AM
And so it begins.

Quote
US election live: 'Very ugly scenes' as pro-Trump rally turns violent
Far right and left groups have clashed in Washington DC following a pro-Trump rally leaving at least one man critically injured following a stabbing.

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/us-election-2020-live-updates-china-congratulates-joe-biden-on-victory-over-donald-trump/live-coverage/6ff11b1a0af8efac0d5356f55ce85439
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 15, 2020, 02:55:05 PM
Just how tainted will the Trump administration be? Those who left early should be okay but the people who are still hanging on must be doing so because if they don't win then their political life is over? They know this is a 'do or die' situation?

Just how toxic will having been associated with the Trump administration (and just Trump) be?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 15, 2020, 05:55:58 PM
Just how tainted will the Trump administration be? Those who left early should be okay but the people who are still hanging on must be doing so because if they don't win then their political life is over? They know this is a 'do or die' situation?

Just how toxic will having been associated with the Trump administration (and just Trump) be?

About as toxic as being part of the Nixon admin was.  A few years in the wilderness, but eventually all of them will be welcomed back into the fold. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Dalhousie on November 16, 2020, 01:11:11 AM
But to me, the kicker is that the current and previous two administrations have had a common policy, which is that foreigners (unless they have been lawfully admitted to the United States) have no rights, including the right to be alive.  A legal researcher for the Obama administration spelled its reasoning out pretty clearly.  The United States is at war with an unspecified enemy.  The entire world is a battlefield.  So if you are a non-American located on this battlefield, then you are a combatant.  And combatants may be killed.

Do you have a source for this claim? 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on November 16, 2020, 06:48:18 AM

BTW, has anyone worked out what it would be if every state did what Maine and Nebraska do?

It's only for 2012 and 2016, but it's nice to play with those anyway.

https://www.270towin.com/alternative-electoral-college-allocation-methods/?year=2016
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 16, 2020, 11:03:27 PM
The Australian ABC is running a daily blog of election news. A couple of days ago they had pictures from the Million MAGA Walk [sic], including one with a chap literally wearing a tin-foil hat...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-15/us-election-live-blog-donald-trump-supporters-protest/12884268, and scroll about halfway down.

(I'd post a clip but don't know how to)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 18, 2020, 01:13:24 PM
I'm hoping that's all the post-election violence we see.  But I'm not very optimistic.  The right wing has been mobilized and emboldened by the Trump administration, and once it has tasted legitimacy it will be very hard for them to be dissuaded.  As near as I can tell, the march in Washington was practically destined to become violent, as both sides seem to have anticipated it and participated in the instigation and escalation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 19, 2020, 04:23:01 AM
In what twisted timeline are we in where 73 million people are OK with this nonsense?

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/trump-rudy-giuliani-pennsylvania-lawsuits-not-coherent.html

Someone needs to take Giuliani to one side, make him a nice cup of tea and plonk him in the day-room where he can watch TV. Hopefully he will not bother the other residents too much.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 19, 2020, 06:12:53 AM
Someone needs to take Giuliani to one side, make him a nice cup of tea and plonk him in the day-room where he can watch TV. Hopefully he will not bother the other residents too much.

I would guess that the only person who thinks Giuliani is even remotely competent is Trump himself.  He may have been a reasonably capable lawyer at one time, but the last few years (decades?) have been a catalogue of disasters.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on November 19, 2020, 07:19:11 AM
I would guess that the only person who thinks Giuliani is even remotely competent is Trump himself. 

I guess Rudi himself also hás some delusions of greatness.
But even Sean Hannity  hides behind  “I heard from more than a few people that he was absolutely brilliant in his arguments today,”
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on November 19, 2020, 10:13:32 AM
So it appears that we're now in the next step of the attack on free and open elections; it turns out that the plan seems to be to leverage the destruction of trust to allow Republicans to simply declare the vote invalid and select their own electors. That would be an oligarchy at best, not a democracy. Long live el Presidente!

https://globalnews.ca/news/7469291/michigan-detroit-wayne-county-vote/ (split along party lines, the Republicans reversed themselves after an outcry)
https://globalnews.ca/news/7471739/trump-new-pennsylvania-election-lawsuit/ (Trump asks court to certify him the winner despite trailing in votes)

I recall there is also a report of a Republican pressuring a state official (governor?) to certify Republican electors instead of those indicated by the voting results. Can't find the story right now, though. EDIT: The Republican congressperson did deny it, so not really verified of course. Not the only report of thinking along these lines, though.

I'm sorry to say I'm glad I'm in Canada.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 19, 2020, 10:21:15 AM
I would guess that the only person who thinks Giuliani is even remotely competent is Trump himself.  He may have been a reasonably capable lawyer at one time, but the last few years (decades?) have been a catalogue of disasters.

I believe he did good legal work against the mob decades ago.  It's been a heck of a slide since those days.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 19, 2020, 10:41:13 AM
I would guess that the only person who thinks Giuliani is even remotely competent is Trump himself.  He may have been a reasonably capable lawyer at one time, but the last few years (decades?) have been a catalogue of disasters.

I believe he did good legal work against the mob decades ago.  It's been a heck of a slide since those days.

Dementia does that to you.


Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 19, 2020, 10:53:22 AM
I would guess that the only person who thinks Giuliani is even remotely competent is Trump himself. 

I guess Rudi himself also hás some delusions of greatness.
But even Sean Hannity  hides behind  “I heard from more than a few people that he was absolutely brilliant in his arguments today,”
"brilliant in his arguments"  ;D

The last report I saw about him was in a case about minor quibbles in the counting procedures, where he started going on about fraud and promoting various conspiracy theories.  The judge eventually asked him what relevance any of it had to the case being considered, and he admitted there wasn't any and shut up for the rest of the case...  :)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 19, 2020, 02:50:01 PM
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/19/trump-campaign-drops-lawsuit-michigan-438220

Thats the last of the current cases dropped with a resounding loss to Trump and his genius lawyer. Apparently Trump has tweeted that there's going to be another major press conference today.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1329408856733184008

Apparently it's being held at the Ritz. Which are to be found on Aisle 12....

(https://i.postimg.cc/nVw2bVTk/En-MKO4u-XIAAw-GJg.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 19, 2020, 03:17:33 PM
I would guess that the only person who thinks Giuliani is even remotely competent is Trump himself. 

I guess Rudi himself also hás some delusions of greatness.
But even Sean Hannity  hides behind  “I heard from more than a few people that he was absolutely brilliant in his arguments today,”
"brilliant in his arguments"  ;D

The last report I saw about him was in a case about minor quibbles in the counting procedures, where he started going on about fraud and promoting various conspiracy theories.  The judge eventually asked him what relevance any of it had to the case being considered, and he admitted there wasn't any and shut up for the rest of the case...  :)

Hannity has taken Prothero from "V for Vendetta" as his role model.  He's there to serve you fresh, hot, steaming propaganda. 

But make no mistake, while the lawsuits are legal disasters on par with the Hindenburg running into the Titanic in the middle of an earthquake, as a PR strategy they are succeeding brilliantly.  A majority of Republican voters are now convinced Trump won the election and that the Democrats are trying to steal it through massive, coordinated fraud.  Doesn't matter that there's no actual evidence, doesn't matter that it isn't true, millions of Americans now believe it as gospel, and many of them are armed. 

AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS JUST STANDING BACK AND NOT SAYING BOO ABOUT IT.  Mitch and co. are perfectly fine with this. 

Don't remember if it was Kristol or Frum, but they warned that the modern conservative movement would sooner abandon democracy than conservatism if it kept them in power, and that's exactly what's happening. 

There will not be a willing, peaceful transfer of power.  Trump and the GOP are delegitimizing Biden's Presidency from the outset.  There will be violence in January, things will get shooty, and police departments across the country are staffed by nationalists and white supremacists. 

Things are about to get really bad. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 19, 2020, 04:45:23 PM
... Apparently Trump has tweeted that there's going to be another major press conference today.

Oh dear!  I've watched a few extracts from this (I'll spare you the horrors of a link) and it's yet another disaster.  More unsubstantiated claims and conspiracy theories, including the amazing news that Hugo Chavez had the voting machine software rewritten (from beyond the grave) while in league with "communists" and other "foreigners".  Plus Giuliani (mis-)quoting "My Cousin Vinnie" and having to mop up the hair dye running down his face.

I honestly think all satirical outlets and sketch shows will now have to pack up, because they really couldn't top this...  ;D

PS - even the Trump YouTube streaming team were laughing at it, as captured when they accidentally(?) left their mics live  ;)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 19, 2020, 06:12:10 PM
Oh, good grief, that Giuliani audio is painful.  Opposing counsel tore him to shreds.  The hearing was on a motion to dismiss, which was immediately a fiasco since Mr Giluiani ranted at length -- as the article points out -- about points that the Trump campaign had deleted from the complaint.

Yes, he's alleging it to be "widely reported" that mail-in ballots are unacceptably susceptible to fraud.  But of course he can only cast vague aspersions, and this fails to create Article III standing under federal law.  There is no concrete, particularized harm to an individual voter or to the campaign.  This is when it's very important to dismiss claims "on a technicality."  In order for there to be a "genuine case or controversy" so that a claim becomes actionable under Article III of the Constitution, it must be concrete (not hypothetical) and particularized to the claimant (not just vaguely bad for everyone).  This particular element of "standing" is what keeps everyone from suing everyone for everything just because they're displeased at something.

As reported in the article, the telling moment is when the judge asks Mr Giuliani to state and defend a level of scrutiny to apply, and Mr Giuliani doesn't understand the question and asks for "normal" scrutiny.  That's ludicrously incompetent.  As I said before, the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment is the HP Brown Sauce of modern constitutional jurisprudence:  it gets slathered on everything.  But a longstanding, crucial part of arguing an Equal Protection issue is justifying which of the three judicial levels of scrutiny -- a basic element of law -- your side thinks should apply.  You can win or lose your argument depending on the outcome of that ruling.  You have "rational review," "heightened scrutiny," and "strict scrutiny."  The judge was asking Mr Giuliani to select from those three well-known options, and the poor man had no clue what he was being asked.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 22, 2020, 07:48:16 AM
So I see the Pennsylvania case has been dismissed in favour of the defendants: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7331957-Judge-Brann-Decision.html

At the end of the first paragraph of the judgement it says: "Therefore, I grant Defendants' motions and dismiss Plaintiffs' action with prejudice."

Is there anything significant in the words "with prejudice" or is it standard legal wording in these sorts of documents?

And I see that Trump has said he'll appeal. Where would that appeal be held? Would he have to seek leave to appeal or would the appeal be automatically heard?

A couple of other questions come to mind...

The judge says that the individual voters didn't have standing because they sued counties which allowed voters to fix mail-in ballots, when they should have sued their own counties which didn't allow voters to fix mail-in ballots. That seems a pretty fundamental mistake to make. Do you think perhaps they were so anti-Democratic Party that it simply didn't occur to them to sue the people actually responsible for their disenfranchisement, and do you think it might have made a difference to their case if they'd done so?

Also, if this was about the Equal Protection Clause, does this clause only apply within states, or does it apply between states too? That is, can people try to make a case that their state should offer X the same way another state does?

Is there any significance that the judge didn't consider the third version of the case? Or is that because it had already failed in so many ways that this wasn't necessary? Could that be used as a ground for appeal?

Finally, I think I might have found an error in the judgement. On page 11, under "D. Plaintiffs' Claims" it says: "The general thrust of this claim is that it is unconstitutional for Pennsylvania to give states discretion to adopt a notice-and-cure policy." Shouldn't "states" read "counties"?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on November 22, 2020, 11:05:10 AM
I thought it meant they couldn't appeal.

I can't imagine that Equal Protection would affect interstate comparison when the ruling is from a state court. Since the US Constitution says nothing about how states should decide what electors to send, I can't see a federal court deciding that either.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 22, 2020, 11:31:32 AM
Yes, it means that the case cannot be re-submitted to this court again.
The legal equivalent of two doormen picking you up by your collar and belt and throwing you out of the bar onto the pavement.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 22, 2020, 10:02:58 PM
Is there anything significant in the words "with prejudice" or is it standard legal wording in these sorts of documents?

It is very significant.  It means the Trump campaign is permanently barred from bringing these allegations again against the same defendant in that court.  Now it also occurs routinely when a case is settled without going to trial.  The plaintiff agrees to withdraw the complaint, which is then dismissed by the court with prejudice, in order to give legal strength to the settlement.  But when an unsettled case is dismissed with prejudice -- on a defendant's motion to dismiss, and without leave to amend, no less -- that's an indication of an exceptionally defective complaint.  It's a judicial sledgehammer.

And this was what Rudolph Giuliani was strenuously trying to avoid in his oral argument.  He was urging the court to quickly deny the "frivolous" motion to dismiss so that the court could hear his evidence of widespread voter fraud.  As in other cases, the Trump campaign's "evidence" consists of a few affadavits and a slew of conspiracy theories alleging shenanigans in Democrat-controlled precincts.  Here the problem was that the complaint itself was irredeemably defective.  If a claim is insufficient, the court must decide on those grounds instead of moving on to the merits.  That's basic trial law.  And Mr Giuliani largely ignored it.

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Where would that appeal be held? Would he have to seek leave to appeal or would the appeal be automatically heard?

The appeal would be heard in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, whose seat is in Philadelphia.  The court must hear the appeal.  Only the U.S. Supreme Court has broad discretion in what cases it will hear.  However, most appeals are not heard en banc.  This one will be heard by a three-judge panel drawn at random.  A rehearing en banc is uncommon.

Quote
The judge says that the individual voters didn't have standing because they sued counties which allowed voters to fix mail-in ballots, when they should have sued their own counties which didn't allow voters to fix mail-in ballots. That seems a pretty fundamental mistake to make.

It does in hindsight.  But as Judge Brann notes in his ruling, the argument in the amended complaint was a mashup of prior arguments.  The original theory of harm wasn't quite as obviously misdirected.  The complaint was that Pennsylvania Secretary of State Boockvar erred in preventing all counties from allowing voters to cure their defective ballots.  Therefore they say the counties that did so violated the Equal Protection clause by extending to voters in their counties a privilege that wasn't permitted in other counties and isn't mentioned in Pennsylvania law.  Since Pennsylvania courts had already ruled that counties cannot be required to allow ballot-curing (and say nothing about forbidding it), it's not completely out of the question for the plaintiffs to have considered the lenient counties to be the ones in error.

But yes, the all-important need to connect a particularized injury to the challenged action of the named defendant is basic law.  Whoever wrote the amended complaint missed it, a fact that certainly was not lost on defendants' counsel in oral argument.  In fact, the rebuttal was so vigorous that Mr Giuliani commented on how defendant's counsel "got so angry at [him]."  The individual voter plaintiffs were effectively denied their right to vote by the counties they lived in, not the counties they named in the complaint.  Had those counties not allowed voters to cure their ballots, it still would not have affected the plaintiffs' right to vote.  That's a pretty important point to miss.

Quote
Do you think perhaps they were so anti-Democratic Party that it simply didn't occur to them to sue the people actually responsible for their disenfranchisement...

No.  I think it's just sloppy lawyering, and the result of the tumultuous procedural history:  the churn in counsel during the crucial days before oral argument.  Mr Giuliani seems like the only lawyer who wanted this case.  But the result of shuffling people around during the time when you're supposed to be amending complaints, writing briefs, and preparing for oral argument is exactly this sort of Frankensteinian argument in the amended complaint.  But we can't lose sight of the idea that these lawsuits are intended to get large numbers of votes thrown out.  They're not intended to restore the voting rights of individuals whose votes were not counted.  That's just the cover story.

It looks like they may have originally intended to argue along the lines of Bush v. Gore and say that any difference in the criteria for accepting ballots constitutes an Equal Protection violation.  The problem in Bush was that no statewide criterion had been issued for what constituted a decisively marked ballot.  Thus ballots were accepted or rejected according to nonuniform standards.  As such, that was deemed an impermissible exercise of individual discretion.  But more importantly -- and this becomes relevant down the page -- the ruling was that no such criterion could be implemented prior to the deadline established in statute to certify the vote, therefore only the ballots that could be certified in Florida according to their existing standards could be allowed.  This gave G.W. Bush the electoral votes.

Instead, in Pennsylvania, counties exercised discretion in whether they would allow ballot-curing.  And in all the states I know about, it's perfectly allowable -- even encouraged -- for county election officials to tailor balloting practices to the specific needs of their communities within the broad guidelines of state law.  Specifically, managing scarce resources or accommodating peculiar challenges or reducing administrative burdens are considered well within the discretion of local authority.  When the exercise of this discretionary authority to do or not do a certain thing a certain way creates differences, it does not automatically constitute an Equal Protection violation.

In legal reasoning, the ability to distinguish the instant case from its supposed controlling precedent is critical.  Judge Brann's attempt to do so starting on page 34 will certainly be tested.

Quote
...and do you think it might have made a difference to their case if they'd done so?

It would have made their case less obviously stupid.  But they would have just had other problems.  The individual plaintiffs should have sued their counties and asked that their votes be reinstated.  But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had already ruled that counties cannot be required to allow ballot curing.  So while the theory of harm is sound, the court would have no mandate to apply the prayed-for relief, and the plaintiffs once again fail to establish standing.

You have to ask for a remedy that is connected to a redress of the injury, and which the court is empowered to provide.  All of these lawsuits demand that ballots be thrown out.  A remedy for Tom that means disenfranchising Dick and Harry of their lawfully cast votes is not a remedy a court can grant.

Quote
Also, if this was about the Equal Protection Clause, does this clause only apply within states, or does it apply between states too? That is, can people try to make a case that their state should offer X the same way another state does?

The Equal Protection clause only applies to people who are subject to the same laws.  No, I cannot use the Equal Protection clause to say that Utah law should provide the same labor protections as California law.  (California labor law famously -- or notoriously -- favors employees.)  That said, States most definitely look to each other for ideas about good government.  As I said, Utah has voted by mail for many years.  I would hope that many other States looked to us this year as an example of how it could be done.  But there's no legal requirement arising from Equal Protection that says Texas has to allow mail-in voting just because Utah does.

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Is there any significance that the judge didn't consider the third version of the case? Or is that because it had already failed in so many ways that this wasn't necessary?

I assume you're asking why the judge denied leave to amend the complaint a second time, which would have resulted in a third hearing of the matter.  Judge Brann justifies his denial with three reasons:  (1) it's the second time amending, (2) it's to undo the first amendment, and (3) Pennsylvania certifies its vote count on Monday.  The proposed amendment has to be submitted as part of the petition for leave to amend, so that the judge can fairly determine whether to grant it.

The expectation in federal court is that the complaint won't be filed at all until it's ready to go in all respects that could reasonably have been foreseen prior to the filing.  While there's no fixed limit to how many times you can amend your complaint, it's customary to need only one amendment.  And when your second amendment wants to undo the effects of the first amendment, the judge is not outside his authority to consider the whiplash effect on the adverse party and deny leave.  It falls under the heading of getting it right the first time, or at least by the second time.

Importantly, the defendant counties have an official duty to certify Pennsylvania's election tomorrow.  Allowing the plaintiffs to try a third time to get it right burdens that duty.  It incurs a higher burden of proof that their amended complaint will further the overall interest of justice if allowed to proceed.

Quote
Could that be used as a ground for appeal?

Absolutely, on the grounds that Judge Brann abused his discretion.  This would be hotly debated on appeal.  However, there is guidance in existing case law.

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which embody due process in federal courts, require that leave to amend be "freely given" in the interest of upholding substantive justice.  Judge Brann has discretion in whether to grant leave.  He abuses his discretion when he fails to give a reason, or the reasons he gives are deficient in any of a number of specific ways.  Or he abuses his discretion when either permitting or denying the amendment would prejudice the non-moving party, and he does the wrong thing.

Superintendent courts want to make sure justice is served in the courts they supervise.  That's generally best accomplished by letting the case play out at the trial level.  A plaintiff who loses his case wants to believe he was allowed to give it his best shot.  So on appeal, the rationale by which a judge prevents a plaintiff from giving it his best shot will be scrutinized and debated closely.  The standard is to grant leave to amend unless a contrary reason is given, which Judge Brann has done.  And the U.S. Supreme Court has outlined what those contrary reasons might look like.  Judge Brann quotes from that case.

Here, Judge Brann notes that what the plaintiffs want to do is reinstate claims they previously took out, claims that Mr Giuliani ranted about at length after the plaintiffs had conceded they were irrelevant by removing them from their complaint.  Generally removal of an allegation is a tacit concession that the plaintiff's emerging understanding of the evidence during hearings etc. has convinced him he cannot prevail on the claim.  In any case, Mr Giuliani's performance left little doubt what evidence for those claims was going to be.  The Supreme Court allows a judge to deny leave to amend if prior amendments have not substantially improved the pleading, supporting a belief that the claim is ill-formed at its core.  This pleading is a hot mess after its first amendment, so no.

The plaintiffs' reliance on Bush v. Gore will bite them here.  The Supreme Court disallowed a recount in Florida, even with appropriate ballot-inspection criteria, because it could not be done before the statutory limit on state certification of county votes.  While this is roundly criticized as the wrong decision, it could be cited here to support the notion that the timely certification of votes is more in the interest of justice than allowing plaintiffs to fumble their way through an ill-conceived court case.  The appeals court will certainly take note that plaintiffs knew, or should have known, that timeliness was a crucial factor to their chances, and to have obviated the need to refile their complaint so many times.  The judge cannot simply ignore the duties of the defendants with respect to the laws of Pennsylvania and of the United States.

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Shouldn't "states" read "counties"?

Probably.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 23, 2020, 08:14:26 PM
I see the GSA thingy did the whatsit.

I'm sure you know what I mean.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 23, 2020, 08:39:00 PM
Yes, a hitherto little known but very important acknowledgement, officially from the Trump administration, that Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States.  It was hitherto unknown because until now, the GSA wasn't working for a jackass President and simply acknowledged the outcome of the election without all the hoopla.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 23, 2020, 09:18:05 PM
The pundits are saying that Trump will leave but never admit he was beaten. Looking at his track record, I think the pundits are correct. He'll continually claim he was robbed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 23, 2020, 11:20:40 PM
And now I'm wondering what this Sidney Powell person is going to come up with that's going to make Georgia howl (thank you General Sherman).

Over at UM someone has provided links to articles suggesting that Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh are skeptical of her...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 24, 2020, 01:27:32 AM
The pundits are saying that Trump will leave but never admit he was beaten. Looking at his track record, I think the pundits are correct. He'll continually claim he was robbed.

Meh. Whatever.
His fragile little-man ego won't cope, but he'll be gone.

And now I'm wondering what this Sidney Powell person is going to come up with that's going to make Georgia howl (thank you General Sherman).

Over at UM someone has provided links to articles suggesting that Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh are skeptical of her...
Looks like her crazy conspiracy theory involving the Canadian-owned Dominion voting system, Hugo Chavez (dead for the last 7 years) and the Trump-backing Republican Brian Kemp was too crazy even for Trump. She's been fired.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-55040756
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on November 24, 2020, 05:12:36 AM
Someone on another forum linked to the live stream of Georgia's certification meeting last night, and I watched some of it out of interest.  The statements from various poll watchers and officials was quite eye-opening, with person after person describing nonsensical attempts by Republican watchers to interfere with and slow down the counting process.  I know it's part of the process to ensure fairness and prevent fraud, but to politicise it in this way is shocking.

I'd hope that stricter rules about what is and isn't acceptable are introduced, otherwise I can imagine vote counting to be severely impacted in future elections.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 24, 2020, 06:29:16 AM
Someone on another forum linked to the live stream of Georgia's certification meeting last night, and I watched some of it out of interest.  The statements from various poll watchers and officials was quite eye-opening, with person after person describing nonsensical attempts by Republican watchers to interfere with and slow down the counting process.  I know it's part of the process to ensure fairness and prevent fraud, but to politicise it in this way is shocking.

I'd hope that stricter rules about what is and isn't acceptable are introduced, otherwise I can imagine vote counting to be severely impacted in future elections.

That's been Trump's playbook from day one. Accuse others of doing what he has been doing in plain view. Trump accuses the Democratic party of stealing the election whilst he is busy trying to steal the election.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 24, 2020, 11:14:28 AM
And your vote only counts if you vote for them, it seems.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 24, 2020, 01:35:23 PM
Meh. Whatever.
His fragile little-man ego won't cope, but he'll be gone.

Gone from any real power, yes.  But I'm sure he'll work as hard as he possibly can to make sure attention is focused on him as much as possible during the Biden presidency.  While Fox News may have dropped him, there will be plenty of talk radio willing to host the former President and give him a platform to continue claiming loudly that some shadowy Democrat conspiracy deprived him of a second term, and that all those loyal patriots out there should keep fighting for the Republic.

What does scare me, however, is that former Presidents continue to receive top secret briefings until they die.  The idea is that the former President's experience during his administration will prove useful to some future President continuing to deal with the same issues.  But his knowledge has to be current in order for that plan to work.  We'll have an ex-President deeply in debt, continuing to be fed official state secrets, violating laws left and right with impunity, and desperate for continued relevance.  If Mother Nature doesn't continue ravaging his health, let's hope the State of New York is able to make good on the threat of criminal prosecution.  He needs to be more out of circulation than simply not being President anymore.

Quote
[Sidney Powell's] been fired.....

Hey, Donald J. Trump hires only "the best people."  In order to litigate in various state and federal courts, you need to hire attorneys who are admitted to the bar there, and who understand the state's procedural rules and the ground rules of each individual court.  But of course the Trump team sends in people like Powell and Giuliani to dictate the desired strategy to these local counselors.  And as those Trump operatives become increasing unhinged, no serious attorney wants to be associated with them.  So ultimately it comes down to a practical question.  If literally no one wants to work as local counsel for Trump For President anymore, then he literally can't accomplish the work to prosecute his case.  So he has no choice but to cut Powell loose, no matter how much he wants to play the QAnon card for theatrical effect.

Even in large cities, legal communities are relatively small.  Everyone knows everyone else, at least at the firm level.  Every attorney knows all the judges and all the judges know all the attorneys.  Getting embroiled in something like nutjob conspiracy theories in the serious practice of law will taint their reputations, even if they previously didn't have much of one.  Nobody forgets that time you got laughed out of court after pitching a conspiracy theory with no evidence.  I'm sure there would be plenty of firms willing to litigate Trump's election challenges as long as they were able to develop the strategy.  But only the most desperate firms with nothing to lose, I think, would be willing to let themselves be led around by the likes of Powell and Giuliani.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 24, 2020, 02:30:41 PM
That's been Trump's playbook from day one. Accuse others of doing what he has been doing in plain view. Trump accuses the Democratic party of stealing the election whilst he is busy trying to steal the election.

I'm worried it's going to continue to be the Republican playbook for as long as they can harness the power of ignorant madness that Pres. Trump has stirred up.  Once you've allowed something to become the New Normal, it's very hard to walk it back.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 25, 2020, 10:23:56 AM
Is it possible they won't continue to give him briefings?  It's a well-established fact that he doesn't pay attention to briefing now, and I can't see that anyone would be in need of his advice and experience.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 25, 2020, 11:20:24 AM
Is it possible they won't continue to give him briefings?  It's a well-established fact that he doesn't pay attention to briefing now, and I can't see that anyone would be in need of his advice and experience.

A not-insignificant portion of America still thinks he's the most brilliant and courageous man who ever lived.  It's hard to preach unity and then deliver a message so obviously divisive as saying his advice is categorically worthless.  And while Trump is President, digesting the daily briefings is an ongoing chore pertaining to a job he never really wanted and doesn't care to perrform.  But as soon as he's out of office, the briefing becomes something he's entitled to, but not getting because a Democrat administration says so.  That sets the precedent that a future Republican President can up and decide that Joe Biden isn't entitled to ex-Presidential briefings either.  That widens the political rift President-elect Biden says he wants to close.  And if you believe the premise of the policy -- that it's meant to derive strength from continuity of leadership across administrations -- then that strength is lost as soon as either party starts withholding it for political reasons.  I think it will sting a lot of Biden supporters to realize that in order to cement his call for unity, President Biden will have to conspicuously respect former President Trump as if he really wasn't a total embarrassment to the nation.

You could argue that Trump is, and has always been, a security risk and has a documented history of mishandling classified information.  And on those grounds you could deny him the briefings.  But that just goes back to a discretionary opinion to which political foes can attach all kinds of ulterior political motives.  A practical solution, iffy though it may be, is for state prosecutors to quickly transform Donald J. Trump into a convicted felon, whereupon he has to surrender his security clearance and is no longer eligible to receive classified information.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 25, 2020, 12:01:15 PM
Is it possible they won't continue to give him briefings?  It's a well-established fact that he doesn't pay attention to briefing now, and I can't see that anyone would be in need of his advice and experience.

Per NPR:

Quote from: NPR (https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/933374321/biden-should-be-getting-top-level-intelligence-briefings-but-he-isnt)
By tradition, sitting presidents offer occasional briefings to former presidents. It's considered good practice for all involved. For example, when a former president plans to travel abroad, a briefing can make sure he's up to speed and doesn't say anything that would be out of line with current administration policy.

Priess said he once delivered such a briefing to George H.W. Bush before he made a post-presidential trip to the Middle East.

But these briefings are a courtesy, not the law.

Former presidents get "Secret Service protection for the rest of their lives. They get money for a staff and an office. All of that is provided for in legislation," said Priess. "But that legislation does not say that the former president has a lifelong right to receive the President's Daily Brief or other top-secret materials that they received while they were president."

Doing a quickie search at the Legal Information Institute (http://law.cornell.edu) at Cornell, I found the following:

Quote from: 32 CFR &sect; 1905 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/32/1909.5)
(c) Former Presidents and Vice Presidents. Any former President or Vice President may submit a request for access to classified CIA information. Requests from former Presidents or Vice Presidents shall be in writing to the Coordinator and shall identify the records containing the classified information of interest. A former President or Vice President may also request approval for a research associate, but there is no entitlement to such enlargement of access and the decision in this regard shall be in the sole discretion of the Senior Agency Official

I've found several other sections in the Code of Federal Regulations that make it sound like former Presidents and Vice-Presidents may request access to classified information, but are not provided with it as a matter of course.  The request must be submitted in writing with assurance that the information will be safeguarded. 

This is based on a very cursory search, and IANAL nor do I play one on TV, so I'm very likely missing some important language somewhere. 

Based on my own experience in the military-industrial complex, I very strongly doubt that former Presidents and Vice-Presidents have ready access to sensitive information just as a matter of course, but that could be wrong. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 25, 2020, 12:24:56 PM
I've found several other sections in the Code of Federal Regulations that make it sound like former Presidents and Vice-Presidents may request access to classified information, but are not provided with it as a matter of course.  The request must be submitted in writing with assurance that the information will be safeguarded.

Thanks for looking up the details.  It's definitely comforting.  Obviously I don't know either what the briefings actually contain, but it seems there's no reason to presuppose it's classified.  I agree with your judgment stemming from your own experience.  If you take the basic need-to-know rule as a guide, I can't rule out that a former President would never need to know sensitive information in order to carry out his ex officio obligations.  But I'm pleased to hear that it's not likely part of the briefings in question.

Another way to approach this, given what the regulations actually say, would be to note that Donald J. Trump would probably prefer to rely upon his own "knowledge" and "expertise" when appearing in public as the former President.  And that embarrassing the United States or the current administration is not something he would worry about.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 25, 2020, 12:26:59 PM

Hey, Donald J. Trump hires only "the best people."  In order to litigate in various state and federal courts, you need to hire attorneys who are admitted to the bar there, and who understand the state's procedural rules and the ground rules of each individual court.  But of course the Trump team sends in people like Powell and Giuliani to dictate the desired strategy to these local counselors.  And as those Trump operatives become increasing unhinged, no serious attorney wants to be associated with them.  So ultimately it comes down to a practical question.  If literally no one wants to work as local counsel for Trump For President anymore, then he literally can't accomplish the work to prosecute his case.  So he has no choice but to cut Powell loose, no matter how much he wants to play the QAnon card for theatrical effect.

Even in large cities, legal communities are relatively small.  Everyone knows everyone else, at least at the firm level.  Every attorney knows all the judges and all the judges know all the attorneys.  Getting embroiled in something like nutjob conspiracy theories in the serious practice of law will taint their reputations, even if they previously didn't have much of one.  Nobody forgets that time you got laughed out of court after pitching a conspiracy theory with no evidence.  I'm sure there would be plenty of firms willing to litigate Trump's election challenges as long as they were able to develop the strategy.  But only the most desperate firms with nothing to lose, I think, would be willing to let themselves be led around by the likes of Powell and Giuliani.

Unless, of course, they are true believers in Trump and his schtick. They drunk the Kool Aid and they actually believe that they are good people doing good work. I think that this article puts it very well
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/why-wont-emily-murphy-just-do-her-job/617184/
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on November 25, 2020, 12:31:45 PM
I've often thought they should give Donald Trump some false intel about something that Russia would be interested in and then wait to see if they act on it in some way.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on November 25, 2020, 03:28:59 PM
I've often thought they should give Donald Trump some false intel about something that Russia would be interested in and then wait to see if they act on it in some way.

A 'barium meal'? I'd love to see that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on November 26, 2020, 04:57:36 AM
Another way to approach this, given what the regulations actually say, would be to note that Donald J. Trump would probably prefer to rely upon his own "knowledge" and "expertise" when appearing in public as the former President. 

Even leaving aside any scenarios of him selling the information, Trump being Trump would  probably request it just because he felt entitled to it and to be a nuisance to the new administration
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 26, 2020, 05:26:54 AM
Another way to approach this, given what the regulations actually say, would be to note that Donald J. Trump would probably prefer to rely upon his own "knowledge" and "expertise" when appearing in public as the former President. 

Even leaving aside any scenarios of him selling the information, Trump being Trump would  probably request it just because he felt entitled to it and to be a nuisance to the new administration

Just give him a Sharpie and some blank folder separators and he can write his own.....

(https://i.postimg.cc/fLZmc9S4/kc-trumpsign-0510.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 27, 2020, 02:42:54 PM
Could that be used as a ground for appeal?

It was appealed on those grounds to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.  An opinion has issued.  https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Trump.pdf The decision of the three-judge panel was unanimous in supporting the denial of leave to amend the complaint.  Justice Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote the decision.  Highlights:

1. Declaratory judgment that Judge Brann did not abuse his discretion in disallowing the second amendment.
2. Denial of an motion to stay the effect of Pennsylvania's vote certification.

The appeal did not challenge the ruling that individual voters lack standing.  Thus the only remaining plaintiff is the Trump campaign.

Leave to amend may be properly denied for reasons of undue delay.  The Trump campaign stated in previously filings that it could not receive equitable relief after the vote is certified, and urged haste.  J. Bibas notes that they cannot now change horses and try to vacate what they previously cited as a hard deadline, just because further delay now favors them.  This is especially egregious when they are merely reinstating previously withdrawn claims.  The defense could have been addressing them this whole time instead of now having to scramble to produce an answer before the deadline tolls.  Going back through the jurisprudence on prejudicial denials or grants of leave to amend, this seems to be a well founded judgment.  Again, bad lawyering from the plaintiffs.  They tried to create artificial emergency and it came back to bite them:  Judge Brann ruled perfunctorily according to his discretion because, in essence, that's what the plaintiffs said would have to happen.

Leave to amend may be properly denied if the proposed amendment doesn't cure the fatalities in the existing complaint, or if the resulting complaint is newly insufficient on its face.  J. Bibas notes that the renewed claims have already been addressed in other courts and have no further merit.  If the second amended complaint would be just as legally deficient as the existing version, that's sufficient grounds to deny leave to amend.

The real humor starts on page 14 where J. Bibas discusses the rather ham-fisted attempt to pivot from and Equal Protection argument involving the (now disqualified) individual voters to an Equal Protection argument that pertains to the remaining plaintiff -- the campaign.  It's sad.  In order to make that a viable cause of action, plaintiffs would have to argue -- not prove, at this stage, just argue -- that Trump campaign operatives were treated unequally to Biden campaign operatives.  And they can't even manage to get that right.

The number of votes in question is far below the margin of victory. Even if plaintiffs successfully challenge the validity of all votes in question, the outcome of the election does not change.  This is why the plaintiffs are demanding vast numbers of likely legal ballots should be thrown out with the bathwater, an argument that's just going to fall flat.

At the top of page 17 there's a subtly worded jibe.  Motion to stay the results of the election was denied, in this case for failure to have filed the motion with the appropriate court.  When your case is dismissed and you wish to appeal, a motion to enjoin the effects of the case dismissal until an appeal can be heard must be made to the district court that dismissed your case, not to the appeals court (except in rare circumstances).  Again, just consummately bad lawyering.  The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure are basic second-year law student knowledge.

Pennsylvania case law favors the right of the voter to vote, over and above technical glitches or deficiencies.  Therefore ballot-curing, where not explicitly prohibited, is allowable.  Federal court is the wrong place to litigate the details of Pennsylvania's election policy.

J. Bibas notes that there is an outstanding schedule of motions and briefs, so it appears this court has more to say on the matter.  But I'm not sure what that is.  Likely there will be an attempt to appeal from here to the U.S. Supreme Court.  But J. Bibas' ruling appears airtight enough that I doubt certiorari will be granted.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on November 27, 2020, 03:30:17 PM
I understand that Mr. Trump wishes to cling to power. I also understand why. But what I don't understand, is why so many other people are willing to hitch their own wagon to his train on a track to the abyss. They must know he's on borrowed time, he won't (be able to) pay them, and their reputation will carry that stain for a long long time.

Basically, why do people want to work for him? The loonies like Paula White and all the televangelists I understand, they are in it for the people's money  - direct to them. But those people who actually work for him and he has to pay out of his own pocket? Why?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on November 28, 2020, 07:05:40 AM
I was going to tell you all a Rudy Giuliani joke, but it’s lost its appeal.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 28, 2020, 10:54:16 AM
I can't fathom how anyone would work for him in any way; he doesn't pay his bills.  At this point, he should find it impossible to get delivery, much less hire a lawyer.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 28, 2020, 03:52:48 PM
I was going to tell you all a Rudy Giuliani joke, but it’s lost its appeal.

It took me way too long to get this joke.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 28, 2020, 05:46:12 PM
https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/pennsylvania-judge-backs-trump-claim-in-case-over-mail-voting

Is there anything of concern in this judge's ruling?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 28, 2020, 06:43:56 PM
https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/pennsylvania-judge-backs-trump-claim-in-case-over-mail-voting

Is there anything of concern in this judge's ruling?

Nope.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has just dismissed the case.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on November 29, 2020, 04:32:51 AM
https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/pennsylvania-judge-backs-trump-claim-in-case-over-mail-voting

Is there anything of concern in this judge's ruling?

Nope.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has just dismissed the case.

Can that decision be appealed? If so, to which court?

As far as I can see from UM, the grand strategy is to keep appealing until they can get their case before the SCOTUS where they assume they'll get whatever they ask for.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on November 29, 2020, 07:20:21 AM
Trump is desperate to get a case into the Supreme Court where he hopes that headbanger Justice Barrett gets a chance to rule on this case.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on November 29, 2020, 12:15:08 PM
Frankly, I think Roberts wouldn't dare.  He's too concerned about his legacy to side with Trump again.  I also think he'd rather wait out four years and hope to get a Republican in office who would give him what he wanted without the heavy side order of venality and corruption.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on November 29, 2020, 01:18:09 PM
Can that decision be appealed? If so, to which court?

The U.S. Supreme Court may review decisions of State high courts only if a "federal question" has been raised or if diversity jurisdiction exists.  Otherwise the decision of the highest court in a State is considered final.  As usual, even if the case does present a federal question, the U.S. Supreme Court is not required to grant certiorari.  And for the reasons I give below, they almost certainly cannot here.

A federal question is raised when a state court renders a judgment on a complaint that refers to some federal law, federal regulation, or the Constitution among the laws cited in its causes of action, and the decision at least partly applies the federal law.  If the highest court in the state renders a decision that attempts, among other things, to interpret a federal law -- even if it does so correctly -- then the case becomes reviewable by the Supreme Court.

The reason why a federal question would arise in a State court is rooted in historical federalism.  The U.S. Supreme Court delegates authority to rule on federal statutes to the State courts, and considers them competent to do so.  And throughout history, it served the interests of the parties for that to happen.  State courts were generally more accessible than "circuit" courts, and swifter justice could be obtained.  Generally the defendant has the right to "remove" to a U.S. District court any action arising in State court out of federal law.  It is more common today for causes of action arising purely under federal law to be brought in U.S. District courts, because there are more of them and travel is easier now.  And also, some theories of liability require applications of both federal and state law, and only the State court is empowered to grant the relief plaintiffs seek.  Those are cases that must arise in State court, but which necessarily raise federal questions.

Diversity jurisdiction occurs when no two plaintiffs in a State action reside in the same State.  This is not the case here.  All plaintiffs are Pennsylvanians.

The original complaint cites only Pennsylvania Commonwealth law and the Pennsylvania Constitution as the statutory authority for its causes of action, although it does reference the U.S. Constitution earlier to establish that the Pennsylvania General Assembly could share the responsibility to grant the relief plaintiffs seek.  However, the complaint does not allege a violation of the U.S. Constitution.  Nor was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's dismissal in this case based on any federal law.  I cannot see how the plaintiffs could establish the existence of a federal question based on the pleading.

The case was dismissed on -- you guess it -- a "technicality."  The legal doctrine of laches states that plaintiffs intending to bring an action have a duty to diligently pursue that action as soon as it is ripe, and especially not in a way that creates prejudice.  A challenge to the facial constitutionality of a law becomes ripe the instant the law is enacted.  In this case, the law allowing mail-in ballots for all Pennsylvania voters was enacted more than a year ago.  The limit on such actions in Pennsylvania was 180 days, so the present action was foreclosed.  Further, not only did plaintiffs wait until long after their laches limit had tolled, they continued to wait until just days before Pennsylvania was to certify its election, leaving little time to prepare a defense or litigate prudently.  This is considered prejudicial.

Finally, the plaintiffs allowed a prior election -- the Pennsylvania primary -- to proceed under the laws they now challenge, without so much as passing interest at the time.  This undermines any last-minute attempt to litigate the same issue now under an as-applied theory of unconstitutionality.  Any period of justiciable injury under laches begins when the first injury occurs, not at some arbitrary later time that more favorably suits the plaintiff's interest.

Quote
As far as I can see from UM, the grand strategy is to keep appealing until they can get their case before the SCOTUS where they assume they'll get whatever they ask for.

I'm quite sure that's their strategy in most cases.  But if that was their plan here, then bad lawyering again comes to the fore.  If you bring your case in state court and expect the decision of that state's highest court to be reviewable by the U.S. Supreme Court, you have to plan ahead.  Your original pleading must cite to applicable federal law in its cause of action from the start.  You can't add it later.  It doesn't happen if a federal question is raised in the defense.  Count 1 of the complaint contains no references whatsoever to anything beyond the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and as such fails to plead a federal question.  (Count 2 tries to justify the injunctive relief sought.)

More likely in this case is that Plaintiffs knew full well their complaint would be dismissed for mootness and are simply trying to create the vague impression among the lay public that challenges to election practices are being dismissed for frivolous reasons instead of being heard on their merits.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on November 30, 2020, 09:03:04 AM
So, it seems that a lot of important figures have integrity this time round, but given the American habit of making the selection of the milkman a partisan exercise, what are the chances things will be as reliable in four years time?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on November 30, 2020, 11:22:19 AM
The lawsuits are not a legal strategy to actually change the results of the election, they are a PR strategy primarily to soak as many rubes for as many dollars as possible and secondarily to delegitimize Biden's administration.  They exist for the sole purpose of planting doubt in the public's mind about the entire process.  It's all about painting FedSoc judges as "activist", all election officials as "corrupt", all elections where your favored candidate loses as "fraudulent", Biden's Presidency as "illegitimate", etc.  And 74 million people are swallowing it whole. 

Everything Trump Touches Dies. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 01, 2020, 01:07:00 AM
We are entering a new era of American decisiveness, I would wager. Future Historians are going to look at this and say 'this is that moment'. Of course, there's been a lot of build up that isn't so obvious, but this is going to be That Point in History.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 01, 2020, 03:45:35 PM
The lawsuits ... are a PR strategy primarily to soak as many rubes for as many dollars as possible...

An excellent point.  The "legal defense" fund is up to $170 million as of this writing.  75% goes to Trump's political campaign.  25% goes to the Republican National Committee.  It's unclear how much of it is actually going to be used to litigate lawsuits.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on December 01, 2020, 03:49:49 PM
The lawsuits ... are a PR strategy primarily to soak as many rubes for as many dollars as possible...

An excellent point.  The "legal defense" fund is up to $170 million as of this writing.  75% goes to Trump's political campaign.  25% goes to the Republican National Committee.  It's unclear how much of it is actually going to be used to litigate lawsuits.

So, pretty similar to the legal strategy Trump has pursued through his private life...?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on December 01, 2020, 04:50:34 PM
It's amazing, really. I've disagreed with who gets elected, and maybe even strongly objected to them. We even had traitors as politicians (I'm looking at you, 'Shanghai Sam' Dastyari) but I have never felt that a politician has been a worthless human who would be better off dead... until Trump. It really would be for the greater good if he no longer walked the Earth.

For what little - if any - good that he does, it is terribly out-weighed by the damage he has done to so many sectors of the population.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on December 01, 2020, 05:39:37 PM
Well, Trump's options seem to be narrowing rapidly, as his Attorney General, Barr, has now made a public statement that the DoJ hasn't found any signs of major fraud :

https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d

I expect a Twitter tantrum any time soon... :-)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 01, 2020, 06:01:42 PM
AG Barr's statement is mostly a red herring.  The entities over which he has control can investigate only violations of federal law.  And there is precious little federal law governing how elections can be run in states.  Voter misconduct is invariably a state-law violation.  So it's up to the state attorneys general to investigate and prosecute those.  Even widespread election fraud is still mostly out of AG Barr's jurisdiction.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 01, 2020, 06:13:53 PM
True, though the fact he's willing to go against His Cheese Nibs's word and decree says something.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on December 01, 2020, 06:52:43 PM
Again, the problem isn't Trump.  He's just a symptom of the problem. 

The problem is that the GOP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of right-wing media.  The RNC doesn't call the shots, FOX/Newsmax/OANN calls the shots.  The Republican Party has effectively ceased to exist as an independent entity.

Why haven't Republican leadership in Congress said anything about Trump's unhinged conspiracy theories?  Why haven't they pushed back?  Why is it state-level Republican officials are the ones having to do the heavy lifting here and beat back the crazy?  Why are they allowing this nonsense to continue? 

Because they're not the ones with the power.  Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are the ones with the power.  Hannity is Prothero from "V for Vendetta." 

Trump could drop dead tomorrow, the entire Trump family could fade into the depths of Eastern Europe away from any extradition treaties, but the problem doesn't go away.  The problem is still there, and it's getting worse, and I don't know how to stop it.  I don't know that it can be stopped. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 01, 2020, 07:08:31 PM
I agree. Like with the riots, it may be bubbling now, but the pot's been on the stove a long time. While not actually an 'Ancient Chinese curse', we do indeed 'live in interesting times'.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on December 01, 2020, 07:23:05 PM
The entities over which he has control can investigate only violations of federal law.  And there is precious little federal law governing how elections can be run in states.

That is something that still amazes me - no Federal electoral agency. Sure, for state election have states run the electoral process but on the national scale? There shouldn't be different rules for different states. It's a national event, and there should be national rules.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on December 01, 2020, 07:24:30 PM
Again, the problem isn't Trump.  He's just a symptom of the problem. 

The problem is that the GOP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of right-wing media.  The RNC doesn't call the shots, FOX/Newsmax/OANN calls the shots.  The Republican Party has effectively ceased to exist as an independent entity.

Why haven't Republican leadership in Congress said anything about Trump's unhinged conspiracy theories?  Why haven't they pushed back?  Why is it state-level Republican officials are the ones having to do the heavy lifting here and beat back the crazy?  Why are they allowing this nonsense to continue? 

Because they're not the ones with the power.  Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are the ones with the power.  Hannity is Prothero from "V for Vendetta." 

Trump could drop dead tomorrow, the entire Trump family could fade into the depths of Eastern Europe away from any extradition treaties, but the problem doesn't go away.  The problem is still there, and it's getting worse, and I don't know how to stop it.  I don't know that it can be stopped. 

Yeah, good points.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on December 02, 2020, 10:22:18 AM
That is something that still amazes me - no Federal electoral agency. Sure, for state election have states run the electoral process but on the national scale? There shouldn't be different rules for different states. It's a national event, and there should be national rules.

The problem is our perpetual uncertainty about how many countries we really are.  I've long said that one of the most interesting changes resulting from the Civil War was grammatical--the United States went from being a plural noun to being a singular one.  But our entire system is built on a premise that the states not only have the right to a lot of self-governance, but that they should have that right.  Even though Alexander Hamilton believed in abolishing state borders entirely.  The federal government was set up with the structure that it only gets to step in when one state's rights influence those of another state.  And while goodness knows that's better than the Articles of Confederation--where each state had total veto over any federal law--it's still caused a lot of problems over our country's history.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 03, 2020, 01:40:38 AM
Human rights should not be a state matter, in my opinion. People should not have to worry if they can have their actual identity be legally changed from what it was assumed to be upon birth just because they happen to have been born in a certain state. The fact that many states technically still have 'Anti-Sodomy' laws on the books is an absolute travesty. Sure, they're not enforced, but they could be.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 03, 2020, 10:38:39 AM
Human rights should not be a state matter, in my opinion. People should not have to worry if they can have their actual identity be legally changed from what it was assumed to be upon birth just because they happen to have been born in a certain state.

Sadly all that diversity among states, regions, social groups, and so forth creates disagreement over what constitutes a human right.  To some it's obvious that things like gender identity should be respected as a human right and protected under law.  And others argue it's a "new" right that never existed before, so it can't be a basic human right.  The real problem with America is that not everyone in it wants to be progressive.  They don't want to change.  And the federal system allows pockets of progressive and conservative government, which makes quite a lot of people ultimately unhappy.

Quote
The fact that many states technically still have 'Anti-Sodomy' laws on the books is an absolute travesty. Sure, they're not enforced, but they could be.

Lawrence v. Texas  declared all such laws unconstitutional.  So as long as that ruling holds, it bars bringing charges under anti-sodomy laws anywhere in the United States.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on December 03, 2020, 11:27:47 AM
Hell, we're the only country that hasn't signed the UN Declaration of Rights of the Child, as I recall.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on December 03, 2020, 04:51:07 PM
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on December 04, 2020, 07:48:24 AM
I expect a Twitter tantrum any time soon... :-)

More important, will Trump fire Barr and promote Giuliani?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on December 07, 2020, 05:42:49 PM
It is starting...

Quote
The Chief Election Officer and Secretary of State for Michigan, Jocelyn Benson, has thanked the state's attorney general and local law enforcement for assisting after armed protesters gathered outside her family home on the weekend.

Michigan officials last month certified the state’s election results showing president-elect Joe Biden had won the state, but the group who rallied outside Benson's home held up placards that read "stop the steal" and chanted "bogus" electoral fraud claims.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-08/us-election-updates-trump-biden-rudy-giuliani-in-hospital-covid/12957436

I'm going to remain quite negative about this.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 08, 2020, 11:27:52 AM
Yes, disapproval is warranted.  This isn't by any means the first time a protest has occurred outside the residence of a public official.  Over the summer some BLM protesters had a parade whose route went past the home of the state attorney general.  And we had some anti-maskers protest in front of a city official's house.

Why is it always the people who deny reality who stoop to such callous behavior?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on December 08, 2020, 04:35:37 PM
Most likely, it's not about the cause, but just the people who just want to be in the way of things.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 08, 2020, 06:43:20 PM
I agree.  They just want to "stick it" to someone and make their lives miserable on all counts, just because they have a grievance.

Rereading my previous post, it sounds like I was claiming BLM protesters were among those denying reality.  That was not what I meant.  The "protest" in question was a form of moving dance party that has become popular in our region.  From what I gather, it's an attempt to bring positivity into mainstream protest culture.  It was pointedly planned to pass the attorney general's house, for obvious reasons.  The protests in which a person's residence is specifically targeted and made the subject of negative demonstrations seem to be orchestrated mostly by conspiracy-theory types.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on December 08, 2020, 10:30:32 PM
Most people don't matter in the large picture, and this is a way to feel that they DO matter.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on December 09, 2020, 03:26:49 AM
On a slightly different note, does anyone have any thoughts on the case Texas has brought before the Supreme Court?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on December 09, 2020, 03:31:20 AM
On a slightly different note, does anyone have any thoughts on the case Texas has brought before the Supreme Court?
Is that the one the Supreme Court summarily dismissed in one scathing line?  ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 09, 2020, 03:41:52 AM
On one hand, they should yeet this with extreme prejudice, but, the way the US Supreme Court is stacked right now, I wouldn't 100% discount the possibility of it going the other way.  If it goes through, it would be an absolute wrecking ball to American democracy. The fact Texas is even attempting it is a couple good swings.
I hope you are right, molesworth, I  hope you are right.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on December 09, 2020, 05:00:36 AM
On a slightly different note, does anyone have any thoughts on the case Texas has brought before the Supreme Court?
Is that the one the Supreme Court summarily dismissed in one scathing line?  ;D

No.

This one: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/22o155.html

I mean, as far as I can tell, it appears to rehash the same arguments used in cases dismissed at the state level.

And the statistical analysis on page 22 and following, from the Motion to Expedite Main Document, looks pretty skewy to me.

But then again, it's years since I studied or seriously used statistics... (ETA, Sagan had his billions, but Cicchetti has quadrillions)

So I'd appreciate some confirmation that if you build your legal arguments in the same way, they'll get knocked down in the same way.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 09, 2020, 10:41:27 AM
The one-line dismissal is the rule in cases where certiorari is denied.  The Supreme Court's daily orders contain page after page of such single-line dismissals, since so many cases are referred to them.

The Texas case is different because here the parties are actual States.  The Attorney General of Texas is filing the suit in his official capacity on behalf of the State.  This is one of the few circumstances in which the U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction:  when one State sues another.

The Bill of Complaint is uncommonly long:  more than 150 pages.  When I skimmed it last night, I didn't see anything that hasn't already been brought in lower courts and rejected -- in some cases with scathing rebukes.

It attempts to invoke Bush v. Gore to create a "federal question," the magic circumstance that allows a U.S. court to take up what is essentially a state issue.  The Third Circuit rejected this, but the Supreme Court could always disagree.  It attempts to invoke the elements of the Constitution -- the Electors Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause -- in its causes of action.  This has already been taken up by the circuit courts and argued with fairly unassailable logic.  None of them applies in the way the plaintiff here desires.  And it attempts to relitigate all the questions regarding the constitutionality of state laws as they apply to the respective state constitutions, questions that the state high courts have already ruled upon.  (Absent a federal question, those rulings are unreviewable in the Supreme Court.)

The statistical argument failed numerous times already, mostly because the testimony supporting it has never been taken by deposition, only by affidavit.  Affidavits are considered hearsay for purposes of evidence in court.  Testimony by deposition would allow voir dire into the methods used, which would almost certainly fail the Daubert test for admissibility as opinion testimony.

Where it's going to fail, however, is -- as usual -- in the deficiency of its pleading.  The Bill is dozens of pages of the same arguments that have failed to convince even the most sympathetic of lower courts.  I'm sure that's where the attorney general wishes attention most to be paid.  But the real problems here are technicalities such as laches.

The doctrine of laches says that you must begin to pursue a remedy in court upon knowledge of first injury.  You may not delay, or as the legal jargon goes:  "sleep on your rights."  This is especially true when delay would prejudice any court action against the defendant.  For example, if I discovered that someone was infringing on my patent, I cannot wait a year or two until they have amassed a pot of revenue as the fruits of their infringement, and then swoop to claim it as ill-gotten gain.  I had the duty to stake my claim before the defendant committed further resources.

Here, when the claim is that a law is unconstitutional on its face, the laches clock begins ticking as soon as the laws hit the books.  "First injury" for facial unconstitutionality occurs when the law is enacted, as opposed to as-applied unconstitutionality, which requires a body of facts in some case to adjudicate.  If Texas believed the laws of other states that regulated their balloting violated their state constitutions, and that this would injure Texas' rights in the Electoral College, they had a duty to begin action when the laws were enacted, not just after it became apparent that they would lose.  Texas had a duty to bring action before the defendant States used those laws to conduct elections.  The defense of latches is especially strong when suit is filed after the States certified their electoral votes.  Eleventh-hour tactics after intentional delays almost always fail on the grounds that the other party is thereby prejudiced.

And the prayer for relief is the same nonsense that no court yet has yet agreed is even remotely allowable under Article III.  Texas wants all the electoral votes from the defendant states to be invalidated.  No court has yet recognized that the appropriate remedy for balloting irregularity affecting one party is the categorical, irrevocable disenfranchisement of huge numbers of other voters who arguably cast their ballots lawfully, in good faith.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 09, 2020, 03:06:06 PM
Another obstacle to the Texas suit might be the Safe Harbor law, 3 U.S.C. § 5.  This law provides that if a State has laws or procedures governing the contest of an election to federal office, and if exercising those has led to a resolution of the election and a certification of the slate of electors by Dec. 8 (yesterday), then the slate shall be considered conclusive.  I believe the defendant States have all done so.  This does not mean that a State must resolve its electors by this day.  But it could serve as a statutory basis to bar Texas claim on states that have complied.

The subtext, of course, is that the Texas attorney general has been under indictment since 2015 for securities fraud and is being newly investigated by the FBI on suspicion of additional crimes.  It is suggested he may be doing this as a favor to Pres. Trump in hopes of obtaining a pardon.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on December 09, 2020, 04:48:18 PM
What's this about other states joining in on this Texan action?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 09, 2020, 06:26:43 PM
What's this about other states joining in on this Texan action?

I don't see anything relevant on the docket.  Missouri has submitted an amicus brief, and Arizona has petitioned for leave to submit one.  Those are the only motions involving entire states.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 09, 2020, 08:20:02 PM
So the amicus brief filed in the docket under the State of Missouri has actually been signed onto by a dozen or so other Republican-ruled states, including Utah.  This is probably where the rumor has come from that several other States have "joined" the lawsuit.  In fact several other states have signed a brief giving arguments why the Supreme Court should take the case.  Predictably, the President -- whose tweet seems to be what has created the confusion -- doesn't know the difference between joinder and simply filing a brief in support.  No State besides Texas is a plaintiff.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on December 10, 2020, 01:09:48 PM
On a slightly different note, does anyone have any thoughts on the case Texas has brought before the Supreme Court?

Yeah.  They're not printable.

Note that TX is just as guilty of what it's accusing the other states of doing - changing voting procedures without legislative approval.  Gov. Abbott extended early voting by a week without going through the Lege.  Obviously, TX votes must also be thrown out. 

Law Twitter does not expect this case to get heard as it relies on the same arguments that have been shot down in other courts.  One can hope.

But you know this isn't going to end after Dec 14, or Jan 20, or, well, ever.  They're raising too much money to think about stopping. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 10, 2020, 05:48:53 PM
They're no doubt already looking to the next elections, working up the Trumpublican cultists to a fine froth.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on December 10, 2020, 07:07:16 PM
Do you think there might be an attempt to form a breakaway 'Trump' party, like what happened with the Tea Party?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 10, 2020, 08:20:09 PM
Do you think there might be an attempt to form a breakaway 'Trump' party, like what happened with the Tea Party?
Eh, I doubt it. US politics is downright lethal to third parties for presidential elections. No, I think they'll want to keep things under one roof as long as they can, so they can still have the "My grandfather voted Republican, my father voted Republican, so God dammit, I'm voting Republican."right wing voters as well as the Trumpets.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on December 10, 2020, 11:26:59 PM
I will say that our down-ballot races had a lot of people identifying themselves as "pre-2016 Republican" or "Trump Republican."  (Our ballot puts your party affiliation on the ballot exactly the way you enter it on the paperwork, so far as I can tell.)  But they're both Republican.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on December 11, 2020, 05:59:39 AM
[snip]

The doctrine of laches says that you must begin to pursue a remedy in court upon knowledge of first injury.  You may not delay, or as the legal jargon goes:  "sleep on your rights."  This is especially true when delay would prejudice any court action against the defendant.  For example, if I discovered that someone was infringing on my patent, I cannot wait a year or two until they have amassed a pot of revenue as the fruits of their infringement, and then swoop to claim it as ill-gotten gain.  I had the duty to stake my claim before the defendant committed further resources.

Here, when the claim is that a law is unconstitutional on its face, the laches clock begins ticking as soon as the laws hit the books.  "First injury" for facial unconstitutionality occurs when the law is enacted, as opposed to as-applied unconstitutionality, which requires a body of facts in some case to adjudicate.  If Texas believed the laws of other states that regulated their balloting violated their state constitutions, and that this would injure Texas' rights in the Electoral College, they had a duty to begin action when the laws were enacted, not just after it became apparent that they would lose.  Texas had a duty to bring action before the defendant States used those laws to conduct elections.  The defense of latches is especially strong when suit is filed after the States certified their electoral votes.  Eleventh-hour tactics after intentional delays almost always fail on the grounds that the other party is thereby prejudiced.

[snip]

I note the Michigan response to the claim uses that exact terminology.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on December 12, 2020, 01:04:12 AM
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-12/supreme-court-rejects-texas-lawsuit-donald-trump-us-elecion/12978044

Boom.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 12, 2020, 01:06:30 AM
Thank All it was rejected, but this has been the stupidest, most inane and pointlessly divisive piece of political posturing I have ever seen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on December 12, 2020, 08:39:10 AM
Do you think there might be an attempt to form a breakaway 'Trump' party, like what happened with the Tea Party?
Eh, I doubt it. US politics is downright lethal to third parties for presidential elections. No, I think they'll want to keep things under one roof as long as they can, so they can still have the "My grandfather voted Republican, my father voted Republican, so God dammit, I'm voting Republican."right wing voters as well as the Trumpets.

The Democratic and Republican parties are already fairly diverse coalitions of multiple interests (where else would you have environmentalists and labor in the same party), and that’s part of why it’s hard for third parties to gain traction.  Third parties also tend to be focused on single issues, limiting their appeal. 

But...

Given the colors shown over the last few weeks, I can see the GOP going the way of the Whigs and a new conservative party forming in opposition.  Inertia is hard to overcome, but damn if the Trump wing isn’t doing their best to drive people out of the party.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 12, 2020, 01:04:10 PM
Thank All it was rejected, but this has been the stupidest, most inane and pointlessly divisive piece of political posturing I have ever seen.

Indeed.  And it's worth noting that Pres. Trump's three nominees apparently voted not to grant leave.  That probably infuriated him.

Our state attorney general, who signed onto the amicus brief from Missouri, is now in hot water.  He did so without the notice and consent of the governor and governor-elect, who oppose the move.  He's citing the independence of his office as a justification for committing Utah to such a frivolous and embarrassing proposition.  And the citizens are turning against him too, noting that it's pretty disingenuous to sign onto an argument alleging widespread fraud in mail-in balloting when the election that put him in office was conducted almost exclusively by mail.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 12, 2020, 04:21:47 PM

Given the colors shown over the last few weeks, I can see the GOP going the way of the Whigs and a new conservative party forming in opposition.  Inertia is hard to overcome, but damn if the Trump wing isn’t doing their best to drive people out of the party.
They certainly are doing their level best, yes.
And I bet he's fuming, JayUtah. The man is a wannabe autocrat. If it wasn't already taken,the title of his biography should be 'The Man Who Would Be King'.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 12, 2020, 04:32:04 PM
And I bet he's fuming, JayUtah. The man is a wannabe autocrat. If it wasn't already taken,the title of his biography should be 'The Man Orangutan Who Would Be King'.

Coming soon from Netflix.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 12, 2020, 04:54:20 PM
And I bet he's fuming, JayUtah. The man is a wannabe autocrat. If it wasn't already taken,the title of his biography should be 'The Man Orangutan Who Would Be King'.

Coming soon from Netflix.
An insult to orangutan I know, including a very competent librarian. ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on December 12, 2020, 06:13:53 PM
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-12/supreme-court-rejects-texas-lawsuit-donald-trump-us-elecion/12978044

Boom.

And the first traitorous Texan is already promoting secession... https://www.fox7austin.com/video/879541
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on December 13, 2020, 02:15:13 AM
And here's what actual voter fraud looks like, what an asshat! ;D

Florida attorney under investigation for registering to vote in Georgia, encouraging others to do the same
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/florida-attorney-under-investigation-registering-vote-georgia-encouraging-others-do-same/L6LTC2AHBFDMXPOTZKVMO5ESJQ/ (https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/florida-attorney-under-investigation-registering-vote-georgia-encouraging-others-do-same/L6LTC2AHBFDMXPOTZKVMO5ESJQ/)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 13, 2020, 03:40:28 AM
And here's what actual voter fraud looks like, what an asshat! ;D

Florida attorney under investigation for registering to vote in Georgia, encouraging others to do the same
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/florida-attorney-under-investigation-registering-vote-georgia-encouraging-others-do-same/L6LTC2AHBFDMXPOTZKVMO5ESJQ/ (https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/florida-attorney-under-investigation-registering-vote-georgia-encouraging-others-do-same/L6LTC2AHBFDMXPOTZKVMO5ESJQ/)
The irony is so bloody thick you could make Cloud's Buster Sword out of it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on December 13, 2020, 04:10:03 AM
And here's what actual voter fraud looks like, what an asshat! ;D

Florida attorney under investigation for registering to vote in Georgia, encouraging others to do the same
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/florida-attorney-under-investigation-registering-vote-georgia-encouraging-others-do-same/L6LTC2AHBFDMXPOTZKVMO5ESJQ/ (https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/florida-attorney-under-investigation-registering-vote-georgia-encouraging-others-do-same/L6LTC2AHBFDMXPOTZKVMO5ESJQ/)
The irony is so bloody thick you could make Cloud's Buster Sword out of it.
I had to look that up. Thick enough? I suppose - but it would be as sharp as a bowling ball I'm afraid!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 13, 2020, 11:24:23 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/maga-marchers-proud-boys-descend-164500443.html
Some "very fine people." ::) I would not be surprised if tomorrow was even more of a shit-show.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on December 14, 2020, 06:36:36 PM
Finally it is confirmed to him that he bit the dust..

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: grmcdorman on December 15, 2020, 08:20:02 AM
Except that he, of course, doesn't accept it. I don't believe he will ever admit that he lost legitimately... The attempt now is to create "alternate" elector panels that will vote for him in the swing states, and presumably on Jan. 6th his toadies will try to get that accepted by the House and Senate. No chance of that happening, the only reason to keep going is for his narcissism and to keep his base riled up.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 15, 2020, 10:53:01 AM
Gods, the first American Civil War started over  whether states had the rights to allow people to own other people.
Will second start over whether a morally, ethically and quite often financially bankrupt former reality TV star gets to be president twice?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Von_Smith on December 15, 2020, 11:33:16 AM
Gods, the first American Civil War started over  whether states had the rights to allow people to own other people.
Will second start over whether a morally, ethically and quite often financially bankrupt former reality TV star gets to be president twice?

One of the things that disgusts me most is that, had it not been for COVID-19 and his god-awful handling of it, Trump probably *would* have gotten to be President twice.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on December 15, 2020, 12:07:55 PM
I think, regardless of the will of the states refusing to accept reality, a civil war like the last one is simply not possible.  The standing army is too large now, and the generals hate their current CiC, who is completely dismissive of them and their accomplishments.  This isn't even a "that damn hippie" situation.  This is beyond that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on December 15, 2020, 12:23:46 PM
I think, regardless of the will of the states refusing to accept reality, a civil war like the last one is simply not possible.  The standing army is too large now, and the generals hate their current CiC, who is completely dismissive of them and their accomplishments.  This isn't even a "that damn hippie" situation.  This is beyond that.

I've got to admit, I worry about there being a secret faction within the military that would be willing to fight for Trump. It could be made up of white supremacists, or people brainwashed to believe Biden is some kind of evil socialist who drinks the blood of children, and it wouldn't even need to be supported by the top leaders. I'm thinking of the attempted 2016 coup in Turkey as an example of how there was a faction within their military that supported it.

I'm not saying it is likely to happen or that it would succeed, but I do worry about it. I know people like to believe the members of the military are all honorable and incapable of supporting a coup, but the last 4 years have shown that we can't really depend on some people (eg. Republican Congressmen) to be honorable and follow their duty.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 15, 2020, 12:57:49 PM
...presumably on Jan. 6th his toadies will try to get that accepted by the House and Senate. No chance of that happening, the only reason to keep going is for his narcissism and to keep his base riled up.

Indeed, a ploy to decertify a State's electoral vote in the Congress according to 3 U.S.C. § 15 runs afoul of many things.  When the President of the Senate announces a State's vote, a Senator and a Representative may challenge its validity.  The Houses then meet separately to hear evidence and vote on the validity of the electoral vote from that State.  The standard of evidence for that is the body of State law.  So presumably the Republicans in each House would argue that -- say, Pennsylvania -- didn't follow its own laws in choosing its electors.  Naturally such a proposition has no prayer of surviving a vote in the House of Representatives.  And given that no one from the Senate has yet signed onto this ploy, it probably wouldn't even rise to a challenge.  Given that predicament, the law is clear:

Quote from:  3 USC 15
But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted.

If the Pennsylvania Secretary of State has certified the slate of electors, then any disagreement in Congress over it is resolved in favor of the sealed certificate, regardless of how many Republican wannabes will run up and down the aisles waving affidavits and faux certificates.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on December 15, 2020, 04:56:23 PM
Seeing a lot of "clap louder, dammit" takes on Twitter today, and I've allowed myself to get sucked into a particularly unproductive argument (but it's either that or, you know, work). 

No matter how many ways you point out that the ship left the dock a week ago, they will confidently assert that Aquaman will escort them to their stateroom, and they believe it

"But the Trump electors!" - are not certified by their states and their votes mean dick-all.
"But Pence can toss the fraudulent votes!" - no, he can't.  He can ask if there are any challenges, but he can't unilaterally invalidate electoral votes.
"But Congress can toss the fraudulent votes!" - only if both houses agree that the electoral votes need to be tossed.  Given the the Democrats control the House and McConnell has already congratulated Biden/Harris on their victory, that's ... not likely. 

It won't end on Jan 6, it won't end on Jan 20, Trump will keep throwing rallies because people just can't help but throw their money at him, and the next few years are going to be hell
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 15, 2020, 08:05:35 PM
Why can't the people with this kind of charisma ever be trying to improve society?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 20, 2020, 02:37:54 PM
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-touted-imposing-martial-law-to-overturn-election-reports-2020-12
He doesn't just flirt with major abuses of power, he asks them out on dates.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 20, 2020, 04:44:11 PM
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-touted-imposing-martial-law-to-overturn-election-reports-2020-12
He doesn't just flirt with major abuses of power, he asks them out on dates.

Or just grabs them by the...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on December 24, 2020, 08:21:43 PM
Not really relevant to anything, but I just noticed how similar Roger Stone and Mike Pence look...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on December 25, 2020, 12:56:12 PM
Welcome to the least-surprising pardon so far--Jared Kushner's father.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 27, 2020, 01:10:26 PM
I have to say I saw the stream of deplorable pardons coming, and I don't consider myself especially prescient for saying so.  Of course he's saving the best for last:  his children and their spouses.  Why?  Because you can't be prospectively pardoned.  You can only be pardoned from crimes you have already committed.  And they have until Jan. 20 to keep committing pardonable crimes.  Then the coup de crap:  can a President pardon himself?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on December 27, 2020, 04:22:20 PM
I have to say I saw the stream of deplorable pardons coming, and I don't consider myself especially prescient for saying so.  Of course he's saving the best for last:  his children and their spouses.  Why?  Because you can't be prospectively pardoned.  You can only be pardoned from crimes you have already committed.  And they have until Jan. 20 to keep committing pardonable crimes. Then the coup de crap:  can a President pardon himself?

I wonder if he's been paying attention to the law recently passed in Russia, which grants lifetime immunity to former Presidents: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54979804

Not that he's got a chance of passing something like that into law, but I wonder if he's been wondering what he can do in the same vein.

Plus, there's the speculation that he's going to announce his candidacy for 2024 an hour or so before Biden's inauguration, just to steal the media attention...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 27, 2020, 07:35:27 PM
Like someone announcing their engagement at a wedding. Would 100% be in character, though he already claimed he would run again in 2024 even before he lost, claiming that 1st term somehow didn't count. ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on December 28, 2020, 03:15:19 AM
I have to say I saw the stream of deplorable pardons coming, and I don't consider myself especially prescient for saying so.  Of course he's saving the best for last:  his children and their spouses.  Why?  Because you can't be prospectively pardoned.  You can only be pardoned from crimes you have already committed.  And they have until Jan. 20 to keep committing pardonable crimes.  Then the coup de crap:  can a President pardon himself?


Even if he can, it won't be valid for State crimes.

Letitia James is after his arse in New York & Cyrus Vance is gunning for him in  New York County. They both have a long list of crimes they are investigating the Trump Mob for.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on December 28, 2020, 01:35:45 PM
I suspect quite a lot of those people are going to find out exactly what their pardons are worth when the state indictments start coming.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on December 28, 2020, 04:05:39 PM
Concerning a family so egregiously malfeasant as the Trumps, there will no doubt be many state and local cases against them.  But the desire among many is to restore some dignity to the office of President by holding the President and his advisors/family accountable for the many acts of depravity they engaged in while in office.  The desire is to remind future holders of the office that the President is not above the law.

While the policy of the U.S. Dept. of Justice is that no sitting President may be charged with a crime, it is not that no sitting President can commit a crime.  And the moment he ceases to be President, he is chargeable for any crime he committed for which the statute of limitations has not run, regardless of what office he held when he committed it.  In terms of restoring the dignity of the office and its penumbra, almost all of that is governed by federal law, over which the President has fairly unfettered pardon power.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on December 29, 2020, 06:35:10 PM
And the legal clown show continues.

"Leading New Texas Rebellion, Louie Gohmert Sues Mike Pence Because VP Lacks Authority to Overturn Joe Biden’s Election Win" (http://"https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/leading-new-texas-rebellion-louie-gohmert-sues-mike-pence-because-vp-lacks-authority-to-overturn-joe-bidens-election-win/")

I guess in the the post-fact era, the Constitution can say whatever you want it to say.  ::)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on December 30, 2020, 03:48:23 AM
Oh dear gods  .  . .  the stupid just gets worse and worse!
By the way, this is what the link looks like as you  posted it, BazBear: http://"https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/leading-new-texas-rebellion-louie-gohmert-sues-mike-pence-because-vp-lacks-authority-to-overturn-joe-bidens-election-win/" I had to edit it to get a working hyperlink.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on December 30, 2020, 04:08:19 AM
Whoops! I have no idea how I managed that, this works better:

https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/leading-new-texas-rebellion-louie-gohmert-sues-mike-pence-because-vp-lacks-authority-to-overturn-joe-bidens-election-win/

Thanks for the heads-up Raven.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on December 30, 2020, 05:29:03 PM
The desire is to remind future holders of the office that the President is not above the law.

And there we have the issue: he doesn't care if the office is above the law or not because HE is above the law, regardless of what he is doing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on December 30, 2020, 10:49:40 PM
oh! And a prediction (again!): As Republicans start to denounce Trump by not agreeing with his call for a greater cash-in-hand stimulus package, he'll use this as an excuse to use instead of his waning popularity. He'll claim the the Republicans were bought off somehow - he'll have to squeeze 'fake news' in there somehow - and there will be a "popular uprising" for Trumpians to embrace their name and form a splinter political group al la Tea Party.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on January 02, 2021, 11:58:02 AM
Is it true Trump can wage war in Iran and he can be "by force of law" 4 more years as president?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 02, 2021, 11:59:06 AM
Is it true Trump can wage war in Iran and he can be "by force of law" 4 more years as president?

No.  There's no provision in U.S. law for any such thing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 02, 2021, 01:11:03 PM
Well, a federal judge threw the case out, but yeeeesh, just the idea of it is just. . . I need a new dictionary for the sheer audacious stupidity of it all. And, of course, they're appealing.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/01/politics/gohmert-pence-electoral-college-lawsuit-thrown-out/index.html
American democracy limps on, but remember when I said the earlier Texas lawsuit was "the stupidest, most inane and pointlessly divisive piece of political posturing I have ever seen"? This may well, dare I say, Trump it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 02, 2021, 02:37:26 PM
American democracy limps on, but remember when I said the earlier Texas lawsuit was "the stupidest, most inane and pointlessly divisive piece of political posturing I have ever seen"? This may well, dare I say, Trump it.

Indeed.  It's a straightforward dismissal based on very straightforward principles of Article III standing.  Which is a kind way of saying that, as usual, none of these lawyers seem to know how to file a complaint that passes the simplest gatekeeper criteria.  Once again, dismissed on a "technicality," but really dismissed on the basis that these plaintiffs' attorneys are either desperate for business, incompetent in th extreme, or both.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 02, 2021, 10:05:40 PM
Is it true Trump can wage war in Iran and he can be "by force of law" 4 more years as president?

Oh, God, who’s making that ridiculous claim?  No, it’s not true.  If it were then George W. Bush would have been President through 2011. 

Sure, he can initiate some military misadventure to sandbag the incoming administration (he can't "declare war" as such, but he can do enough for all practical purposes). He can issue all kinds of EOs to cause maximum chaos. He’s still out of a job come Jan 20.  There is no exception for war, pestilence, famine, or the heartbreak of psoriasis. 

Oh, he (or his little troglodyte minions) can spout all kinds of nonsensical claims.  They mean dick-all. 

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 02, 2021, 10:39:38 PM
American democracy limps on, but remember when I said the earlier Texas lawsuit was "the stupidest, most inane and pointlessly divisive piece of political posturing I have ever seen"? This may well, dare I say, Trump it.

Indeed.  It's a straightforward dismissal based on very straightforward principles of Article III standing.  Which is a kind way of saying that, as usual, none of these lawyers seem to know how to file a complaint that passes the simplest gatekeeper criteria.  Once again, dismissed on a "technicality," but really dismissed on the basis that these plaintiffs' attorneys are either desperate for business, incompetent in th extreme, or both.
One might argue it's intentional. After all, if its dismissed on such a 'technicality', they can go trumpet "See, they refused to judge it on its own merits!"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 03, 2021, 07:56:21 AM
American democracy limps on, but remember when I said the earlier Texas lawsuit was "the stupidest, most inane and pointlessly divisive piece of political posturing I have ever seen"? This may well, dare I say, Trump it.

Indeed.  It's a straightforward dismissal based on very straightforward principles of Article III standing.  Which is a kind way of saying that, as usual, none of these lawyers seem to know how to file a complaint that passes the simplest gatekeeper criteria.  Once again, dismissed on a "technicality," but really dismissed on the basis that these plaintiffs' attorneys are either desperate for business, incompetent in th extreme, or both.
One might argue it's intentional. After all, if its dismissed on such a 'technicality', they can go trumpet "See, they refused to judge it on its own merits!"

None of these suits are meant to win on the merits.  They’re a Bannon-esque PR strategy to flood the zone with bullshit, and they are working far better than they should because civic literacy in the US is now almost non-existent, to where you have people like Josh Hawley describing an outright coup as "defending the Constitution" and people believe him.  Most everyone who voted for Trump are convinced Biden cheated, and the more these suits fail on "mere technicalities" like standing, jurisdiction, laches (a word I learned a couple of weeks ago along with the rest on non-lawyer Twitter), the more they’re convinced it’s a deep state plot.

Then you have the problem that Lin Wood and Sidney Powell are not well people (Wood’s partners have pretty much stated the man suffered some kind of mental break some years ago and is getting worse over time).  Wood’s tweets about Chief Justice Roberts are unhinged, but they are finding an audience.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 03, 2021, 08:24:35 AM
American democracy limps on, but remember when I said the earlier Texas lawsuit was "the stupidest, most inane and pointlessly divisive piece of political posturing I have ever seen"? This may well, dare I say, Trump it.

Indeed.  It's a straightforward dismissal based on very straightforward principles of Article III standing.  Which is a kind way of saying that, as usual, none of these lawyers seem to know how to file a complaint that passes the simplest gatekeeper criteria.  Once again, dismissed on a "technicality," but really dismissed on the basis that these plaintiffs' attorneys are either desperate for business, incompetent in th extreme, or both.
One might argue it's intentional. After all, if its dismissed on such a 'technicality', they can go trumpet "See, they refused to judge it on its own merits!"

None of these suits are meant to win on the merits.  They’re a Bannon-esque PR strategy to flood the zone with bullshit, and they are working far better than they should because civic literacy in the US is now almost non-existent, to where you have people like Josh Hawley describing an outright coup as "defending the Constitution" and people believe him.  Most everyone who voted for Trump are convinced Biden cheated, and the more these suits fail on "mere technicalities" like standing, jurisdiction, laches (a word I learned a couple of weeks ago along with the rest on non-lawyer Twitter), the more they’re convinced it’s a deep state plot.

Then you have the problem that Lin Wood and Sidney Powell are not well people (Wood’s partners have pretty much stated the man suffered some kind of mental break some years ago and is getting worse over time).  Wood’s tweets about Chief Justice Roberts are unhinged, but they are finding an audience.

Over at UM there are some who think Wood is on to something, and that CJ Roberts's silence is proof of whatever Wood is saying about him. Can you encapsulate what's going on or point me to a website which does?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 03, 2021, 09:53:42 AM
American democracy limps on, but remember when I said the earlier Texas lawsuit was "the stupidest, most inane and pointlessly divisive piece of political posturing I have ever seen"? This may well, dare I say, Trump it.

Indeed.  It's a straightforward dismissal based on very straightforward principles of Article III standing.  Which is a kind way of saying that, as usual, none of these lawyers seem to know how to file a complaint that passes the simplest gatekeeper criteria.  Once again, dismissed on a "technicality," but really dismissed on the basis that these plaintiffs' attorneys are either desperate for business, incompetent in th extreme, or both.
One might argue it's intentional. After all, if its dismissed on such a 'technicality', they can go trumpet "See, they refused to judge it on its own merits!"

None of these suits are meant to win on the merits.  They’re a Bannon-esque PR strategy to flood the zone with bullshit, and they are working far better than they should because civic literacy in the US is now almost non-existent, to where you have people like Josh Hawley describing an outright coup as "defending the Constitution" and people believe him.  Most everyone who voted for Trump are convinced Biden cheated, and the more these suits fail on "mere technicalities" like standing, jurisdiction, laches (a word I learned a couple of weeks ago along with the rest on non-lawyer Twitter), the more they’re convinced it’s a deep state plot.

Then you have the problem that Lin Wood and Sidney Powell are not well people (Wood’s partners have pretty much stated the man suffered some kind of mental break some years ago and is getting worse over time).  Wood’s tweets about Chief Justice Roberts are unhinged, but they are finding an audience.

Over at UM there are some who think Wood is on to something, and that CJ Roberts's silence is proof of whatever Wood is saying about him. Can you encapsulate what's going on or point me to a website which does?

Wood is claiming that Roberts is a pedophile and had Justice Scalia murdered.  Roberts isn’t responding because Wood is clearly in the midst of a psychotic episode and any response would legitimize the insanity.  Again, Wood’s former partners have gone on the record that Wood has problems and that they’ve been getting worse over time. 

But it’s finding an audience because half of the US is in the midst of a psychotic episode.

The GOP has weaponized mental illness to a degree Scientology only ever dreamed about.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 03, 2021, 01:04:52 PM
Which is frankly heartbreaking for the mentally ill who don't fall for these things.  Personally, I feel as though it should shut down any and all involuntary commitment plots for some time to come; if these people's friends and families can't get the committed against their wills . . . .
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 03, 2021, 06:41:10 PM
And now this...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-04/donald-trump-pushes-georgia-election-official-to-change-results/13029140

Quote
"So look, all I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state," Mr Trump said in the recording, insisting that there was "no way" he lost there.

ETA: Is there a transcript of the call that isn't behind a pay wall?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 03, 2021, 07:09:45 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html
This one seems to be sans paywall. I managed to copy the text and can provide a justpaste.it link if it gives a paywall demand.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 03, 2021, 10:18:50 PM
No paywall for me, but I'm accessing it from a computer that has the appropriate cookies for my Washington Post subscription.

The "find me the votes" quote comes near the end of a rambling speech by the President in which he flat-out accuses the Georgia Secretary of State of committing a criminal act by certifying the vote in spite of the conspiracy theories and rumors that the President recites.  That's in the paragraph that ends with the sentence most often quoted.

That probably qualifies as election tampering under the Georgia criminal code, but it's only a misdemeanor offense.  It's unlikely he would be prosecuted for it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 03, 2021, 10:43:13 PM
[T]hese suits are...working far better than they should because civic literacy in the US is now almost non-existent, to where you have people like Josh Hawley describing an outright coup as "defending the Constitution" and people believe him.

I have to agree.  Just look at what some people consider their "constitutional right."  In some cases it's just a buzzword that masquerades a particular entitled privilege.  They have a "constitutional right" to free speech, meaning they somehow aren't responsible for the things they say, for example.  Similarly, "the Constitution" becomes more of an abstract rallying cry for some particular kind of activism.  You say you're "defending the Constitution" when you're really just serving some narrow, possibly personal political interest.  A certain amount of that has to be from people who don't know what the Constitution actually says.  But I think it's more a case of dressing up their petty grievances in something that makes it seem more noble.

Quote
...laches (a word I learned a couple of weeks ago along with the rest on non-lawyer Twitter)

Our firm's intellectual-property attorney comes by a few times a year (at least in the Before Times) to talk about the relevant principles of IP law.  Laches was part of that.  He's really good at abstracting some pretty difficult case law to explain these things.  He's one of those young, enthusiastic types.  Love the guy.

Quote
Wood’s tweets about Chief Justice Roberts are unhinged, but they are finding an audience.

Which is frankly terrifying.  Civics literacy is at rock-bottom, to be sure, but you hope that critical thinking in general hasn't completely gone by the board.  It's terrifying to see evidence that as much as half the people in the United States are so completely susceptible to such freestyle nonsense.

In at least one case, one of the Fox News commentators eluded liability for spreading falsehoods when the ruling came down that a "reasonable person" would believe what was being said.  What's the point of the "reasonable person" standard if we can show that roughly half of all voting-age Americans really do believe such nonsense, and in some cases act upon that belief?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 04, 2021, 02:49:10 PM
The judges are starting to lose their sense of humor about all this.  This decision (https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2020cv3791-10) in the Wisconsin Voters Alliance v. Pence lawsuit (the one that names the Electoral Freaking College as a defendant) is particularly brutal:

Quote from: United States District Judge James Boasberg (https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2020cv3791-10)
Yet even that may be letting Plaintiffs off the hook too lightly. Their failure to make any effort to serve or formally notify any Defendant — even after reminder by the Court in its Minute Order — renders it difficult to believe that the suit is meant seriously. Courts are not instruments through which parties engage in such gamesmanship or symbolic political gestures. As a result, at the conclusion of this litigation, the Court will determine whether to issue an order to show cause why this matter should not be referred to its Committee on Grievances for potential discipline of Plaintiffs’ counsel.

Yee ha.  This is not the first time there's been a call for sanctions, but it's the first time I've seen it come from the judge. 

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 04, 2021, 03:45:52 PM
Counsel disregarded the judge's order.  And his reminder.  That's one of the quickest ways I know to earn a judge's ire.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 06, 2021, 08:41:15 AM
If ever there was an indication that ignorance of how the system works is rife in the US, I can't think of a better example than the notion that the Vice President has the power to overturn the election results. Do they really believe that an elected official would have the ultimate deciding power over the outcome of an election that determines his own office?!

Couple that with the total lack of shame among some elected officials (I can't remember which it was but one of them tweeted a couple of weeks ago complaining about measures that made it easier for everyone to vote made it harder for Republicans to win, earning him a swathe of 'you said the quiet part out loud' kind of ridicule) and it's no wonder the situation is such a mess.

The voices of that subset of people who think 'the numbers look odd' is the clinching argument rather than the starting point of investigation are getting depressingly loud these days, and the circular logic on display is dizzying (Trump lost because the vote was rigged, and we know the vote was rigged because Trump lost!).

On the plus side I did enjoy Scotland's First Minister utterly ridiculing the suggestion that Trump might visit his golf course in Scotland instead of attending Biden's inauguration yesterday. We're not letting anyone from the US into the UK at all, and we're in lockdown, so Trump can board any plane he likes but it won't be coming here.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 06, 2021, 09:13:47 AM
If ever there was an indication that ignorance of how the system works is rife in the US, I can't think of a better example than the notion that the Vice President has the power to overturn the election results. Do they really believe that an elected official would have the ultimate deciding power over the outcome of an election that determines his own office?!

[snip]

I know what you mean. Today I had an exchange like this with someone of whom it might be said of him The Trump Is Strong In Him. (Either that or he's a troll - a truly colossal troll, as he's been promoting ideas like this for years.)

Him: Pence has the power to reject EC votes that are disputed.

Me: Where's this power stated?

Him: The Constitution.

Me: Where in the Constitution?

Him: You look it up.

Me: [quoting references from the Constitution] It doesn't say that anywhere. Did I miss anything?

Him: Yes, you missed the bit where other people, including the President, say he has this power.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 06, 2021, 10:18:09 AM
If ever there was an indication that ignorance of how the system works is rife in the US, I can't think of a better example than the notion that the Vice President has the power to overturn the election results. Do they really believe that an elected official would have the ultimate deciding power over the outcome of an election that determines his own office?!

[snip]

I know what you mean. Today I had an exchange like this with someone of whom it might be said of him The Trump Is Strong In Him. (Either that or he's a troll - a truly colossal troll, as he's been promoting ideas like this for years.)

Him: Pence has the power to reject EC votes that are disputed.

Me: Where's this power stated?

Him: The Constitution.

Me: Where in the Constitution?

Him: You look it up.

Me: [quoting references from the Constitution] It doesn't say that anywhere. Did I miss anything?

Him: Yes, you missed the bit where other people, including the President, say he has this power.

And then you ask the follow-on questions - so if the VP has the power to toss electoral votes, why didn't Biden toss the votes for Trump in '17 (because there were definitely shenanigans in that election)?  Why didn't Gore proclaim himself President in 2001?  Or Quayle in '93, or Mondale in '81?   

And on and on and on. 

People who claim to be the most passionate defenders of the Constitution tend to be the most profoundly ignorant of what it says. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 06, 2021, 11:17:45 AM
And then you ask the follow-on questions - so if the VP has the power to toss electoral votes, why didn't Biden toss the votes for Trump in '17 (because there were definitely shenanigans in that election)?  Why didn't Gore proclaim himself President in 2001?  Or Quayle in '93, or Mondale in '81?   

And on and on and on. 

People who claim to be the most passionate defenders of the Constitution tend to be the most profoundly ignorant of what it says.

It's no different from people who believe in the flat Earth, think space isn't real, or deny the Moon landings, but try to refer to the laws of thermodynamics and motion (and get both the numbers and the language wrong).  They pick and choose what they refer to, or, as is usually the case, just mindlessly parrot what they've heard others who "know the truth" say.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 06, 2021, 11:20:57 AM
I wonder what the true believers of the Trump conspiracies would say if I asked them why it is that in the early evening last night (I think around 8pm) both Democrats were comfortably ahead of their opponents (around 1.5-3%), but when I checked before I turned in, all of a sudden the races were much tighter, and one was a virtual deadlock.  Where did all of those votes come from?  How did the Republicans suddenly 'find enough' to catch up to the Democrats?

Do you think they would get the irony?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 06, 2021, 11:51:32 AM
People who claim to be the most passionate defenders of the Constitution tend to be the most profoundly ignorant of what it says. 

My go-to example is the guy I talked to who demanded to know when they put "a well-regulated militia" in the Second Amendment.  He really, really didn't like my answer.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 06, 2021, 12:12:59 PM
People who claim to be the most passionate defenders of the Constitution tend to be the most profoundly ignorant of what it says. 

My go-to example is the guy I talked to who demanded to know when they put "a well-regulated militia" in the Second Amendment.  He really, really didn't like my answer.

Yeah, 2nd Amendment fundamentalists are a special breed of stupid. 

I mean, I'm not anti-gun - I own a couple (both hand-me-downs from my grandfathers, one a hunting rifle and the other a .38 police revolver), although I haven't fired either one in almost two decades.  I've actually considered signing up for a CCL, not because I intend to carry1 but more because I wouldn't put it past the TX Lege to make a CCL the only valid ID for voting (especially after this go-round). 

But, dammit, the right isn't absolute, and the language of the 2nd Amendment makes it clear (to me, anyway) that it's talking about bearing arms in service of protecting the state, not the individual. 

1. Although the events of the last few weeks are making me re-think that. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 06, 2021, 02:54:57 PM
Do they really believe that an elected official would have the ultimate deciding power over the outcome of an election that determines his own office?!

Cough, Brian Kemp of Georgia, cough.

Quote
[M]easures that made it easier for everyone to vote made it harder for Republicans to win...

That's not the only example or even the worst example of Republicans tipping their hand to show that all the "election security" measures they advocate are nothing more than racially-motivated voter-suppression tactics.  They maintain this narrative that without such measures, all elections would be stolen by ililegal immigrants voting fraudulently in droves for Democrats.  They maintain this with nothing more convincing that Trump's "everyone knows" rhetoric, which obviously isn't original to him.  But that's why they brazenly link Republican success at the polls to measures that make it harder to vote.  They equate "harder to vote" with "catching widespread (nonexistent) fraud."

Quote
On the plus side I did enjoy Scotland's First Minister utterly ridiculing the suggestion that Trump might visit his golf course in Scotland instead of attending Biden's inauguration yesterday. We're not letting anyone from the US into the UK at all, and we're in lockdown, so Trump can board any plane he likes but it won't be coming here.

Word on the street is that he doesn't want to be in the United States when his term ends, because he fears being arrested on the spot.  Probably a real fear.  At least after a certain time on Jan. 20, there's at least one plane he won't be able to board anymore.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 06, 2021, 03:01:55 PM
And then you ask the follow-on questions - so if the VP has the power to toss electoral votes, why didn't Biden toss the votes for Trump in '17 (because there were definitely shenanigans in that election)?  Why didn't Gore proclaim himself President in 2001?  Or Quayle in '93, or Mondale in '81?   

And on and on and on. 

People who claim to be the most passionate defenders of the Constitution tend to be the most profoundly ignorant of what it says. 

It's ridiculous. The people whose names are on the ballots should not be allowed to pick the winner. That should be obvious to everyone, but apparently it isn't. If people in power are allowed to overrule the voters then why bother having an election in the first place?

There is a coup being attempted at this very moment in Washington DC, and it was encouraged by Donald Trump. I want the people who thought I was overreacting when I sounded the alarm about Donald Trump for four years to tell me I was wrong to do so.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 06, 2021, 03:06:29 PM
Regarding ignorance of the Constitution, laws, and practices of the country, I don't think it's willful ignorance.  Or even apathy.  I think some such people genuinely feel that they're "woke" and fully informed -- perhaps better informed -- than those around them.  This is because those people feed themselves on a steady diet of daytime talk radio, Fox News (at least formerly), and the various other far-right news outlets that have been mentioned.  It's one thing to declare hopefully that the Constitution must support your belief, because your belief seems logical and reasonable to you and therefore external authority probably agrees.  But it's another thing to hear someone in a suit and tie on television, who appears very knowledgeable and important, tell you that the Constitution says this or that even if its largely a fabrication.  Tell enough people repeatedly that the Vice President has the constitutional authority to declare the winner of the election, and they'll accept it as an article of faith and think themselves well-educated for believing it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 06, 2021, 03:11:38 PM
It's ridiculous. The people whose names are on the ballots should not be allowed to pick the winner.

Or, in my opinion, have anything to do with the operation of the election.  I mentioned Kemp in Georgia, who ran the election that resulted in his winning the Governor's office in a tight election.  The new Governor of my state was the Lt. Governor and supervisor of the election in which he ran.  In his case, though, the outcome was all but assured.  And he delegated the supervision of canvassing to a deputy, unlike Kemp.

Quote
There is a coup being attempted at this very moment in Washington DC, and it was encouraged by Donald Trump.

Sad to say this is literally true.  Congress has gone into recess and the Capitol is locked down because of pro-Trump protesters having gained entrance.  There is video of the Confederate flag being waved by people outside the Senate chamber.  This is surreal.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 06, 2021, 03:20:17 PM
The Munich Beer Hall Putsch is in full swing, US style.  Remember though, "protesters" not "terrorists"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 06, 2021, 03:20:42 PM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErEs6FaXAAIr5YJ?format=jpg&name=large)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LionKing on January 06, 2021, 03:27:14 PM
He is going to scream and jump like an overpampered baby but he knows that "facts are stubborn things", more so than him..
His supporters and him are  two sides of the same coin
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 06, 2021, 04:00:33 PM
In case anyone is interested, the Australian ABC is live-blogging events in Washington:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-07/us-politics-live-updates-donald-trump-protests-washington/13037080
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 06, 2021, 04:13:01 PM
There is a coup being attempted at this very moment in Washington DC, and it was encouraged by Donald Trump. I want the people who thought I was overreacting when I sounded the alarm about Donald Trump for four years to tell me I was wrong to do so.

I don't believe you were wrong. I think he is an American Hitler.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 06, 2021, 04:13:45 PM
The Munich Beer Hall Putsch is in full swing, US style.  Remember though, "protesters" not "terrorists"

Agree.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 06, 2021, 04:19:37 PM
Where is the National Guard? I read they have been deployed but I haven't seen anyone.

I am wondering if there are Trumpians in the NG command, and they have refused to take action?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 06, 2021, 04:31:27 PM
The D.C. National Guard is under the authority of the President, not the D.C. Mayor.  Reports vary about whether they have or will be called out.  The D.C. Mayor has requested troops from nearby Virginia to restore order; the Virginia governor has supplied them.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 06, 2021, 04:32:22 PM
There is a coup being attempted at this very moment in Washington DC, and it was encouraged by Donald Trump. I want the people who thought I was overreacting when I sounded the alarm about Donald Trump for four years to tell me I was wrong to do so.

I don't believe you were wrong. I think he is an American Hitler.

I believe he certainly has the potential to be that, or at least the American Putin, if he isn't removed from office.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 06, 2021, 05:12:05 PM
And there are reports that the Democrats have won the second Georgia runoff, so they will have control of the Senate.

Great news!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 06, 2021, 05:13:05 PM
And reports that new articles of impeachment are being drawn up? Surely nothing can happen before Trump is kicked out of office on 20 Jan?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 06, 2021, 05:16:05 PM
And reports that new articles of impeachment are being drawn up? Surely nothing can happen before Trump is kicked out of office on 20 Jan?

I think there is time for the House to impeach, but not for the trial in the Senate.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 06, 2021, 05:29:18 PM
And reports that new articles of impeachment are being drawn up? Surely nothing can happen before Trump is kicked out of office on 20 Jan?

I think there is time for the House to impeach, but not for the trial in the Senate.

Ilhan Omar has tweeted that she's drawing up articles of impeachment.  I see no reason why the Senate couldn't expedite, as this is pretty damned egregious. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 06, 2021, 05:32:08 PM
Any action to instigate a trial in the Senate would be presided over by Mike Pence.  While the 117th Congress convened three days ago, Mike Pence is still its President until he leaves office on Jan. 20.  And he would still have the deciding vote, should the Senate vote along party lines (50-50) as the final vote to remove.  Practical Democrat control of the Senate doesn't occur until Kamala Harris takes office as the Vice President on Jan. 20 and becomes the tie-breaking vote.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 06, 2021, 05:35:17 PM
Maybe the current Republican Senators will agree to impeach him now...?

lol yeah right.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 06, 2021, 06:04:20 PM
And reports that new articles of impeachment are being drawn up? Surely nothing can happen before Trump is kicked out of office on 20 Jan?

I think there is time for the House to impeach, but not for the trial in the Senate.

Ilhan Omar has tweeted that she's drawing up articles of impeachment.  I see no reason why the Senate couldn't expedite, as this is pretty damned egregious.

Just to remove him from office a week early? Not worth the effort even if 67 senators could be convinced. Removal by the 25th amendment is the more plausible mechanism should things further escalate.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 06, 2021, 09:32:12 PM
Mitt Romney looks, in the footage I'm seeing, angry enough to go for it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 06, 2021, 09:56:14 PM
And reports that new articles of impeachment are being drawn up? Surely nothing can happen before Trump is kicked out of office on 20 Jan?

I think there is time for the House to impeach, but not for the trial in the Senate.

Ilhan Omar has tweeted that she's drawing up articles of impeachment.  I see no reason why the Senate couldn't expedite, as this is pretty damned egregious.

Just to remove him from office a week early? Not worth the effort even if 67 senators could be convinced. Removal by the 25th amendment is the more plausible mechanism should things further escalate.

First, given today’s actions, he cannot be allowed to remain office 14 more minutes, much less 14 more days.  He is actively fomenting insurrection and sedition.  God forbid he decides to play with the football.

The problem with the 25th is that there are too many steps - first, the VP and majority of the Cabinet inform Congress that the President is unfit.  The President can respond with "am not" and resumes his duties, at which point Congress votes to remove him. 

Might as well skip the preliminaries and go straight to Congress.  Also, if he is impeached, the Senate cannot only remove him from office, but bar him from holding office again.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 06, 2021, 10:04:23 PM
If impeachment is started whilst still holding the office of President (to hostage), can proceedings continue after he has left office? So they CAN prevent him running in 2024?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 06, 2021, 10:45:15 PM
First, given today’s actions, he cannot be allowed to remain office 14 more minutes, much less 14 more days.  He is actively fomenting insurrection and sedition.

I agree completely, but doesn't impeachment require the Senate to provide a defense for Trump, like in a trial? Can it really be fast tracked in less than 2 weeks?

I also don't think removing Trump from office will prevent a further insurrection. If you ban him from social media and throw him in prison,  it will just inflame the situation. But then again, doing anything other than giving him a second term will lead to more sedition from his followers, so you might as well throw the book at him and deal with the inevitable unrest.

Quote
God forbid he decides to play with the football.

Hopefully someone will take matters into their own hands to prevent that.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 07, 2021, 01:22:48 AM
If impeachment is started whilst still holding the office of President (to hostage), can proceedings continue after he has left office? So they CAN prevent him running in 2024?

The sole result of impeachment conviction is removal from office. To the best of my knowledge that doesn't preclude running for president again, though that's obviously never been an issue under consideration before.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 07, 2021, 01:48:27 AM
If impeachment is started whilst still holding the office of President (to hostage), can proceedings continue after he has left office? So they CAN prevent him running in 2024?

The sole result of impeachment conviction is removal from office. To the best of my knowledge that doesn't preclude running for president again, though that's obviously never been an issue under consideration before.

Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7:

"Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."

Therefore the prevention of holding another office is a possible penalty from conviction.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 07, 2021, 01:52:20 AM
If impeachment is started whilst still holding the office of President (to hostage), can proceedings continue after he has left office? So they CAN prevent him running in 2024?

The sole result of impeachment conviction is removal from office. To the best of my knowledge that doesn't preclude running for president again, though that's obviously never been an issue under consideration before.

I get the impression there's more to it:

Quote
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 07, 2021, 01:53:09 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/76DF3eN.jpg)
Quick pic I did in 'honour' of today and the Cheetos-in-Chief's response.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 07, 2021, 04:03:29 AM
Where were the police? Why was there only a handful of uniforms on the steps that were brushed aside? Why were the police allowing selfies of themselves with insurrectionists?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1346920198461419520

If this was an armed mob of black people would the response be the same? Can you imagine if the pictures were of a swarm of Muslims dressed in black and chanting slogans? They'd be dragging bodies out for days...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 07, 2021, 04:49:27 AM
Where were the police?

Well, there was 3 of them manning this barricade......

https://twitter.com/i/status/1347019319566340101
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 07, 2021, 01:25:12 PM
Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7:

"Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."

Therefore the prevention of holding another office is a possible penalty from conviction.

TIL; thanks for the info!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 07, 2021, 05:07:49 PM
Where were the police?

Well, there was 3 of them manning this barricade......

This is attracting quite a bit of attention.  Some are saying that since the perimeter had already been breached, the police decided to try to de-escalate.  I'm not buying it, as the officer clearly opens the barricade for them.  This could be easily interpreted as an invitation.  It's one thing to de-escalate by avoiding confrontation.  An open invitation is another.

I was shown a tweet that explained others' concern:  "You don't ask where Miley [Cyrus] is when Hannah [Montana] is on stage."  As I said months ago when describing the racial tension over the summer, the problem is that the police are a big part of the problem.  Which is to say, not the police departments and their leaders generally, but the police unions.  And as the media has told us, these have been infiltrated widely by white supremacists.  Police unions wield most of the actual power in police organizations when it comes to conduct and discipline of officers.  Given that some of the officers are alleged to have posed for photographs with the insurgents, I think the better interpretation is that we need to overhaul the Capitol Police.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 07, 2021, 11:10:18 PM
Well, Trump's conceded, in a manner of speaking, though he still claims he won.  ::)
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/07/954234902/congress-certifies-biden-victory-after-pro-trump-rioters-storm-the-capitol?fbclid=IwAR2JdEfxb_jSs406UD2YKNGszFn4UnQyaB5NYjDMmG2DRbQuWDU76EWEPGI
I could still see something happening at the inauguration though, if not sooner.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 12:42:27 AM
Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7:

"Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."

Therefore the prevention of holding another office is a possible penalty from conviction.

TIL; thanks for the info!

You're welcome.  Full disclosure: I didn't know about this either until I read an article about it about a week ago (I think?), where they were talking about using impeachment specifically to block a 2024 run by Trump. If I hadn't seen that, I wouldn't have known about the second penalty option either.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 08, 2021, 12:58:08 AM
Reading an update on the Australian ABC talks about some of the people who stormed the Capitol had zip ties and weapons, and were specifically intent on overthrowing the government. Does anyone know anything about this?

All I saw in the various videos was (a) mostly people milling around like yokels, and (b) a smaller number of people who seemed intent on vandalism and looting but nothing more. Was there a group (c) mixed in with them?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 08, 2021, 03:15:48 AM
I'm not surprised if many of them had weapons, whether they truly intended to use them or not. Zip ties though . . . you only bring those if you intend to take prisoners, hostages.
This (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-mob-capitol-attack-jamil-1110820/) beautifully written Rolling Stones article also mentions the zip ties, though it doesn't mention a source, alas.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 08, 2021, 03:31:50 AM
I'm not surprised if many of them had weapons, whether they truly intended to use them or not. Zip ties though . . . you only bring those if you intend to take prisoners, hostages.
This (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-mob-capitol-attack-jamil-1110820/) beautifully written Rolling Stones article also mentions the zip ties, though it doesn't mention a source, alas.

(https://i.postimg.cc/DwJj2yxx/Er-GPWv-AXUAYZ-vu-1.jpg)

One of the images of a terrorist carrying ziptie handcuffs.
A gallows was erected outside the Capitol building.
There were (according to a NYT article) multiple discussion on Gab and Parler going back weeks where Far Right groups were asking for the home addresses of judges and Congress people.

Most of the insurrectionists looked like your typical Trump headbanger but there was a substantial segment that were planning atrocities and were geared up for action.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 08, 2021, 04:28:15 AM


Heres another image of that mentally ill lone wolf patriot terrorist carrying plastic handcuffs:

(https://images.dailykos.com/images/902433/original/GettyImages-1294932405.jpg?1610042291)

The gallows that was erected outside the Capitol:
(https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2021/01/GettyImages-1230454617.jpg?resize=865,452&quality=65)

You don't turn up in combat gear and bullet-proof vests carrying a baseball bat if you're not expecting violence:
(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07whowerethey-9/07whowerethey-9-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp)

These people had prepared for violence and I am thankful that the security staff managed to secure the people doing their jobs in Congress before the mob got their hands on them. I saw one livestream from the invaders where someone was shouting that he wasn't going to be satisfied with Pelosi's hair, he wanted her head.

In my mind there is no doubt that this was an attempted coup, based on the evidence that the Capitol was invaded to prevent the process which declared Trump's successor from proceeding. This attempt didn't succeed, mainly because (as the last four years have shown) Trump hasn't the ability to plan one successfully. The next Republican attempt will be smarter and better prepared.

Here's a small warning from history. Some years ago the British National Party managed to get some people elected to council seats. Their leader, Nick Griffin, was hosted on a political debate show on TV. He was rapidly exposed as little more than a back street fascist espousing deplorable beliefs:


A couple of years later a smarter, better dressed, more eloquent snake-in-a-suit turned up. He had absorbed a huge amout of the BNP supporters and other nationalistic scum, as well as not only infiltrating the Tory party but actually threatening to form a split. Same ideals as the BNP, just better dressed and a lot more clever about how he used dog-whistle politics without implicating himself as a far-right extremist. This is that man in discussions with Steve Bannon:

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/40303196e1e91f928b06b2ea5c55905af4979b7c/60_0_1800_1080/master/1800.jpg?width=1200&height=900&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&s=4ed4995275f59de7f846c1351418231c)


Wind forward to today and we have a nationalistic Prime Minister who's totally incapable of fulfilling that role. A PM who brazenly announced that he was intending to break international law by reversing an agreement that he signed only a few months earlier. We are outside the EU. We have inflicted enormous damage on our country, politically, economically and to our standing on the world stage.

The coup attempt and the Trump presidency is nothing more than a trial run. The next version will be much better prepared. And the US, like the UK, will probably vote those people into power and vote their democracy-destroying  into law.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 08, 2021, 06:01:50 AM
Where were the police?

Well, there was 3 of them manning this barricade......

This is attracting quite a bit of attention.  Some are saying that since the perimeter had already been breached, the police decided to try to de-escalate.  I'm not buying it, as the officer clearly opens the barricade for them.  This could be easily interpreted as an invitation.  It's one thing to de-escalate by avoiding confrontation.  An open invitation is another.

I was shown a tweet that explained others' concern:  "You don't ask where Miley [Cyrus] is when Hannah [Montana] is on stage."  As I said months ago when describing the racial tension over the summer, the problem is that the police are a big part of the problem.  Which is to say, not the police departments and their leaders generally, but the police unions.  And as the media has told us, these have been infiltrated widely by white supremacists.  Police unions wield most of the actual power in police organizations when it comes to conduct and discipline of officers.  Given that some of the officers are alleged to have posed for photographs with the insurgents, I think the better interpretation is that we need to overhaul the Capitol Police.

I've seen that "de-escalating" argument being used before. The NYT reported that a cop directed some of the seditionists to Chuck Schumer's office. How is that "de-escalating". Also, I didn't see much in the way of "de-escalating" in relation to George Floyd and many, many others. It's a horrific thought to have to contemplate that the protectors may be supporters of what happened.

I also see that the head of the Capitol police force has resigned. That's a start.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 10:22:43 AM
Yes, I find it very hard to believe the de-escalation argument.  There's simply too much evidence of complicity.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 08, 2021, 10:29:28 AM
I watched Stephen Colbert talk about the whole thing, and he was pissed.  He showed clip after clip of security during peaceful marches, then how there was nothing as these people literally broke windows and waved guns around.  Multiple people are now known to have died, which I'm pretty sure is more than died in the BLM protests despite the police violence at that time.  Why start deescalating now?  And do they think they will literally ever be able to use "in fear for our lives" now that there's footage of them literally running away from these people but still not shooting them?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 11:22:05 AM
The lack of preparedness by police administration is disturbing, to say the least. Anyone could see that the rally had a high likelihood of escalation toward violence well before the rally even started, and that probability increased with the size of the crowd. I also recall reading prior to the rally's start that the NG was supposed to have been on site to provide crowd control, although it was reported that they would not be armed (a detail I think was a mistake to include ahead of time). I don't recall seeing their presence, although I certainly might have missed them.

I put the primary blame for the poor response on police administration, not the rank and file members of the Capitol Police. Yes, at least a few did some things that are wrong (e.g. selfies) and that should be followed-up on, but the majority tried to do their jobs as best they could and simply got outnumbered and overwhelmed. There was no clear plan for dealing with a crowd this size, the numbers weren't close to sufficient, backup in the form of the NG and other organizations was not in place nor requested quickly enough ... the list goes on.

And now people are pointing out the very real issue of cyber-security in the form of unsecured computers, networks, and email systems. There will need to be a complete and rapid audit of the inventory of every breached office, including the large (e.g. laptops) and the small (e.g. USB drives). I'm sure that the members will also be hearing about not locking their computers before leaving their offices, not securing anything potentially classified, etc. And, of course, IT will be hearing more about not having systems set to auto-lock after a short amount of time away from them. I would bet, however, that IT has actually tried for years to put such measures in place, but have been overruled by the members because "it is annoying to have to keep logging in" or some such.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 11:30:27 AM
Indeed, an investigation into our local BLM protests, using news footage and footage provided by onlookers, has concluded that the majority of violent encounters during those protests were instigated by police.  There doesn't seem to be any desire to de-escalate in those situations -- in fact, considerably to the contrary.  And social media is full of comparisons between the security deployment during BLM protests in DC and the lackluster presence of security where and when they had every right to expect an angry, probably-arm mob.

The anger is palpable.  I haven't seen Colbert's report, but I've seen other commentators, who have a previous reputation for calm and cool, literally quivering with anger as they report and comment on this.  We may finally have arrived at our "enough is enough" moment, but the real question is why people weren't listening years ago and why it seemingly had to come to this.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 11:39:26 AM
I watched Stephen Colbert talk about the whole thing, and he was pissed.  He showed clip after clip of security during peaceful marches, then how there was nothing as these people literally broke windows and waved guns around.  Multiple people are now known to have died, which I'm pretty sure is more than died in the BLM protests despite the police violence at that time.  Why start deescalating now?  And do they think they will literally ever be able to use "in fear for our lives" now that there's footage of them literally running away from these people but still not shooting them?

Full disclosure: I have a close family member who is a retired police officer. As such, I have interacted with a number of their colleagues, and so my view is based on that as well as personal experiences with law enforcement.

The situation that officers are put in during these events is terrible. They have training that says to do certain things, but they are human beings and have their reactions. It is a terrible decision to have to make to draw and fire your weapon, knowing you are likely killing the person you are firing on. I am glad that I have not been put in those circumstances, and I feel for any and all that have.

That said, I 100% agree that the response here and during other riots (and yes, I will refer to the ones that turned into destroying businesses as riots, not demonstrations or protests) was very different, and suggests obvious reasons for that difference. And your point about the "fear for our lives" rationale is an interesting one, and one I am sure will be discussed in days to come.

However, I will say that deescalation when outnumbered as badly as they were is a good attempt to reduce conflict and avoid violence, including death. It didn't work here, and I doubt it would have given the composition of this specific crowd, but if you're outnumbered 100:1 and start firing into the crowd, if it doesn't disperse, you're probably going to have a high body count quickly, and still run a good risk of being overwhelmed by sheer mass. When I first saw what was happening, my gut reaction was to hope the police would have a Sergeant Krupke-type response (batons to the head), but I also know that, unless it works almost immediately, such actions will lead to a worse situation.

I have always wondered why, when crowds are of sufficient size that they could turn to mobs, they don't have fire trucks with water cannons waiting as barricades. There literally isn't a person out there who is strong enough to stay on their feet if they get hit by one of the highest pressure cannons, and they can be quite effective in getting a crowd to leave.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 11:58:41 AM
On a slightly different tack, I am interested in reading more about the members' thoughts (there have been a few posts) about the calls for impeachment or invocation of the 25th Amendment. I don't think it's a good idea for a number of reasons, practicality being the first one, especially for impeachment - there's just not enough time. It is also somewhat probable that, should the movement toward either one show any chance of succeeding, that Trump would likely resign, and then Pence would be put in the position of, first, having to oversee the last 2 weeks of the train wreck, and second, having to consider pardoning Trump. In fact, if I give Trump credit for being the schemer he is, one could see his increasingly bizarre behavior as a setup for just such an event, even to the point of a medical/psychiatric excuse for his actions, including his culpability in Wednesday's events.

I also think that, given how unsettled the country is right now, taking such action may cause more disturbance and violence, 'proving' to those of that mindset that they were right all along, and that Pelosi, Schumer, the 'traitorous Republicans' etc. are stealing the country from Trump and from the people themselves. A ridiculous idea, obviously, but then again facts don't really come into play for those who are already thinking such things.

My thought is that he should have to serve out the last 2 weeks listening to every bit of the criticism that he is due. Congress certainly would not do a thing to advance any agenda he might have left. The only real concern I have is for any Executive Orders he might issue, but I believe those could be reversed by the next administration (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Yes, being thrown out in disgrace may well be the fitting end to his administration and legacy in the eyes of many, but it just strikes me as not being the thing that is needed right now.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Trebor on January 08, 2021, 12:02:47 PM
I personally think the lack of 'preparedness' was deliberate. The plan to cause violence was being publicly discussed on forums for weeks before hand.
It was really clear that trouble was very likely. But for some reason the police were very thin on the ground.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Trebor on January 08, 2021, 12:05:46 PM
Another interesting thing is this guy during the riot :
(https://i.postimg.cc/XNs3nFd4/Er-Ewm-B3-VQAQZEo-R.jpg)
Also seen here, and again with a "friend":
(https://i.postimg.cc/HxJ7F0F6/Er-Gtl-G7-UUAE6n-R.png)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 12:47:49 PM
Another interesting thing is this guy during the riot :

The so-called QAnon Shaman.  Because pictures of him have surfaced at protests by BLM etc., it is fueling the conspiracy theory that the storming of the Capitol was actually an "Antifa" false-flag operation.  But the sign he carried at those other protests, usually cropped or disguised in right-wing representations, reads "QAnon Sent Me."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Trebor on January 08, 2021, 12:57:30 PM
Another interesting thing is this guy during the riot :

The so-called QAnon Shaman.  Because pictures of him have surfaced at protests by BLM etc., it is fueling the conspiracy theory that the storming of the Capitol was actually an "Antifa" false-flag operation.  But the sign he carried at those other protests, usually cropped or disguised in right-wing representations, reads "QAnon Sent Me."

I'm guessing they don't show the picture of him shaking hands with Giuliani either.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 01:12:42 PM
I'm guessing they don't show the picture of him shaking hands with Giuliani either.

That's a deep fake.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 01:59:53 PM
Full disclosure: I have a close family member who is a retired police officer. As such, I have interacted with a number of their colleagues, and so my view is based on that as well as personal experiences with law enforcement.

And my view is probably based on an entirely different set of experiences and personal observation.  But that's neither here nor there.  We're likely to have a different perspective on the problems of policing.  You'll have your stories and I'll have mine.

But there is a serious problem in my view.  And it has been there for quite some time.  Only now that something the majority cherishes has been affected is this getting better attention from the right people (pun intended).  I hope that comprehensive, effective police reform will be part of the upcoming legislative and administrative agenda.

Quote
That said, I 100% agree that the response here and during other riots (and yes, I will refer to the ones that turned into destroying businesses as riots, not demonstrations or protests) was very different, and suggests obvious reasons for that difference. And your point about the "fear for our lives" rationale is an interesting one, and one I am sure will be discussed in days to come.

I've seen statements that say the low-key response to the Capitol insurgents was a response to the criticism of heavy-handed and aggressive action taken in the George Floyd and BLM protests.  I'm not buying it.  There is a vast difference between a proactive, aggressive response, and a largely passive one that is still effective.  "De-escalation" properly still doesn't let the thing happen that's your only job to prevent from happening.  Leaving the Capitol and its occupants unprotected, regardless of who the armed attacker is, should not be high on the list of response options.  The overall DC metro area security infrastructure, regardless of who it reports to, has previously demonstrated considerable competence and effectiveness at determining where and how to deploy its assets.  It has been willing to erect effective physical barriers.  It has been willing to coordinate forces.  They're going to have a hard time convincing people that the sudden change in posture had nothing to do with the identity of the assailants.

Further, the assaults committed upon the Capitol police, resulting in one officer death so far, should have activated a very real "fear for our lives" response.  Now they have to explain why their fear response differs greatly depending on the skin color and political affiliation of the assailants.  Again, it will be hard to convince people it was merely an ill-timed change to improve optics or operational posture.  I would like to see more evidence that describes these preparations and changes.  And I hope the officers who were killed or injured by the insurgents get a satisfactory accounting from the other officers who apparently assisted the insurrection.

Quote
However, I will say that deescalation when outnumbered as badly as they were is a good attempt to reduce conflict and avoid violence, including death.

I don't disagree.  And I don't oppose de-escalation in principle, or in general.  As with others, my concern is the overall picture of evidence that suggests the effective security was scuttled not just as an accident of poor planning or a sudden desire to avoid the appearance of heavy-handed policing.  The D.C. National Guard, the D.C. Metro Police, and the Capitol Police all had every reason and ability to know that an armed mob was going to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6 with the likely intent to breach its walls -- something only the British Army had previously managed to do.  And they had days of advance notice that such activity was likely to ensue.  The Confederate flag being marched unopposed through my seat of my country's legislature is not an image I'm likely easily to forget, or forgive.

Of course three officer is standing in front of a small crowd-control barrier will probably opt to stand down if confronted with dozens of angry, armed insurgents -- as you say, if not just from the sheer mass of the crowd press.  The question is whether those positions were manned that way intentionally, in contravention of all prior practice and common sense, so that only token resistance would be offered.  Of course I'm willing to see evidence of a simple foul-up, a miscommunication, or of unconventional wisdom.  But for me, this administration, this Congress, and a great many in law enforcement have lost my faith in those things as a default explanation for failure.  I want those people in charge testifying to Congress under oath about what the plan was to turn back the armed mob the President sent to invade the Capitol.  The one we all knew advance was going to happen.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 02:31:57 PM
And now people are pointing out the very real issue of cyber-security in the form of unsecured computers, networks, and email systems.

Indeed, that's overly appalling.

My work has often been of a nature that requires armed guards at the facilities I work at.  Sometimes very armed guards.  Yes, I know what it's like to have a loaded machine gun pointed at my head and be ordered to assume a submissive posture.  And that's in a place where I was authorized to be.  (The guards had an old list of approved occupants.)  Aside from mistakes like that, in twenty years, in only two instances have the guards actually had to do guard things.  Once a disgruntled former employee tried to enter an administrative area.  (Thankfully he wasn't armed and was quickly and nonviolently taken into custody.)  Another time, the local police showed up with a warrant for the arrest of one of our temporary assembly workers on a minor charge.  (Our guards had to go get him while the armed officers waited outside the perimeter, which required some negotiation.)

All we ever anticipate are small-scale attempts to breach physical security attempting either to sabotage something, get access to controlled chemicals, or obtain information.  And yes, we have security drills, including active-shooter drills.  Sad to say I work with people who can probably improvise at least three weapons out of every piece of equipment on the property, but that's that.  The point is that we have a protocol for securing sensitive information and hazardous materials in a number cases that include armed intrusion.

Nothing terribly sensitive going on now, but at the height of work that included nuclear defense work, it was abundantly clear that our armed guards had the explicit duty to buy time with their lives, if necessary, so that we could complete the steps necessary to secure the facility.  That's a sobering thought.  I'm not sure that's expected of Capitol Police, but it should be expected of the people they protect to know how to secure an office.

Quote
...and the small (e.g. USB drives).

For nearly all my work, we don't get to use those.  When it's unavoidable, a numbered USB thumb drive is checked out to you from an inventory, used once for what is needful, then physically destroyed by the inventory officer.  Being caught with portable storage in some areas of my work is a fire-on-the-spot offense and, in some cases, likely a criminal offense.  And this is not especially uncommon, even outside my industry.  My understanding, for example, is that HIPAA-qualified institutions have similar restrictions on the kinds of computer storage that are allowed around protected information.

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I would bet, however, that IT has actually tried for years to put such measures in place, but have been overruled by the members because "it is annoying to have to keep logging in" or some such.

Yeah, autolock is a standard and annoying feature.  In some cases they seem to gimmick it so that things that would normally inhibit the lock (e.g., watching a video) don't work and you have to keep unlocking your workstation to resume your passive activity.  Good on you IT-type guys for closing that loophole.

This is especially acute in COVID times, when we're all doing virtual meetings.  I've taken to absent-mindedly stroking the trackpad every minute or so to keep the screen from locking.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 08, 2021, 03:02:26 PM
I also think that, given how unsettled the country is right now, taking such action may cause more disturbance and violence, 'proving' to those of that mindset that they were right all along, and that Pelosi, Schumer, the 'traitorous Republicans' etc. are stealing the country from Trump and from the people themselves. A ridiculous idea, obviously, but then again facts don't really come into play for those who are already thinking such things.

The way I see it, the only way Trump's supporters will calm down is if you give him a second term, and that's not going to happen. So if they are going to be angry regardless, you might as well throw the book at him.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 03:49:54 PM
Indeed, at what point do we compel people to respect fact, and how do we do it?  We have allowed to come into existence an environment where people steep themselves in heavily-biased, often non-factual narratives, where neither they have the responsibility to conform them to reality, nor can the people who peddle them recklessly for profit be held accountable.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 05:00:41 PM
I have always wondered why, when crowds are of sufficient size that they could turn to mobs, they don't have fire trucks with water cannons waiting as barricades. There literally isn't a person out there who is strong enough to stay on their feet if they get hit by one of the highest pressure cannons, and they can be quite effective in getting a crowd to leave.

That's a long-standing practice in crowd control I've seen used elsewhere.  The problem, usually, is that American firefighters generally don't want to get involved in altercations like this, and generally aren't trained in any way for crowds.

Another important consideration is that most defense scenarios incorporate depths or layers of defense.  It's possible that the outside officers stood down knowing that the Members of Congress and others had been secured, and that the crowd would only be able to progress to the next layer of defense which, for all we know, might be much easier to defend and much more difficult to penetrate.  The mob would be able to vent their anger on the building and the property, but not the protectees.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 05:57:42 PM
...there's just not enough time [for impeachment]."

Probably not.  Rep. Omar's articles are probably seriously intended, but would be pro forma only.  But this is one of the few times form matters.  Because there's no codified list of "high crimes and misdemeanors," what qualifies as an impeachable offense is guided almost entirely by what the House decides is an impeachable offense.  The House impeached Pres. Trump on charges of "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress" even though his acquittal on those charges was a foregone conclusion.  That's to preserve the specific actions the President committed as impeachable offenses.  The next time a President tries to do those same things, the debate in the House can point to a precedent.  Similarly, here we have to preserve as precedent that calling upon an armed mob to seize the Capitol should probably always be considered an impeachable offense.  Not that the House is bound by precedent, but it's good to have on your side.

Quote
Pence would be put in the position of, first, having to oversee the last 2 weeks of the train wreck, and second, hav[e] to consider pardoning Trump.

Given that the President's actions Wednesday literally endangered the lives of V.P. Pence and his family, I think a pardon from Mike Pence is probably no longer on the table.

Quote
The only real concern I have is for any Executive Orders he might issue, but I believe those could be reversed by the next administration (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Yes, being thrown out in disgrace may well be the fitting end to his administration and legacy in the eyes of many, but it just strikes me as not being the thing that is needed right now.

As far as Executive Orders go, yes, they can be rescinded by the next administration, subject to the protocols of administrative law.  Last-minute, last-ditch orders are the easiest to rescind because little will have been done to activate them before the new administration arrives.  But I don't see that as the only problem.  The President might decide to pardon the dozens of people who have so far been arrested in the Capitol insurrection.  And there would be little anyone could do to stop him or undo the action. What Donald J. Trump wants more than anything is power over people, so that they're compelled to feed his narcissism.

Less credible, but still not off the table, is the notion that the President still has sole authority to deploy the U.S. nuclear arsenal at any time for any reason.  That doesn't mean he gets to push the button himself whenever he wants.  There is still a military infrastructure that implements the actual deployment, and has rules and protocols to prevent an unhinged President from ending the world to suit his ego.  In theory the President can fire whichever officers don't obey his commands.  And last week I would have said that there are lines even fanatics won't cross in their devotion to Donald J. Trump, but I'm becoming less convinced as time goes on that my assessment of others' fanaticism is accurate.  I'd like to think that no officer in that chain of command would obey an illegal order to nuke somebody.  But I'd sleep more comfortably if Donald Trump simply didn't have the authority to test my theory.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 06:45:58 PM
And the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account is now permanently suspended.  Finally.  I wonder where he's going to vent his anger over this particular event.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 08, 2021, 07:43:09 PM
Of course three officer is standing in front of a small crowd-control barrier will probably opt to stand down if confronted with dozens of angry, armed insurgents -- as you say, if not just from the sheer mass of the crowd press.  The question is whether those positions were manned that way intentionally, in contravention of all prior practice and common sense, so that only token resistance would be offered.  Of course I'm willing to see evidence of a simple foul-up, a miscommunication, or of unconventional wisdom.  But for me, this administration, this Congress, and a great many in law enforcement have lost my faith in those things as a default explanation for failure.  I want those people in charge testifying to Congress under oath about what the plan was to turn back the armed mob the President sent to invade the Capitol.  The one we all knew advance was going to happen.

There are reports that the initial requests to activate the national guard were declined. Taking selfies with the rioters crossed the line, but I do feel sympathy with the front-line Capitol police officers' attempts to deescalate. A charitable interpretation on their actions is that they delayed the crowd as long as necessary to secure the leadership (at at least one entrance USCP officers were pressed into the doors for about 20 minutes), but then let them come through rather than take further beating (over 50 officers were injured) or resorting to mass use of deadly force to drop everyone that crossed the threshold.

The failure is on the part of their leadership for putting the officers in that situation to begin with. And yes, they must account for this.

And the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account is now permanently suspended.  Finally.  I wonder where he's going to vent his anger over this particular event.

Hopefully not with the nuclear football. As you note there are formal and informal safeguards against this, but it would be super if those safeguards weren't at real, if remote, risk of being tested.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 08:03:17 PM
I do feel sympathy with the front-line Capitol police officers' attempts to deescalate.

Or better, declining to escalate.  As I wrote earlier regarding police provocation, in other situations I have seen clear evidence of police provocation and escalation.

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A charitable interpretation on their actions is that they delayed the crowd as long as necessary to secure the leadership (at at least one entrance USCP officers were pressed into the doors for about 20 minutes), but then let them come through rather than take further beating (over 50 officers were injured) or resorting to mass use of deadly force to drop everyone that crossed the threshold.

The Washington Post has obtained video that includes the fatal shooting of the insurgent (albeit blurred).  It shows what was happening at the door to the Speaker's Lobby (the hallway behind the dais side of the House chamber).  The doors are barricaded.  A half-dozen Capitol policemen bar the way.  At the beginning of the video, House Members can be seen in the lobby through the doors.  At a certain point the officers step aside and allow the protesters to begin smashing the doors; it's unclear why, but from their prior conversion they are clearly not colluding.  The woman is shot by an apparent plainclothes officer from inside the lobby, through the window, just as more heavily-armed officers come up the stairs behind her.

It's unclear why the officers outside the Lobby stood down to allow the attackers access to the doors, while the plainclothes officer just on the other side of the door drew his weapon, paused, and opened fire.  It's not clear to me that the officers guarding the door from the outside were armed.  If they were, they did not use their weapons.  The officers were calm and otherwise behaved themselves in an overtly professional manner.

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The failure is on the part of their leadership for putting the officers in that situation to begin with. And yes, they must account for this.

Agreed.  While the chief of the Capitol Police has resigned, I suspect there is more going on that just a failure on his part.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 08, 2021, 08:27:29 PM
And the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account is now permanently suspended.  Finally.  I wonder where he's going to vent his anger over this particular event.

Parler?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 08, 2021, 08:27:42 PM
The Washington Post has obtained video...

Yes, the videos make clear she was no innocent bystander, but questions about why deadly force was used here and only here will likely be unanswered for a long while.

Parler?

What do you think?  ::) But speak not its name.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 08:50:14 PM
Indeed, at what point do we compel people to respect fact, and how do we do it?  We have allowed to come into existence an environment where people steep themselves in heavily-biased, often non-factual narratives, where neither they have the responsibility to conform them to reality, nor can the people who peddle them recklessly for profit be held accountable.

In this instance, I think that a mutli-pronged approach would help. First, people on all sides of the aisle need to condemn in a real manner what happened, not just on Wednesday but also in any of the riots that have happened. Condemn not just the acts themselves, but the actors and the message. They also need to acknowledge that while the actions are wrong, the feelings that people have are genuine, and that the issues need to be actually listened to, not just given lip service. For example, I think that an actual, bipartisan, as objective as possible panel on voter fraud should be implemented as well. This would help quiet those on the right who are upset, and could also lead to progress in terms of providing suggestions and systems to make voting even more secure than it already is. I also think that the Democrats need to resist very strongly trying to swing the pendulum too far, too fast. Moderate, centrist language and actions, especially at the beginning, are what is needed.

We know that a fact-based argument by itself doesn't work for those with strongly-held convictions, especially those that are fear-based, as many of these are. There needs to be more. Not to get too touchy-feely, but they need to feel heard and validated, not dismissed, and helped to find their way to actual truth, not just told how wrong they are. There will always be those who won't listen, but for those that still are willing to hear the other side, the techniques of persuasion can work.

Although I don't see it happening, if the media on all sides (I'm not including the radical ones) would call out the lies, exaggerations, half-truths, etc., and those in power would do the same on their own sides and colleagues, then trust could start to be rebuilt. However, I'm a cynic, and don't see that as likely. Instead there will calls for retribution/revenge, grandiose speeches and over-promises, vitriol and invective, and not nearly as much progress or healing as the majority of us would like.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 09:00:18 PM
...and the small (e.g. USB drives).

For nearly all my work, we don't get to use those.  When it's unavoidable, a numbered USB thumb drive is checked out to you from an inventory, used once for what is needful, then physically destroyed by the inventory officer.  Being caught with portable storage in some areas of my work is a fire-on-the-spot offense and, in some cases, likely a criminal offense.  And this is not especially uncommon, even outside my industry.  My understanding, for example, is that HIPAA-qualified institutions have similar restrictions on the kinds of computer storage that are allowed around protected information.

I've seen things like that at some places I have worked (e.g. IBM) but not many. It certainly makes sense in high-security environments, and as you also said, those that are HIPAA-qualified. I would imagine that those in Congress and their staff would raise holy hell if they were asked to do that on a regular basis.  I work in higher education, and I know that data are not as secure as they should be, although at least in my department, we do work to keep personal identification separate from data (we have to for IRB).

Yeah, autolock is a standard and annoying feature.  In some cases they seem to gimmick it so that things that would normally inhibit the lock (e.g., watching a video) don't work and you have to keep unlocking your workstation to resume your passive activity.  Good on you IT-type guys for closing that loophole.

Agreed.  The IT people do not get enough credit for what they do, nor are their warnings given enough attention.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 09:04:51 PM
I have always wondered why, when crowds are of sufficient size that they could turn to mobs, they don't have fire trucks with water cannons waiting as barricades. There literally isn't a person out there who is strong enough to stay on their feet if they get hit by one of the highest pressure cannons, and they can be quite effective in getting a crowd to leave.

That's a long-standing practice in crowd control I've seen used elsewhere.  The problem, usually, is that American firefighters generally don't want to get involved in altercations like this, and generally aren't trained in any way for crowds.

Another important consideration is that most defense scenarios incorporate depths or layers of defense.  It's possible that the outside officers stood down knowing that the Members of Congress and others had been secured, and that the crowd would only be able to progress to the next layer of defense which, for all we know, might be much easier to defend and much more difficult to penetrate.  The mob would be able to vent their anger on the building and the property, but not the protectees.

Both are very good points. As you said, firefighters aren't trained for that, and putting them into situations that present different dangers from those they are used to would be difficult. I suppose that NG or police could operate the cannons if need be. And the layer approach is definitely a tried and true one. Your point regarding property vs. people is also spot-on - tables and chairs can be replaced; lives can't.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 09:13:21 PM
As far as Executive Orders go, yes, they can be rescinded by the next administration, subject to the protocols of administrative law.  Last-minute, last-ditch orders are the easiest to rescind because little will have been done to activate them before the new administration arrives.  But I don't see that as the only problem.  The President might decide to pardon the dozens of people who have so far been arrested in the Capitol insurrection.  And there would be little anyone could do to stop him or undo the action. What Donald J. Trump wants more than anything is power over people, so that they're compelled to feed his narcissism.

I knew there was something else that was percolating when I wrote that, but it didn't jell. Pardons are definitely a concern.

Less credible, but still not off the table, is the notion that the President still has sole authority to deploy the U.S. nuclear arsenal at any time for any reason.  That doesn't mean he gets to push the button himself whenever he wants.  There is still a military infrastructure that implements the actual deployment, and has rules and protocols to prevent an unhinged President from ending the world to suit his ego.  In theory the President can fire whichever officers don't obey his commands.  And last week I would have said that there are lines even fanatics won't cross in their devotion to Donald J. Trump, but I'm becoming less convinced as time goes on that my assessment of others' fanaticism is accurate.  I'd like to think that no officer in that chain of command would obey an illegal order to nuke somebody.  But I'd sleep more comfortably if Donald Trump simply didn't have the authority to test my theory.

I think that as well, and do have faith in the members of the military as a group not to follow such orders. And the systems in place to help prevent rogue personnel from carrying out such orders are pretty good even if they do still rely on humans. As you said, we'll all rest easier though when he doesn't have that power.

I saw a headline that said that Nancy Pelosi was trying to do some things to restrict access to the nuclear football. Does she actually have that power?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 09:15:00 PM
And the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account is now permanently suspended.  Finally.  I wonder where he's going to vent his anger over this particular event.

A friend just texted me to suggest that Trump could always call in to his supporters at Fox (can't see his buddy Sean H not taking his call).  And if worse came to worst, there would be OAN and Newsmax.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 09:50:29 PM
Apparently he tried to hijack the @POTUS account, which he never had full (or any) control of.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 08, 2021, 10:30:04 PM
Apparently he tried to hijack the @POTUS account, which he never had full (or any) control of.
Ha! Oh, that is precious indeed. Source?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 10:32:08 PM
I think that as well, and do have faith in the members of the military as a group not to follow such orders. And the systems in place to help prevent rogue personnel from carrying out such orders are pretty good even if they do still rely on humans.

They include protections against rogue Presidents too.

Quote
I saw a headline that said that Nancy Pelosi was trying to do some things to restrict access to the nuclear football. Does she actually have that power?

No.

The "football" doesn't do anything by itself.  It's essentially a satellite phone to the Pentagon, a nuclear "playbook," and the authenticator.  The President has sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.  He does not have the ability to make the missiles fly.  The Pentagon does that.  What Speaker Pelosi has done is largely immaterial and unnecessary.

I mean, he could try entering eight zeros.  "It's an older code, sir, but it checks out."  ;D

The converse danger is now that some country might believe the U.S. nuclear arsenal is effectively unavailable.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 10:32:33 PM
Apparently he tried to hijack the @POTUS account, which he never had full (or any) control of.
Ha! Oh, that is precious indeed. Source?

My spouse, from across the couch.  But I found this:
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tweets-from-potus-account-after-suspension-they-got-deleted-2021-1
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 08, 2021, 10:38:06 PM
I'd like to think that no officer in that chain of command would obey an illegal order to nuke somebody.  But I'd sleep more comfortably if Donald Trump simply didn't have the authority to test my theory.

It is the duty of every serving member not to obey an illegal order, however determining what is legal and what is not can be challenging. For example, can the President order a first strike without approval of any other governmental body? I don't know, myself.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 08, 2021, 10:54:30 PM
I mean, he could try entering eight zeros.  "It's an older code, sir, but it checks out."  ;D

😂
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 10:56:19 PM
It is the duty of every serving member not to obey an illegal order, however determining what is legal and what is not can be challenging. For example, can the President order a first strike without approval of any other governmental body? I don't know, myself.

The President can order any first strike scenario that's in the nuclear playbook.  However, since the order will be carried out by the appropriate office of the Pentagon, the Dept. of Defense will be involved in determining the lawfulness of any such order.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 08, 2021, 11:00:08 PM
Agreed.  The IT people do not get enough credit for what they do, nor are their warnings given enough attention.

I need to know where to send the case of craft beer and the single-malt scotch to the valiant night shift in the Twitter NOC playing Whack-A-Mole with Donald J. Trump's pathetic attempts to evade his ban.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 09, 2021, 12:34:26 AM
Apparently he tried to hijack the @POTUS account, which he never had full (or any) control of.
Ha! Oh, that is precious indeed. Source?

My spouse, from across the couch.  But I found this:
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tweets-from-potus-account-after-suspension-they-got-deleted-2021-1
Thank you; that is just hilarious!  ;D
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Britmax on January 09, 2021, 06:23:36 AM
I'd like to think that no officer in that chain of command would obey an illegal order to nuke somebody.  But I'd sleep more comfortably if Donald Trump simply didn't have the authority to test my theory.

It is the duty of every serving member not to obey an illegal order, however determining what is legal and what is not can be challenging. For example, can the President order a first strike without approval of any other governmental body? I don't know, myself.
You could remind them of the Nuremberg Trials, and how effective "I was only obeying orders" was as a defence.  And that the only option (other than refusing the order) takes them with it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 09, 2021, 08:01:54 AM
Apparently he tried to hijack the @POTUS account, which he never had full (or any) control of.
Ha! Oh, that is precious indeed. Source?

My spouse, from across the couch.  But I found this:
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tweets-from-potus-account-after-suspension-they-got-deleted-2021-1
Thank you; that is just hilarious!  ;D

Twitter are playing whack-a-mole with Trump at the moment. Gary Corby, Trump's digital director tried to gift Trump his personal account. That got nailed too. https://mobile.twitter.com/JDiamond1/status/1347741119434649603
At this stage Trump must be on the verge of a rage-stroke.

Regarding the plastic ziptie handcuffs one of the seditionists has been identified as a retired Airforce Lieutenant Colonel:
(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5ff8f06eca0b433c495ffd37/master/w_2560%2Cc_limit/Ronan-Capitol.jpg)
He is now wriggling about claiming that he found them on the floor, put them in his coat in order to give them to a cop and then just forgot all about them. I mean, that's a totally normal thing that could happen to anyone when you are out for a stroll in your combat gear, bullet-proof vest and helmet. You take a wrong turn and suddenly you find yourself in the middle of the Capitol in a riot. Totally believable and we've all done it at one point or another.  ::)

There's an interesting sub-Reddit going on at the moment: https://www.reddit.com/r/byebyejob/ Lots of very well paid people suddenly finding themselves out of very good jobs. So far I've spotted a lawyer, a CEO, our absent-minded friend above and a woman outed by her daughter. Schadenfreude and karma appears to be a real thing!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 09, 2021, 10:05:51 AM
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-air-force-combat-veteran-breached-the-senate
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 09, 2021, 10:11:51 AM
https://twitter.com/i/status/1347617828887818241

Claims that the police opened the door and let the rioters inside. The ziptie handcuff guy can be seen at about 18 seconds. You can also hear a cop saying "We don't agree with you but we respect you"
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 09, 2021, 10:37:56 AM
The simple fact is, if you still believe there was voter fraud, you want to.  It doesn't pass the most basic logic test--I keep asking why, if there was enough voter fraud to control the Presidency, it took until a runoff election to control the Senate.  The easiest way to refute the idea that the election was fixed is to point out that Mitch McConnell will remain in the Senate.  If you can believe in voter fraud after that's been pointed out to you, what would convince you?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 09, 2021, 10:59:08 AM
The simple fact is, if you still believe there was voter fraud, you want to.  It doesn't pass the most basic logic test--I keep asking why, if there was enough voter fraud to control the Presidency, it took until a runoff election to control the Senate.  The easiest way to refute the idea that the election was fixed is to point out that Mitch McConnell will remain in the Senate.  If you can believe in voter fraud after that's been pointed out to you, what would convince you?

It's no difference to any conspiracy theory (or religion for that matter). People believe them because they want to believe. All the evidence to the contrary will not make a jot of difference.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on January 09, 2021, 12:30:53 PM
How does America come back from this? This is a cult the likes of which Hubbard could only dream of. They actually believe Trump cares about them beyond wanting their money and their worship. But it's tens of millions of people. How do you deprogram on such a scale?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on January 09, 2021, 12:42:47 PM
Regarding the plastic ziptie handcuffs one of the seditionists has been identified as a retired Airforce Lieutenant Colonel
Reportedly there were people calling for Pence, and openly discussing "executing" him.

The more I read and hear about this the more I get a lynch mob vibe, the most American of gatherings.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: AtomicDog on January 09, 2021, 01:01:02 PM
Their job was to protect the lawmakers. To allow an angry mob access to them is not de-escalation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 09, 2021, 01:37:43 PM
I mean, he could try entering eight zeros.  "It's an older code, sir, but it checks out."  ;D

Ugh, don't remind me...  :-\
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 09, 2021, 02:16:58 PM
In the video I described earlier, the Capitol police who initially guarded the door moved aside and gave the attackers access to the barricaded doors.  The woman was shot from the inside the Speaker's Lobby by someone appearing to be a Secret Service agent.  Given that House Members were seen in the lobby only about two minutes before the shooting occurred, it isn't exactly clear that the House chamber and surrounding offices had been entirely evacuated.  There was clearly little if any coordination among the armed federal protective services.  There was evidently some confusion among Capitol Police, some of whom fought physically with the insurgents and others of whom clearly ushered them in.  Since we have evidence that this security infrastructure is capable of an effective and coordinated response, we definitely deserve answers to the questions regarding why it was so very ineffective in this case, leading to five fatalities.

Since this event was planned well in advance, in public, it would have been trivially easy for other groups such as avowed terrorists to infiltrate their own operatives into this mob and wreak systematic havoc.  None of the excuses given for why an effective response did occur has yet convinced me that this is was a well-considered response.  Operational security at the nation's Capitol simply did not exist, while Congress was actually meeting in joint session.

There are photos of several people carrying plastic temporary handcuffs, not just the one person now identified.  This is very disturbing.  Clearly some of the assailants had planned ahead with the intent of restraining people, possibly taking them hostage, possibly Members of Congress.  Gallows and makeshift nooses were displayed, although it's not clear whether these were intended as illustrations or were expected to function.  You have to look at what compels people to think a certain way where this is acceptable.

How does America recover from this?  I'm not sure it deserves to.  The differences that have led to armed rebellion in the United States over its history are still there, still going strong, and sill egged on by people who know how to weaponize such things for their own selfish ends.  You can talk about its leadership and wring your hands over political gamesmanship, but that's just a proxy for who Americans are as people.  In terms of identity, there just isn't one and never has been.  In terms of expectations, we've created and lived for too long in a society that apportions accountability in overtly preferential ways.  The problem with America is Americans.  Sure, we can suggest institutional and governmental reforms.  But if we can't agree on basic human dignity, and the notion that facts matter, none of it will come to anything.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 09, 2021, 02:28:58 PM
Reportedly there were people calling for Pence, and openly discussing "executing" him.

Which, as I mentioned, will probably foreclose any possibility of a pardon from him should some sequence of events result in Mike Pence holding the office of President.  Worse, Pence's family was attending the session.  I don't care for Pence's politics.  And I question the wisdom of bringing his wife and children to an event that was expected to attract protest.  But all that aside, I imagine the visceral reaction from a husband and father to one's boss deliberately putting one's family in harm's way just for the lulz would outstrip even the staunchest political loyalty.

Quote
The more I read and hear about this the more I get a lynch mob vibe, the most American of gatherings.

Yes.  Very much so.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on January 09, 2021, 05:17:35 PM
... But if we can't agree on basic human dignity, and the notion that facts matter, none of it will come to anything.
This event has been quite disturbing, seeing and hearing large numbers of people ready and willing to attack, and potentially kill, elected officials, staff, police, and anyone who got in their way, because they believed their votes had been overturned.  And they believed this because they'd been fed a non-stop torrent of lies by the President, by sycophantic elected officials and by various hangers on and media sources.

These "alternative facts" have been blasted out from the start of the Trump administration, and those who choose only right-wing news sources will have seen nothing else.  Biden has been criticised for talking about "the big lie", invoking Goebbels and the rise of the Nazis, but it's hard to avoid comparisons when looking at the extent of the misinformation and spin over the last four years.  And it hasn't stopped, even in the wake of Wednesday's events.

I'm still baffled by the cult-like adoration for Trump, especially from those he wouldn't cross the street to help.  I was amazed how close the election was, and that (in rough terms) 20% of the voting age population thought he should be re-elected.  A recent poll found that half of Republicans polled thought the attack on the Capitol was a good thing, and still believe that the election was rigged, and other nonsensical claims about Biden and Democrats in general.

Finding common ground going forward is going to be difficult, and it's going to be a long time before the threat of further violent protests goes away.  The fundamental question is, how do you "de-programme" something like 40 million people?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 10, 2021, 12:41:25 PM
They really don't know that he doesn't care about any of them, and I don't know how they came to this place.  Why him?  What about that man in particular, given everything we know about his history, led to this.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 10, 2021, 01:55:08 PM
He said what they wanted to hear, promising what they wanted, while blaming those they were already primed to blame. Why him? History will be asking that decades from now. A former reality star managing such destruction is almost as absurd as an amateur painter, yet here we are.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 10, 2021, 02:32:41 PM
I'm sure many people still believe the story that Donald J. Trump is a self-made billionaire, a shrewd but honest businessman, and a natural dealmaker.  A lot of people outside the metropolitan centers grew up with this myth, perpetuated largely and loudly by Trump himself.  And I'm sure a lot of people still have faith in the image of a political outsider, a staunch campaigner against "corruption" in both political parties, and are happy to rewrite what's happening this week as the political establishment struggling to retain its "corrupt" power against Trump's crusade to reform it.  They still think he's draining the swamp because that's what they want to hear is happening.

People steep themselves in the media outlets of their choice.  And those outlets have been hotly vilifying the left for many, many years.  Once you create such a villain, any hero will do.  But why Trump?  Because he speaks their language.  Sen. McConnell is just as much about "owning the libs."  But he doesn't speak the language of the people.  Or behave in the manner of the people.  Donald Trump is vulgar, rude, and indecorous when talking about the political left, or its various characters.  Not to say that every American behaves this way, or that those who do, do so all the time.  But for a certain segment of the U.S. population, this is their "Friends, Romans, countrymen" moment.  The only thing Donald Trump appears even remotely capable of doing is playing the character of Donald J. Trump.  It simply takes too long for people to see through it, and most simply don't want to.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 10, 2021, 05:16:29 PM
This article comes closer to explaining Trump than anything else I've read:

https://theweek.com/articles/951933/how-camp-explains-trump

Quote
Like the denizens of Versailles, Trump can only encounter the natural world third or fourth-hand, in a tweet about the imminent signing of the 2018 farm bill embedded with a clip of him singing the Green Acres theme song at the Emmys...

The essential Trumpian conceit: playing a poor person's idea of what being rich is (having real linen!), a woke person's idea of racism (liking déclassé foods), a worker's idea of what a boss is (someone who fires people)...

Trump as president is always at his best in events like the annual White House Turkey Pardon, which are themselves a kind of meta-performance of the powers and function of the presidency belonging to a vanished and now impossibly corny-sounding era of good feelings between the quality liberal press and the inhabitant of the Oval Office...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 10, 2021, 09:43:50 PM
This article comes closer to explaining Trump than anything else I've read:

https://theweek.com/articles/951933/how-camp-explains-trump

Have you posted that before?  It seems familiar.  And I can't really disagree.

As the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection continues to deliver surprises, I'm amused to see how many of the participants are aghast and upset at actually being held accountable for their actions.  They live-streamed a crime spree that included the gruesome murder of a police officer!  What did they think would happen?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 10, 2021, 10:40:23 PM
This article comes closer to explaining Trump than anything else I've read:

https://theweek.com/articles/951933/how-camp-explains-trump

Have you posted that before?  It seems familiar.  And I can't really disagree.

Oopsie. I may have, yes.

Quote
As the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection continues to deliver surprises, I'm amused to see how many of the participants are aghast and upset at actually being held accountable for their actions.  They live-streamed a crime spree that included the gruesome murder of a police officer!  What did they think would happen?

I'm interested at the backpedalling that's happening - oh, it wasn't that bad, there wasn't much theft (while ignoring the way they trashed the rooms they got into). Then there are the people who seem to be able to simultaneously cheer what happened and then dismiss it as being caused by Antifa provocateurs.

On the matter of provocation, I read a transcript of Trump's speech from beforehand. It's a masterpiece of talking around the subject but never overtly saying it. IANAL so I don't know what the rules are for proving incitement in a court case, but I don't think he said anything encouraging violence.

As I said to my 13YOS this morning, Trump is a master at talking around a subject and winking at the people he's talking to, so they know the real meaning.

It's like that Georgia phonecall a few days ago. Several times he came mighty close to uttering an overt threat, but each time he talked around it in such a way that the people he spoke to knew what he really meant without him having to actually say it.

Of course, having said that, the other frustrating thing is the way Trump can convince people to do things for him with no intention of rewarding them for having done it - "Let's walk up to the Capitol and convince those Republican congress people to <*wink*> do the right thing," followed by "The people who were violent should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

It's as though everyone needs to have their own personal Road-To-Damascus experience - they can only turn on Trump if they - personally - have been betrayed by him. Every time they see him throw someone else under the bus the default assumption is that the victim deserved what they got, and they basically can't be shifted from it until the same thing happens to them. For some of them the only logical explanation for Republican politicians or Republican-appointed judges not doing Trump's bidding is that they were part of the Deep State all along.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 10, 2021, 11:38:02 PM
While it gave some interesting insights into the appeal of Trump, I think the above article underestimates, sharply, how much lasting damage he's done to American democracy.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 10, 2021, 11:42:26 PM
Oopsie. I may have, yes.

And good for you.  It's a good answer to the question.

Quote
I'm interested at the backpedalling that's happening - oh, it wasn't that bad, there wasn't much theft (while ignoring the way they trashed the rooms they got into).

In July there was a large-scale protest in our city following the decision by the attorney general not to charge police officers in the fatal shooting of a fleeing suspect.  As part of the protest, red paint was applied to the street outside the (brand new) attorney general's office building, and to some parts of the building exterior.  The protest was organized by our usual BLM organizers.  The woman who did nothing more than buy the paint at the local Home Depot was charged with a first-degree felony.  That's a 25-to-life prison sentence.  (Under pressure, the attorney general turned prosecution over to an independent prosecutor who dismissed and reduced the charges to something more appropriate.). This is the same attorney general who recently signed Utah up for the ill-conceived Texas lawsuit, without permission from the governor or legislature.

The point is the one I made before:  a big part of the problem I see in the United States is the preferential assignment of accountability according to privilege -- and that this is expected.

Quote
IANAL so I don't know what the rules are for proving incitement in a court case, but I don't think he said anything encouraging violence.

Inciting a riot is a federal crime, regardless of how violent it gets.  As to other forms of incitement, there are legal doctrines that address talking around the subject without actually saying the thing.  IANAL either, but in speaking with lawyers I gather you don't actually have to say, "Go commit a crime."  If the speaker knows, or should have known, that acting on his words would be likely entail an illegal act, it can still be incitement.  Since these people were helpful enough to record every nuance of their activities, there's plenty of evidence to suggest they thoroughly believed they were there on the President's orders, doing what he asked them to do.  Here, as in the Georgia phone-call test, the President's best defense would be that he was too stupid to realize that the armed mob he was addressing might actually contemplate using force.

More importantly, incitement under U.S. law is governed by the so-called Brandenburg test, and has more to do with the timing of the action.  Because the President said that they were going to set out immediately and march to the Capitol, it goes worse for him according to Brandenburg.

Quote
Of course, having said that, the other frustrating thing is the way Trump can convince people to do things for him with no intention of rewarding them for having done it - "Let's walk up to the Capitol and convince those Republican congress people to <*wink*> do the right thing," followed by "The people who were violent should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

This is why people quit doing business with him in New York and why he went packing to Florida.  But also yes, how he can keep convincing a new crop of rubes to fling themselves off cliffs for him is a mystery.

The sudden urging for unity and clemency is being interpreted by some as Republican actors running scared:  if they don't appear to support the action of these violent insurrectionists, they will become targets themselves.  This to me is just desserts.  They played with fire.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 11, 2021, 12:13:28 AM
While it gave some interesting insights into the appeal of Trump, I think the above article underestimates, sharply, how much lasting damage he's done to American democracy.

Yes.  And we have to keep reminding ourselves that this not just Donald J. Trump.  Trump is the latest product, and most egregious symptom, of a social and political system that has drifted collectively off into the weeds.  The deplorable elements of American society that have been on display this week didn't spontaneously come into existence when Trump was elected.  They've always been there, since before our Civil War.  Trump and his enablers simply legitimized them and continue to use them for their own political ends.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 11, 2021, 12:19:04 AM
While it gave some interesting insights into the appeal of Trump, I think the above article underestimates, sharply, how much lasting damage he's done to American democracy.

Yes.  And we have to keep reminding ourselves that this not just Donald J. Trump.  Trump is the latest product, and most egregious symptom, of a social and political system that has drifted collectively off into the weeds.  The deplorable elements of American society that have been on display this week didn't spontaneously come into existence when Trump was elected.  They've always been there, since before our Civil War.  Trump and his enablers simply legitimized them and continue to use them for their own political ends.
Aye. As I said when he was elected, he fanned the flames, he manned the bellows to ride the updraft all the way to the Oval Office, but the fire was there before. Just like virulent antisemitism was part of European life long before the Nazis came along.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 11, 2021, 12:25:00 AM
What did they think would happen?

They thought they would be celebrated as heroes and patriots, that there would be parades, and statues would be erected in their honor.

They never once thought that they would be arrested, or added to the no-fly list (https://twitter.com/RayRedacted/status/1348388601118273537?s=19).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 11, 2021, 12:44:31 AM
This is why people quit doing business with him in New York and why he went packing to Florida.  But also yes, how he can keep convincing a new crop of rubes to fling themselves off cliffs for him is a mystery.

This is why I call him an American Hitler. His motives are just as - if not more - evil than Hitler, and he also has a way of gathering people. When I posted how I now understand how an intelligent and cultured people like the Germans could let Hitler reign supreme, this is what I was referring to. It came damned close to happening in the USA.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 11, 2021, 01:14:28 AM
They thought they would be celebrated as heroes and patriots, that there would be parades, and statues would be erected in their honor.

And I'm sure a lot of that belief was reinforced by the President of the United States commending their dedication to his personal aggrandizement.

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They never once thought that they would be arrested, or added to the no-fly list (https://twitter.com/RayRedacted/status/1348388601118273537?s=19).

These people are not going to fare well in the corrections system.

On a happier note, let's recognize the Capitol Police officer who lured the mob away from the Senate chamber.  I guess we know his name, but we're not repeating it too often to keep him safe.  You know the Gru image meme?  "He singlehandedly protected the Senate chamber."  "He singlehandedly protected the Senate chamber."  We really need to find out why the Capitol security force was so understaffed.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 11, 2021, 03:45:53 AM
On a happier note, let's recognize the Capitol Police officer who lured the mob away from the Senate chamber.  I guess we know his name, but we're not repeating it too often to keep him safe.  You know the Gru image meme?  "He singlehandedly protected the Senate chamber."  "He singlehandedly protected the Senate chamber."  We really need to find out why the Capitol security force was so understaffed.

Just worked it out.

I'd seen the video a couple of days ago, but obviously with no knowledge of the Capitol's layout I had no idea of the significance of his action.

Wow.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: apollo16uvc on January 11, 2021, 06:33:42 AM
The two-party system is failing. People are killing each other over which old guy rules over them for the next 4 years. And sadly it is going to get much worse.

Bush started the divide, obama made it worse and Trump made it reach criticality.

The media is also to blame.

Sides are maximum opposing instead of balancing each other out and offering two different views.


I see no way out without violence.


A parlimantary system where the fate of an entire nation doesn't rest on the whims of a single person. Multiple parties that need to form a coalition and work together instead of against each other.

Smaller federal gov only for critical infrastructure, millitary and police. Each state also gets a representative.

If the coalition can't figure something out, let the people vote.


That or....

The USA splits up into 2, maybe 3 nations. Each having one side of the extreme.
Maybe also several completely independent states.

Borders may very well change


In the case of complete anarchy...
enjoy the already failing infrastructure getting much, much worse.
Remember the hoover dam? Only holds back the biggest lake in the USA... if that were to fail...

Federal government may be terribly slow and expensive but it doesn't **** around with infrastructure critical to tens of millions of people..

(Most of the time)

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 11, 2021, 10:48:35 AM
Anyone pulling "both sides" in this issue is an idiot who doesn't want to see reality.

I would say, though, that I firmly believe that Trump's motives are purely petty and selfish.  He's a small man who is only interested in making himself look big.  He has allied with truly evil people, but it's not as though I think he really cares about immigrants or Muslims or especially abortion.  He cares about himself and maybe Ivanka, and if dumping her would save him, we'd see in a hurry how much he cares about her.

Also, I don't think he's a woke person's idea of a racist; he's just a racist.  There are many different ways racists can look, and denying housing to black people is definitely one of the ways.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 11, 2021, 11:59:29 AM
Bush started the divide, obama made it worse and Trump made it reach criticality.

I wouldn't say Obama made it worse. It was the inability of racists to accept a black President that made things worse.

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The media is also to blame.

Fox News has been dumbing down their audience, making them more gullible, and feeding them conspiracy theories for almost 25 years. They spun bad news about Bush & Trump, or failed to cover those stories at all. They made mountains out of molehills when covering Obama, or invented controversies out of nothing ("OMG, Obama used a selfie stick!"). I'm still waiting for Obama to declare Shariah law and take your guns away.

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Sides are maximum opposing instead of balancing each other out and offering two different views.

People who live outside of the United States understand that even the most left-leaning American politicians (ie. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) would be considered centrists in a lot of other countries. The only reason people fear them is because people on the right have been fearmongering. They aren't even remotely "radical".

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I see no way out without violence.

Then your vision is impaired.

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A parlimantary system where the fate of an entire nation doesn't rest on the whims of a single person. Multiple parties that need to form a coalition and work together instead of against each other.

Multiple parties aren't all they're cracked up to be. Sure, they give voters more choices, but they often lead to unpopular parties gaining power. It could lead to a fascist party gaining power just because the 3 safer parties on the left split the vote enough to not give any of them a majority.

The solution to America's problem is not to change it's entire form of government, or to split into 2-50 separate countries. The solution is for the Republican party to be utterly wiped out and made toxic, for the people responsible for the failed coup to be severely punished, for the "checks & balances" to be fortified (no, the President is not above the law), and for a new 2nd party to take it's place. If that new party follows the constitution and obeys the laws, they might someday gain enough clout to be more than just an opposition party. But for the foreseeable future I think the Democratic Party is your only chance for a stable government.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 11, 2021, 12:42:48 PM
I'd seen the video a couple of days ago, but obviously with no knowledge of the Capitol's layout I had no idea of the significance of his action.

Keep in mind that areas like the Rotunda and the sculpture gallery are public spaces.  There are restrictions on what activities can take place in there, especially protest activity.  But even when Congress is in session, the entire building is not off limits to the public.  Our state capitol rotunda, for example, can even be rented out for after-hours private events, and is open to the public for visits every day.  And the spectator galleries of the chambers are often open to the public, but you need a free ticket to be there, which IIRC can be obtained from one of your state's Congressional delegation.  Merely entering the Capitol is not something that's going to be immediately challenged, although here I would say that the Capitol Police should have reasonably construed the crowd as a protest even before it turned violent.

But when the crowd wants to continue on to private or secure areas, the situation becomes more tense.  Normally those critical points don't require a lot of guarding since the only people who aren't supposed to be there would be individuals who, say, wandered away from a tour or got lost.  You can have one guy at each end of the Member's Lobby under normal circumstances.  But again, there was every indication that Jan. 6 was not going to be a normal day at the Capitol.  We still need to find out why even normal precautions don't seem to have been taken.

Another factor to consider is that some in the Blue Lives Matter contingent evidently believed the Capitol Police would join them.  The police force's low-key approach in allowing access, in some cases, to parts of the Capitol may have reinforced that belief.  Then later when actual defense became necessary, there would be the element of sudden betrayal.  In some of the videos you can hear the insurgents calling out to the Capitol Police to remind them they they supported the police when the police were under criticism, and they expected the police to back them now.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 11, 2021, 02:14:47 PM
The two-party system is failing.

I don't see either major party has having a unified vision or constituency.  I think there are historical and, to a lesser extent, political reasons for that.  However, I don't have confidence that meaningful third parties will arise in a way that requires coalition-style politics.  The Republican Party should have split when the Tea Party arrived, but it didn't.  It may not split into Trumpists and Traditionalists as things progress.

However, a big part of what I see as the problem is the U.S. political system.  And it's not as if the ways to fix it aren't obvious:  term limits, campaign finance reform, ethics reform.  But none of that is going to take place within the current system.  It's not something that can be easily addressed from within, when the people who would have to address it are those who benefit from the status quo.

I think Gillianren accurately describes were Donald Trump fits into this.  Ultimately you don't get power without the vote, so getting people to vote for you and not for your opponent is the key.  Trump was someone the Republican Party acknowledged was getting the votes.  Donald Trump was the useful idiot.  And now some in the Republican Party seem to have at long last realized their miscalculation in failing to oppose him vigorously enough; Trump is now a dangerous idiot who might not only drag the party down with him, but has been dragging the party down at the polls consistently since 2016.

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The media is also to blame.

I think it's a lot to blame.  Leave it to rampant capitalism to have truth-in-advertising laws but no truth-in-news laws.  It sets up a situation where people can say essentially whatever they want as "news," regardless of actual truth.  And anyone who believes it is on their own.  The First Amendment framework is meant to forbid censorship, of course.  But it's predicated on the ill-advised presumption that people will inform themselves soberly from all sides of an issue instead of latching onto "news" that reinforces (often with outright lies) what they've already determined to believe.

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I see no way out without violence.

Historically speaking, the U.S. doesn't effect significant course changes without significant occurrences, many of which have been violent to some degree.  I don't think violence is a necessary source of suitable significance.  But see what's happening.  Now five deaths attributed to the actions of politicians, and finally we begin to see traction in the forces that actually matter:  far-right extremist voices being de-platformed by fretful media companies, and major corporations announcing withdrawal of financial support for candidates.  (Don't get me started on that one.)  If you want change to happen in America, make it a business decision.

But America is violent by nature.  I have to agree that we probably haven't seen the end of it, but I hope very much that cooler heads prevail quickly.

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A parlimantary system where the fate of an entire nation doesn't rest on the whims of a single person. Multiple parties that need to form a coalition and work together instead of against each other.

Believe it or not, the Republicans and the Democrats used to be able to compromise and produce bipartisan efforts.  The Tea Party effectively ended that.  Its very existence was based on getting what they want, or no one gets anything.  As long as that attitude prevails in American politics, it will be harder to build coalitions that simply allowing the major parties to break up and reform into different or smaller parties.

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The USA splits up into 2, maybe 3 nations. Each having one side of the extreme.
Maybe also several completely independent states.

We already tried breaking into two nations, and there's talk of doing it again.  But in practical terms, the Deep South and many other states that would form a socially conservative nation know they cannot survive without the tax base provided by the richer, more socially liberal states.  As much as middle America complains about the effete coastal liberals, it is financially dependent upon them.  All the South would have would be Texas.  And while the Texas economy could probably sustain Texas as an independent country, I doubt it would be able to carry its neighbors for very long.

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Federal government may be terribly slow and expensive but it doesn't **** around with infrastructure critical to tens of millions of people..

(Most of the time)

Meh, the national power grid has been shaky for years.  And our highway infrastructure is literally crumbling.  Previously these were things that the two major parties could agree to fund.  Now it's all being held hostage for each party's new list of can't-do-withouts.

Fox News has been dumbing down their audience, making them more gullible, and feeding them conspiracy theories for almost 25 years.

All under the guise of legitimate news.  There's no law specifically against telling a lie.  You can't do it under oath, of course.  And you can't do it to defraud someone.  And you can't do it where certain specific reliances might arise.  But the kinds of lies Fox News, talk radio, and other far-right outlets spew don't incur any responsibility.  "Sources say a busload of Antifa thugs infiltrated the otherwise peaceful protesters."  You don't actually report that infiltration as a fact.  And your "source" might just be some random Tweet.  You have zero responsibility for what someone might do with that "information."

Then there's the legal notion that a reasonable person wouldn't actually believe any of it.  But if seventy-odd million people show that they do believe it, what use is the "reasonable person" standard in assigning responsibility?  If you aren't aware that millions of people have relied upon your lies -- and, in posturing yourself as a news outlet, you instead actually expect people to listen to you and react accordingly -- then how can we ever address the clearly undesirable results of a media-generated hysteria?

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People who live outside of the United States understand that even the most left-leaning American politicians (ie. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) would be considered centrists in a lot of other countries. The only reason people fear them is because people on the right have been fearmongering. They aren't even remotely "radical".

Or even especially "socialist."  Yes, I've lived outside the U.S. and I agree with your assessment.  As we discussed months ago, Americans are still fed the notion that if they work hard in the traditional way, they can all be millionaires just like Elon Musk and Donald Trump.  Thus the best thing to do is uphold American-style capitalism, lest The Swamp hobble you in your efforts.  When the average Joe can't make millions, he looks to other reasons for his failure.  And the right is all too eager to hand him reasons why:  he's being taxed by the liberals, who give his money to lazy people with brown skin who probably came here illegally.  Or all those laws and regulations that make it harder for big business to trickle the wealth down to the little guy.

If you keep in mind that every American thinks he's a temporarily stunted millionaire, you understand why the Republicans have such a hold.

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...for the people responsible for the failed coup to be severely punished

This has to happen.  These calls for "unity" are bare pleas not to be punished for heinous acts deliberately committed.  As I wrote some time before, the biggest problem in America is the preferential assignment of accountability according to privilege.  Examples of that privilege are sex, skin color, sexual preference, immigration status, accumulated wealth, political dynasticism.  I'm sure you all would be able to suggest additions to the list.  There is little remaining functional equality among all people who are living in America, and this has pervaded every aspect of our society and government.  Trump is a plain old racist, but in another way he's just an example of the institutional racism that many of us are still struggling to recognize and eradicate.

But back to privilege.  As I said, I've observed many protests, demonstrations, and so forth in my city.  The organizers accept the very real possibility, if not outright likelihood, that they will be arrested and charged with some crime incident to their protest.  They prepare for it (i.e., they've made arrangements for bail and lawyers).  They don't want it, but they accept the risk of arrest and prosecution as a likely consequence of their intended behavior.  As some of the viral videos have made evident, the participants in Wednesday's attempted coup apparently believed they were just going to be allowed to walk away from it with no consequences.  This cannot be allowed to happen.

Now among the insurgents were obviously some truly horrible and disturbed people.  But others were simply beguiled, well-intentioned people who are being used as pawns by the rich and powerful.  They may not have understood what was likely to happen, and therefore not expecting it or prepared for it.  But that can't be said for the Ted Cruzes and Donald Trumps and the Lauren Boeberts, who callously put ordinary people in real danger by stirring them up to action and having no intention of sharing responsibility for the results.  They knew what they were doing, and are now trying to weasel out of responsibility for their miscalculation.  That cannot be allowed to happen either.

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...for the "checks & balances" to be fortified (no, the President is not above the law)...

That would be nice.  The checks and balances are still there, but they've been completely overshadowed by partisan actions to an extent I think the Framers didn't consider possible or credible.  And I agree that as soon as you allow a President to pardon himself, you no longer have a nation of laws instead of men.

I'm quite sure the President is preparing a list of new pardons, those "patriots" who bludgeoned a policeman to death, attempted to kill the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, and who paraded symbols of hate and racism through our most hallowed halls.  And I'm sure he's doing it just to show he's still the Guy In Charge, with no more noble intent than to rile up his enemies.  We need some additional checks on the pardon power.

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But for the foreseeable future I think the Democratic Party is your only chance for a stable government.

I wish I could agree, but I don't see the Democratic Party as anything better than the lesser of two evils.  Well, not as overtly evil as the Republicans.  But I see them as trying to be everything to everyone and winding up being nothing to anybody.  There are deep devisions among Democrats too, which defocuses their efforts.  I see a Biden Presidency as having little else to do besides repairing the feces-smeared legacy of Donald J. Trump.  I doubt they'll have time or political capital to do much that's affirmatively good.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: AtomicDog on January 11, 2021, 05:44:10 PM
What did they think would happen?

They thought they would be celebrated as heroes and patriots, that there would be parades, and statues would be erected in their honor.

They never once thought that they would be arrested, or added to the no-fly list (https://twitter.com/RayRedacted/status/1348388601118273537?s=19).

They thought that their actions would magically keep Trump as president, even after January 20, and that he would pardon them all.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 12, 2021, 02:01:13 AM
What did they think would happen?

They thought they would be celebrated as heroes and patriots, that there would be parades, and statues would be erected in their honor.

They never once thought that they would be arrested, or added to the no-fly list (https://twitter.com/RayRedacted/status/1348388601118273537?s=19).

They thought that their actions would magically keep Trump as president, even after January 20, and that he would pardon them all.
I bet they didn't expect to be charged at all but recognized as heroes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on January 12, 2021, 02:14:27 AM
A parlimantary system where the fate of an entire nation doesn't rest on the whims of a single person. Multiple parties that need to form a coalition and work together instead of against each other.

This is always going to be a problem with what you have in your country... someone who is effectively an Elected King, and with having an enforcer who can highhandedly block anything from being voted on that doesn't suit him or his Elected King.

Moscow Mitch has far too much power for one man to hold... in many ways, he is even more powerful than POTUS himself.

In our system of Government (which is not perfect by any means) the leader of the governing party is also the leader of the house and the country. It sounds like a powerful position, but in terms of government, it is actually far less powerful that your president. The Prime Minister is an active member of the Parliament, and is just one of the ~120 votes - there is no one person who can hold up legislation from being voted on, and there is no power of veto if the PM doesn't like what has been passed by the legislature. The Prime Minister is directly answerable to Parliament for his/her behaviour.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on January 12, 2021, 06:37:35 AM
ETA - Error correction for reply #1930

By "in your country" I meant the USA.
I didn't realise until after the edit time had expired that I was replying to apollo16uvc who is not American.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 12, 2021, 10:38:59 AM
Moscow Mitch has far too much power for one man to hold... in many ways, he is even more powerful than POTUS himself.

Nowhere in law should he have had the level of power he took.  However, who was going to stop him?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 12, 2021, 11:23:13 AM
Well, the Senate should have stopped him.  Majority leader is nowhere in the Constitution, and it galls me even more to hear it used as a title -- Leader McConnell.  I thoroughly agree that no one person should have that much power in government, and I agree even more that Mitch McConnell shouldn't have any power in government.  The man cares only about partisan power.

Like most legislative bodies, the Senate makes its own rules.  They're kept and interpreted by the Senate Parliamentarian.  However, the Senate can change its rules at any time, even smack in the middle of a debate.  It used to be that many important operations of the Senate required a supermajority -- 60 percent of those present.  Unless a party held that supermajority of seats, you needed at least some concession from the minority party.  Both Democrats and Republicans have manipulated the rules of the Senate in recent times to require only a simple majority to do most things, including set the Senate's agenda.  This gives the majority leader, that one single human being, broad power to decide what the Senate will do.  It's not an uncommon observation that this now makes him the most powerful man in the United States.

Sad thing is that he has only as much power as the Senators of his party give him.  Since there is no Constitutional authority to the office, all the power is simply partisan loyalty.  If Senators were to think for themselves, as the Constitution intended, then all that power would simply go away.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: apollo16uvc on January 12, 2021, 01:21:57 PM
Bush started the divide, obama made it worse and Trump made it reach criticality.

I wouldn't say Obama made it worse. It was the inability of racists to accept a black President that made things worse.

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The media is also to blame.

Fox News has been dumbing down their audience, making them more gullible, and feeding them conspiracy theories for almost 25 years. They spun bad news about Bush & Trump, or failed to cover those stories at all. They made mountains out of molehills when covering Obama, or invented controversies out of nothing ("OMG, Obama used a selfie stick!"). I'm still waiting for Obama to declare Shariah law and take your guns away.

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Sides are maximum opposing instead of balancing each other out and offering two different views.

People who live outside of the United States understand that even the most left-leaning American politicians (ie. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) would be considered centrists in a lot of other countries. The only reason people fear them is because people on the right have been fearmongering. They aren't even remotely "radical".

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I see no way out without violence.

Then your vision is impaired.

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A parlimantary system where the fate of an entire nation doesn't rest on the whims of a single person. Multiple parties that need to form a coalition and work together instead of against each other.

Multiple parties aren't all they're cracked up to be. Sure, they give voters more choices, but they often lead to unpopular parties gaining power. It could lead to a fascist party gaining power just because the 3 safer parties on the left split the vote enough to not give any of them a majority.

The solution to America's problem is not to change it's entire form of government, or to split into 2-50 separate countries. The solution is for the Republican party to be utterly wiped out and made toxic, for the people responsible for the failed coup to be severely punished, for the "checks & balances" to be fortified (no, the President is not above the law), and for a new 2nd party to take it's place. If that new party follows the constitution and obeys the laws, they might someday gain enough clout to be more than just an opposition party. But for the foreseeable future I think the Democratic Party is your only chance for a stable government.

Removing the current right-wing party is no way to go about stabilizing a country.

Not listening to each others differences and stepping on people because you disagree is THE reason to get people to hate you.

Ignoring a large part of the population because of a few extremists is only avoiding the problem. It will also give the left total and omnipresent supermajority.


Not good. The left can go crazy with enough power and time too.  Need we forget how Obama did? He only worsened racial divides an tribalism.

After that all the media and commercials started with the angle that we are the cause of all the worlds fucking problems, and we should pay reparations for shit virtually nobody alive has seen and arguably 95% of the white population today likely wasn’t even in the USA to remotely take part in.

Obama’s foreign policy was reckless and borderline suicidal. While he sequestered military funding to a fraction of what it was, allowing russia and China to expand influence. So China started Island building as he defunded your military but especially you navy, and Russia started building new warheads and of course the 100mt device they put in a torpedo.

Meanwhile he invaded Libya because they wanted to sell you their oil transacting with a gold standard, resulting in a genocide committed by Arabs of the black Libyan population. And he left Iraq creating the power vacuum that created ISIS. Starting multiple other wars.

Endlessly bombing countries, cities, even towns with HUGE collateral damages, destroying populations and creating massive endless immigration waves.

CNN cut the feed of a Libyan man on the ground stating that NATO artillery was causing mass collateral casualties. The rows of executed black dead came a week after that.

The USA and by extension, the NATO almost had a nuclear war over invading Syria.


Making the USA's relationship with North Korea almost reach a criticality event.
I know people who feared every day of Obama's term that atomic bombs were going to fall.

Controversial policies... but i rather not go there.


I fully expect a war in the next 2-4/5 years. Everyone that this administration is hiring in their cabinet for foreign policy is a neocon that served under Obama and Bush in some capacity as well.


So in short both the Dems and Reps got crazies (Bush did a lot of crazy shit too, not least of which starting a war that hundreds of millions of people still feel every day...), removing one is merely avoiding the problem and ignoring half of the populace.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 12, 2021, 01:37:49 PM
I have zero patience for racist right-wing Trump sympathizers right now, apollo16uvc, so maybe you should just keep your thoughts on this topic to yourself.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: apollo16uvc on January 12, 2021, 02:17:05 PM
I have zero patience for racist right-wing Trump sympathizers right now, apollo16uvc, so maybe you should just keep your thoughts on this topic to yourself.
Does attaching so many terms to a large group of people you politically disagree with make it easier for you?

Maybe I'm not even right, but try to see faults in both sides. As a typical American your post shows no nuance or gray areas. You are either with us or against us.
Perhaps that is why you suggest doing away with the republics, so you don't have to deal with any politicians that make you think about your values, policies and principles.


Some people SUFFERED during Obama's terms. These people saw trump as an outcome. To finally be left alone by these people. It is a pity trump is so unstable and can't deal with his defeat.


Lets not forget people also wanted a vote recount when Hillary lost. A pity so many people only seem to have a 3-4 year memory when it comes to politics.

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 12, 2021, 03:06:15 PM
I have zero patience for racist right-wing Trump sympathizers right now, apollo16uvc, so maybe you should just keep your thoughts on this topic to yourself.
Does attaching so many terms to a large group of people you politically disagree with make it easier for you?

I don't care if people have political beliefs that I disagree with. If someone thinks the minimum wage shouldn't be increased to $15/hour I will disagree with them. That's a political belief.

If someone thinks it is wrong for black people to be depicted equally to white people in the media, or that Obama made racial divisions worse simply by being elected to the Presidency, I will call them racist. Those aren't political disagreements, they are moral ones.

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Maybe I'm not even right, but try to see faults in both sides.

So do I. I just happen to believe the "both sides are equally bad" argument is completely lame at this point. One side wants to give people affordable education & healthcare, and the other side just attempted a coup.

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As a typical American your post shows no nuance or gray areas. You are either with us or against us.

I'm not American, I'm Canadian. I am 100% against the racism and fascism that the Republican Party has apparently adopted as core values, and I see no need to compromise with them on those matters.

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Perhaps that is why you suggest doing away with the republics, so you don't have to deal with any politicians that make you think about your values, policies and principles.

Saying the Republican Party should be wiped out does not mean I'm against a second party that has traditional conservative values. I know that there are two sides to every coin, so a 2nd party that is in opposition to the Democratic Party is understandable. But the Republican Party has moved so far to the right that it has become dangerous. It is corrupt to it's core. It is a cancer that needs to be removed if the United States is going to survive.

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Some people SUFFERED during Obama's terms.

But they wrongly attribute their suffering to Obama. The economic collapse started during Bush's administration. Obama turned it around and had it in good shape by the time he left. He also attempted to improve people's access to affordable healthcare, whereas the Republicans have done everything that can to try to take it away from them.

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These people saw trump as an outcome.

Which is idiotic. You can't expect someone as blatantly corrupt as Donald Trump to "drain the swamp".

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Lets not forget people also wanted a vote recount when Hillary lost.

I don't have a problem with recounts. I have a problem with saying the election was stolen even after MULTIPLE recounts showed that it wasn't. I have a problem with the losers trying to rewrite the rules in their favour. I have a problem with the President of the United States trying to pressure other government officials into "finding" votes for his opponent to toss. I have a problem with the people whose names are on the ballot trying to choose the winner. And most of all, I have a problem with people who try to stage a coup.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 12, 2021, 04:19:29 PM
Lets not forget people also wanted a vote recount when Hillary lost. A pity so many people only seem to have a 3-4 year memory when it comes to politics.

None of the people who wanted a recount were Hillary Clinton though. And Trump dismissed those recounts as a waste of time since he won. The people had spoken, apparently. Oh, apart from New Hampshire, where he did want an investigation into supposed voter fraud (which turned out to be residents who were bussed to a polling station on a bus from an out of state company, so he assumed they all came from out of state, because if you're going to illegally bus a load of voters into a state to affect the election you would naturally do it on a bus clearly labelled as such...). Even after he won he still insisted the election was rigged because he didn't win enough.

Trump has demanded recounts in 2020, then demanded more recounts after the first recounts didn't come out the way he wanted. He has done everything he can to undermine the result before, during and after the election. The accusations of voting irregularity have also really obviously only been aimed at those states he lost, even when the exact same 'irregularities' exist in states he won. His supporters who were elected on the same ticket are challenging in some cases the validity of the presidential vote in states they happily accepted their own election to the house or senate in even though these occurred on the same ticket.

And no-one in 2016 used a social media platform to encourage people to march on the Capitol and stage a coup to overturn the result of an election. So you know what, bollocks to whatever the democrats and Obama did before, THIS is exceptional and unacceptable, and should be considered so regardless of political affiliation.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on January 12, 2021, 04:42:21 PM
...

Soooo much inaccuracy in one post, but for highlights:

The President does not determine military spending, congress does. And the US military spending level didn't drop significantly in 2008-16. Still more than the next 7 countries combined.

There is plenty to criticize about Obama's foreign policy. But he was bookended by administrations with much more to criticize IMHO. In short, the US hasn't had a cogent foreign policy since at least the end of the Cold War (I would argue further back, to more like the Marshall Plan). But no one has a good solution to clean up the messes left by Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leaving weak leadership vulnerable to civil war (Iraq) or an apparently permanent low-key presence (Afghanistan) both seem to be doing poorly.

The Far Right will only be satisfied if they have sole rule. There is no "listening" to them or satiating them. They had both houses and presidency for two years and the senate for way too long, but they are still somehow the victims!? They feel marginalized because they are a minority that never learned how to compromise. That doesn't give them the right to an autocracy or minority rule.

No one has developed a megaton-class warhead in like 60 years. They are obsolete. Let alone 100 mt. And putting that on a torpedo would be completely pointless; very large warheads are (horribly) lethal at long range due to infrared radiation from the aerial fireball. Nuclear-capable torpedoes are not new or a result of Obama's foreign policy; Shkval was developed in the 1960's and the US Mk45 was in service by then as well.

...

Lets not forget people also wanted a vote recount when Hillary lost. A pity so many people only seem to have a 3-4 year memory when it comes to politics.

Might want to refresh your own memory. Hillary conceded the morning after election day, in an election far closer than 2020. She left the spotlight and Obama urged unity. There is simply no equivalency to be had between the 2017 and 2021 transitions.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on January 12, 2021, 09:41:59 PM
...
No one has developed a megaton-class warhead in like 60 years. They are obsolete. Let alone 100 mt. And putting that on a torpedo would be completely pointless; very large warheads are (horribly) lethal at long range due to infrared radiation from the aerial fireball. Nuclear-capable torpedoes are not new or a result of Obama's foreign policy; Shkval was developed in the 1960's and the US Mk45 was in service by then as well.

Yup. The US even had a short range nuke launched from a spigot gun... the "Davy Crockett"...... in 1961!!

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/DavyCrockettBomb.jpg)



Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on January 13, 2021, 03:25:50 AM
In our system of Government (which is not perfect by any means) the leader of the governing party is also the leader of the house and the country. It sounds like a powerful position, but in terms of government, it is actually far less powerful that your president. The Prime Minister is an active member of the Parliament, and is just one of the ~120 votes - there is no one person who can hold up legislation from being voted on, and there is no power of veto if the PM doesn't like what has been passed by the legislature. The Prime Minister is directly answerable to Parliament for his/her behaviour.

Of course, the most important feature of the Westminster style election is the beauty pageant declaration. The site of the Prime Minister standing on a temporary stage in the local sports hall next to a dozen other fellow candidates including some dressed as clowns while the returning officer reads the results just like happens for every other no-name MP; it sends a message that the PM is just another commoner. You're not above anyone.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 13, 2021, 08:20:27 AM
Of course, the most important feature of the Westminster style election is the beauty pageant declaration. The site of the Prime Minister standing on a temporary stage in the local sports hall next to a dozen other fellow candidates including some dressed as clowns while the returning officer reads the results just like happens for every other no-name MP; it sends a message that the PM is just another commoner. You're not above anyone.

"Ivor 'jest-ye-not-madam' Biggun (Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party), no votes..."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 13, 2021, 08:42:41 AM
In our system of Government (which is not perfect by any means) the leader of the governing party is also the leader of the house and the country. It sounds like a powerful position, but in terms of government, it is actually far less powerful that your president. The Prime Minister is an active member of the Parliament, and is just one of the ~120 votes - there is no one person who can hold up legislation from being voted on, and there is no power of veto if the PM doesn't like what has been passed by the legislature. The Prime Minister is directly answerable to Parliament for his/her behaviour.

Of course, the most important feature of the Westminster style election is the beauty pageant declaration. The site of the Prime Minister standing on a temporary stage in the local sports hall next to a dozen other fellow candidates including some dressed as clowns while the returning officer reads the results just like happens for every other no-name MP; it sends a message that the PM is just another commoner. You're not above anyone.

At least some of the candidates in the PM's area had the decency to dress like clowns unlike the tousled-haired buffoon....
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: ineluki on January 13, 2021, 08:55:01 AM
Might want to refresh your own memory. Hillary conceded the morning after election day, in an election far closer than 2020.

An election she would have clearly won (getting 3 Million more votes than Trump)  in most other countries.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 13, 2021, 01:27:06 PM
Might want to refresh your own memory. Hillary conceded the morning after election day, in an election far closer than 2020. She left the spotlight and Obama urged unity. There is simply no equivalency to be had between the 2017 and 2021 transitions.

None at all.

Hillary didn't spend months leading up to the election claiming the Republicans would steal it through massive fraud.  She didn't get on the phone with state officials telling them to "find her more votes".  She didn't demand her USAs in various districts fabricate claims of fraud against individual voters.  She didn't have a team file 60+ frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to disenfranchise millions of voters.  She didn't demand Joe Biden reject the electoral votes. 

Plenty of Democrats (myself included) suspected shenanigans in 2016, partly because Trump lost the popular vote, partly of real crimes committed by and around his campaign (using campaign funds to pay hush money to porn stars among other things), and because of awareness of disinformation being sown on FB and Twitter.  Plenty of Democrats (myself not included) adopted the #resist hashtag, screamed "not my President!" and generally behaved badly.

What Democrats did not do was lead an armed assault against Congress specifically to interrupt a peaceful transfer of power (beating a police officer to death in the process - so much for "back the blue"), especially not at the behest of the losing candidate. 

There is zero equivalence here to the behavior of Clinton and Democrats in 2016 to the behavior of Trump and Republicans in 2020.  Zippo.  Bupkis.  There is no good faith "both sides" argument to be made here.  There is no excuse for what meets the legal definition of sedition.

And we know this wasn't a false-flag Antifa operation because these geniuses live-streamed themselves attacking the Capitol.  They recorded themselves planning and coordinating the assault.  They took pictures of themselves smiling as they occupied offices, stole correspondence and equipment, and trashed the place.  They have spent the last several months on Parler coordinating and planning out in the open.  The FBI has all the evidence it could ever need and more to arrest these idiots, and every USA bringing this case before a jury doesn't have to do much except say "let's go to the video". 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 13, 2021, 03:25:06 PM
Well said.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 13, 2021, 04:01:07 PM
Voting now. Going to be tight.

If they dont impeach then it shows that the Reps have no bottom to the barrel.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 13, 2021, 05:34:11 PM
President Donald J. Trump has now been awarded half of all Presidential impeachments in the history of the United States.  The opposition to impeachment seems more tepid this time around.  Maybe some are seeing this as a possible excuse to expel Trump from the Republican Party.

Indeed the election-results bits of Monty Python are some of my favorites.

Stepping back to look at some of the deeply-felt opinions expressed here, I really think there is just a crisis of leadership everywhere in the United States now.  We seem to have so few people of outstanding character, and so few of them willing to step up and do what's right regardless of personal interests.  As I've said, politics is now just a game unto itself, serving only itself, and without much regard to governance and integrity.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: peter eldergill on January 13, 2021, 05:49:09 PM
I have been reading here for years but haven't posted in many years.

Jay, could you walk is through what is likely to happen (and not happen) now?

Cheers from up north

peter
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 13, 2021, 06:01:15 PM
*shrugs*
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: peter eldergill on January 13, 2021, 06:25:12 PM
I just mean, is he actually out of office now, or what is the next step in the process. I'm not really sure. I read CBC News and it says 10 Republicans votes for impeachment but it also says something about a trial after he's done his term in a week or so. What's the next step I guess is what I was asking and what possible outcomes may arise?

Cheers

Peter
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on January 13, 2021, 06:45:52 PM
I just mean, is he actually out of office now, or what is the next step in the process. I'm not really sure. I read CBC News and it says 10 Republicans votes for impeachment but it also says something about a trial after he's done his term in a week or so. What's the next step I guess is what I was asking and what possible outcomes may arise?

Cheers

Peter
The House impeaching him is the equivalent of a grand jury indictment, now the Senate will have a trial, followed by a vote to convict him or not, requiring a 2/3 supermajority to convict and remove him from office.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on January 13, 2021, 06:48:25 PM
If convicted, he may also be precluded from holding office in the future.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 13, 2021, 07:06:09 PM
Ah, that's what you were asking.

Yes, a trial is held in the Senate at which time the President may be represented by counsel.  The prosecutors are "managers" -- selected Members of the House, who present the articles of impeachment and argue the case against the President.  Each side may present evidence and call witnesses, who testify under oath.  The trial is presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The imminent articles of impeachment call for two remedies:  removal from office, and a bar on holding any national office of trust.  On the removal charge, the vote must be a 2/3 supermajority, as already explained.  On the bar, only a simple majority is required.  Since the Senate is not scheduled to convene next until Jan. 19, the day before Donald Trump's term expires, and an impeachment trial typically takes 1-2 weeks, it is likely that the vote on removal will be foregone as moot.  The trial would continue on the same charges, because the vote to bar him from further office would still be valid after Trump leaves office.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: peter eldergill on January 13, 2021, 08:00:18 PM
"Ah, that's what you were asking."

You mean you could read my mind from a poorly phrased, hard to understand question from me? ;D

Thanks for answering everyone. My Dad remarried an American and lives in Richmond VA. My stepmothers immediate family is very anti Trump, but her sister and brother are conservative. We don't discuss politics when we visit.

We also visit them yearly and go to North Carolina to the beach. But due to the virus, we weren't able to go last year. Hopefully this year! I'd love to visit Utah (and Arizona, and Oregon, Washington, etc)

 Anyway, we all hope things go ok in your country in the near future. After the last nastiness, I sent a monologue to my stepmother from James Cordon. It's very heartfelt. Have a look if you like, it's only a few minutes long



Cheers, Peter
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 13, 2021, 10:30:31 PM
President Trump is refusing to pay Rudy Giuliani's legal fees.  I mean, I wouldn't either, given the quality of service provided.  However, Trump is reverting to type:  the constant in his behavior is that he will always screw over anyone who's stupid, depraved, or desperate enough to work for him.

Where's that "eating the popcorn" emoji that's so appropriate right now?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 14, 2021, 01:39:23 AM
Not a single emoji, alas, but these two combine fairly well to that effect. 🍿🥱
We shall have to see where things go from here. While, as has been said repeatedly, this did not begin and it will not end with Trump, the cult around him is such that, I hope, barring him from office will disrupt things some. Or it might drive them to do something even worse. I legitimately worry at least someone is going to try something at the inauguration.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 14, 2021, 04:01:23 AM
Indeed the election-results bits of Monty Python are some of my favorites.

It was Blackadder but still classic British comedy so I'll let you have that one... ;)

Quote
As I've said, politics is now just a game unto itself, serving only itself, and without much regard to governance and integrity.

It's the same here in Britain too. I may have said this here before but someone a few years ago made an observation that seems to fit, which is that it is a fairly recent phenomenon in Britain that you can study politics and become a politician as a career move without ever doing anything else. Not all that long ago politicians had experience of life in other areas, and several had other jobs, which is why Parliament sits in the afternoon: they'd have been working elsewhere in the morning (this was before working time regulations limited how many hours you could work and how many jobs you could hold down at once). Now we have people appointed to be minister of something they have absolutely no experience or knowledge of the workings of. I don't recall the last time we had a Minister for Education who had ever worked in education at any level, for example.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 14, 2021, 04:20:49 AM
Indeed the election-results bits of Monty Python are some of my favorites.

It was Blackadder but still classic British comedy so I'll let you have that one... ;)

Quote
As I've said, politics is now just a game unto itself, serving only itself, and without much regard to governance and integrity.

It's the same here in Britain too. I may have said this here before but someone a few years ago made an observation that seems to fit, which is that it is a fairly recent phenomenon in Britain that you can study politics and become a politician as a career move without ever doing anything else. Not all that long ago politicians had experience of life in other areas, and several had other jobs, which is why Parliament sits in the afternoon: they'd have been working elsewhere in the morning (this was before working time regulations limited how many hours you could work and how many jobs you could hold down at once). Now we have people appointed to be minister of something they have absolutely no experience or knowledge of the workings of. I don't recall the last time we had a Minister for Education who had ever worked in education at any level, for example.

The good old philosophy, politics and economics degree and then straight into Westminster!  I'm a believer in politicians having some sort of experience in the field that they are supposed to be governing, but I'm also wary of "politicians must have business experience". That got us Trump and Macron...

I do shake my head when I see the line-up of talent infesting Westminster at the moment though. Chris "Failing" Grayling, Gove, Cleverley (if ever there was a surname in total contradiction to actual abilities then it is that one), Andrew Brigden, Priti Patel (I can't thing of a worse trifecta of "talents" to have in such a powerful job- a bully, meagre ability and an overwhelming belief in her abilities).

Part of the problem is that for 5 years the UK had a totally ineffective opposition under Corbyn. I think that that is a worse dilemma than politicians holding life experience TBH. It allowed a cabinet of useless populists to get their hands on power and railroad through some of the most damaging legislation in generations.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 14, 2021, 07:53:28 AM
[snip]

Part of the problem is that for 5 years the UK had a totally ineffective opposition under Corbyn. I think that that is a worse dilemma than politicians holding life experience TBH. It allowed a cabinet of useless populists to get their hands on power and railroad through some of the most damaging legislation in generations.

This comment made me want to post a little point of difference between the American system and the Westminster system.

In the USA the President nominates his cabinet for ratification by the Senate, with the nominees specifically not allowed to be members of Congress. Given (a) the number of deputy officials and (b) the generally eight-yearly swap between parties, it's led to the development of two streams of such officials who alternate in holding these cabinet positions. Many of Reagan's secretaries had been junior figures in the Nixon administration, and many of Bush II's secretaries had been junior figures in the Reagan-Bush I administrations; and the same for the Democrats. But, crucially, in the period when the other party is in power there aren't official roles for unemployed cabinet secretaries, and the current secretaries themselves aren't shadowed by anyone to keep them on their toes.

The Westminster system operates quite differently. In particular, ministers must be members of Parliament. This somewhat restricts the talent pool the Prime Minister can choose ministers from (as pointed out above), but at least the PM doesn't need Upper House approval for ministerial appointments. On top of that, politicians can be shifted from one ministerial post to another, and they can be given ministries (or lose them) as the PM sees fit. However there's another point: the Leader of the Opposition runs a shadow cabinet, whose members are allocated positions which shadow the actual ministers. This has two purposes. Firstly, there's an Opposition politician with a fair degree of knowledge of each portfolio, watching the minister and commenting on their decisions and performance, which means the ministers have to be constantly on top of their portfolios. And secondly, when the Opposition party wins government, the new Prime Minister has a group of politicians with a decent amount of knowledge of various portfolios, theoretically ready to hit the ground running as ministers.

So comparing the two systems, the American system seems to lack a position for an Opposition Leader who can co-ordinate a team of shadow secretaries who are able to (a) comment on the decisions and performance of the President's cabinet and (b) present an alternative policy platform. In the Trump administration a lot of that work fell to Pelosi and Schumer alone, at least until the Democrats settled on Biden as their Presidential nomination. But even so it appears to require these few people to be across a wide range of policy issues - defence, economy, immigration, foreign relations, trade, health, education...

The Westminster system allows the Opposition Leader to be supported by a phalanx of shadow ministers who can provide a reasonably eloquent critique of what they think various ministers are doing wrong, and what the Opposition party offers as an alternative if they win the next election. A minister who messes up is going to be mercilessly criticised by the relevant shadow minister; in serious cases this can lead to the PM having to dismiss the minister, which in turn can cause something of a cabinet reshuffle as the PM needs to switch a competent replacement from another portfolio, with obvious knock-on effects.

The other outcome of this system is that it means a significant proportion of politicians of both parties are fronting the media on a regular basis...as opposed to beavering away anonymously to earn the frustrated ire of voters.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Ranb on January 14, 2021, 10:57:26 AM
If convicted, he may also be precluded from holding office in the future.
As far as I know this is not true.  The Constitution allows a person to be elected twice.  https://www.abc4.com/news/politics/would-president-trump-actually-lose-anything-from-impeachment/

Quote
“The Former Presidents Act provides ex-presidents with a number of benefits, including a $200k annual pension, a travel allowance, lifetime Secret Service detail, and more,” he says. “However, the president would lose some of these things if the Senate voted to remove him from office before Jan. 20. He would lose the pension and other monetary benefits, but not the Secret Service protection.”
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 14, 2021, 11:14:03 AM
If convicted, he may also be precluded from holding office in the future.
As far as I know this is not true.  The Constitution allows a person to be elected twice.  https://www.abc4.com/news/politics/would-president-trump-actually-lose-anything-from-impeachment/

From Article II, Section 3:
Quote
Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.

A President may be impeached but not removed from office (which has been the case in all impeachments so far - Nixon resigned before the Senate could have removed him).  A President may be impeached and removed from office, but still be eligible to run for President or other office again.  A President may be impeached, removed from office, and disqualified from holding office in the future. 

So far nobody has been impeached, removed, and barred from holding office.  It's unlikely this time around - you need 2/3rds of the Senate (66 votes) to convict, and then there's a separate vote on disqualifying future office, although AFAIK that only requires a simple majority. 

Prior to the ratification of the 22nd Amendment, you could serve as President for as many terms as you wanted.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 14, 2021, 11:39:18 AM
although AFAIK that only requires a simple majority.

Correct.  In the 1936 trial of the impeached Judge Robert Archibald, the Senate determined that, pursuant to an earlier trial of a different judge, the order to remove from office was mandatory upon conviction, but that the order to disqualify from future office was a severable discretionary question and subject only to a simple majority vote, which in Judge Archibald's case, carried and resulted in both his dismissal from office and his disqualification under Art. II § 3.  (Cannon. Precedents of the House of Representatives § 512)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 14, 2021, 12:40:15 PM
Indeed the election-results bits of Monty Python are some of my favorites.

It was Blackadder but still classic British comedy so I'll let you have that one... ;)

I caught it!

Look, I disliked Bush the Younger (and Bush the Elder, and Reagan . . . ) quite a lot.  And, frankly, part of that was because a lot of their policies stemmed from bigotry.  Reagan in particular has the blood of millions on his hands because of a failed AIDS policy that basically seemed to boil down to "we don't care if gay people die."  But I'm also not best thrilled with Obama's drone policy and am perfectly willing to say so.  I can criticize every Democratic leader of my lifetime.  The difference between me and every Trump supporter I've encountered so far is that not a one of them seem to be able to point to anything they don't like about him that they don't follow with "but both sides."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 14, 2021, 12:55:46 PM
It was Blackadder but still classic British comedy so I'll let you have that one... ;)

Which also has some enjoyable election bits.  PItt the Embryo?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 14, 2021, 03:07:25 PM
...which means the ministers have to be constantly on top of their portfolios.

You missed a word there, Pete: THEORETICALLY they have to be on top of their portfolios. As we both know, that is often not the case.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 14, 2021, 03:12:20 PM
It was Blackadder but still classic British comedy so I'll let you have that one... ;)

Which also has some enjoyable election bits.  PItt the Embryo?

"I shall be brief, as I have, rather unfortunately, become Prime Minster right in the middle of my exams."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 14, 2021, 03:24:16 PM
Indeed the election-results bits of Monty Python are some of my favorites.

It was Blackadder but still classic British comedy so I'll let you have that one... ;)

I caught it!

Yay! I never quite know how some references are going to work on an internet forum. I know Monty Python had a worldwide following but I'm not sure how far Blackadder went. Still one of my all time favourite comedies.

"And I'll just take a look at the latest exit poll, which revealed a 100% result for... 'mind your own business you nosy bastard'."

Quote
I can criticize every Democratic leader of my lifetime.  The difference between me and every Trump supporter I've encountered so far is that not a one of them seem to be able to point to anything they don't like about him that they don't follow with "but both sides."

The 'both sides' business that has become so common lately is the most infuriating argument ever. People deploy it in the belief that it does one of two things, or preferably both: weakens the other person's position by pointing out that the other person isn't perfect, or strengthens theirs by an 'if it's okay for them it's okay for us' attitude. It fails for may reasons, not least because a) it is based on the absurd oversimplified notion that in criticising one candidate you are implying the other is somehow perfect, and b) when was the last time your parents let you get away with something on the basis that your friends did it too?! It's absurdly childish.

And no, none of what has played out recently has any kind of 'both sides' argument to it. Trump supporters turned up to the Capitol in combat gear and with weapons and stormed the building because they can't believe that their little orange demi-god might have actually lost the election. The 'other side' has never even attempted that.

I think Boris Johnson is a clown, a liar and to some degree a narcissist, utterly unsuited to his office and making so many u-turns it's amazing he can even stand at the dispatch box without getting dizzy, but I also think the opposition needs to pull their socks up and effectively oppose. Frankly Kier Starmer is a lot more impressive going up against Johnson in the commons than Corbyn ever was, so I have hopes that we may see some improvement in the coming years. My worry is what damage can be done in the meantime.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 14, 2021, 03:45:53 PM
although AFAIK that only requires a simple majority.

Correct.  In the 1936 trial of the impeached Judge Robert Archibald, the Senate determined that, pursuant to an earlier trial of a different judge, the order to remove from office was mandatory upon conviction, but that the order to disqualify from future office was a severable discretionary question and subject only to a simple majority vote, which in Judge Archibald's case, carried and resulted in both his dismissal from office and his disqualification under Art. II § 3.  (Cannon. Precedents of the House of Representatives § 512)

If we just want to stop him holding any public office every again, what about the 14th Amendment, Section 3? That only requires a majority as well.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 14, 2021, 06:24:38 PM
The only invocation of the 14th Amendment, section 3, that I'm aware of is the famous denial to seat Victor Berger, who was then under criminal indictment for activities related to protesting World War 1, in the House of Representatives.  Then, it was the House who invoked it solely within the confines of their own jurisdiction.  Any House of Congress can set the rules, within the Constitution, for the seating of its Members.  The House committee that sat to consider Berger's situation concluded that he should not be seated.  But this precedent has no force outside the House, nor even much inside the House.

The Due Process clause of that same Amendment would generally require some kind of process in connection with the denial of the right of a person duly elected to an office to take that office.  Congress cannot simply declare Donald J. Trump guilty of some particular crime of insurrection or what have you.  That's a bill of attainder, expressly forbidden in the Constitution.  Applying this Amendment pre-emptively is uncharted territory.  It's not clear how this passage of the Constitution would be invoked, or who would invoke it, in the situation we have here.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 14, 2021, 06:42:40 PM
Thank you!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 15, 2021, 10:59:33 AM
I had a friend ask on Facebook what the point of this is, this close to the inauguration.  Surely Congress has better things to do with its time.  I mentioned both precedent and prevention from holding further office as being worth it.  I also invited a friend who lives in our old apartment complex to stay with us if she and her family--especially her son--feel unsafe that close to the center of things here.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 15, 2021, 02:01:35 PM
There is an armed protest scheduled at our state capitol building on Sunday.  I have friends who live on our local capitol hill, and I'm also trying to find vacant apartments, etc., they can stay in COVIDly-safely for the weekend.  This is the literal definition of terrorism.

Back to the Fourteenth Amendment...

As with the other Reconstruction Amendment, the originalist interpretation takes its cues from the aftermath of the Civil War.  The point of Section 3 is to prevent former Confederates from holding office in the (re-)United States government and attempting to rebuild the Confederacy from within.  So the sedition spoken of in the Amendment could be considered limited in its intent.

Despite its being the supreme law of the land, there's little a private citizen can do to violate it.  It's mostly a limit on what laws the government can pass and enforce.  So with some possibly rare exceptions that I might think of later, only the government can violate the Constitution.  Any action authorized by the 14th Amendment that would prevent Donald Trump from holding any future office would need to take the form of some branch of the government withholding its cooperation or assent in some part of the electoral process.

For example, a State could refuse to accept Trump for its ballot, citing the 14th Amendment.   Or they could refuse to certify his slate of electors.  Or the Congress could vote to disqualify his electoral votes.

The problem in all of that is the legally cognizable definition of what it means to "engage[] in insurrection or rebellion against the same [Constitution], or give[] aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."  The Constitution doesn't define any of those terms.  Under lesser U.S. law, those terms are defined, and in many cases the activities they represent are outlawed.  But if we're going to use those definitions, then the President would need to have been convicted of one of those offenses.  Or if not, by what other standard would he have been judged to have committed any of the acts that disqualify him?  Due process means it can't just be the judgment of some random government functionary that Trump committed disqualifying acts.

One of the oldest and most important cases in American jurisprudence, Marbury v. Madison, held that a person elected to an office has a right to take that office.  Unfortunately things didn't work out completely for Judge Marbury, but that part of the holding in his case is still valid.  (The rest of the complaint was dismissed on standing.)  But it means that whoever in the government, in his official capacity, acts to prevent an elected Donald Trump from taking his office has the burden of proof.  If Congress disqualified Trump's eventual electoral votes on 14th Amendment grounds, he could sue the Houses of Congress (I believe in the DC circuit) and he would have the presumption of the right to office.

Similarly, while States may place reasonable administrative restrictions or limits on the declaration of candidacy for any office whose election they control, they may not otherwise disqualify candidates who meet eligibility requirements.  The adjudication of whether Trump is eligible to declare his candidacy in a State, under the 14th Amendment, would therefore come in the form of a relevant State authority refusing the otherwise properly-filed candidacy papers, and then a suit in State court to determine whether the 14th Amendment bars his candidacy.  And since such a suit would raise a "federal question," it would be reviewable in the U.S. Supreme Court, where Donald Trump might still have favor.  If Trump had not been previously convicted of anything, he would enjoy the presumption of eligibility.

Section 5 is the kicker.  It, like many parts of the Constitution, authorizes Congress to enforce by legislation the provisions of the Amendment.  A court could easily find that the Congress has done so, in the form of laws defining crimes for sedition, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and so forth.  That standard having been set, a conviction on one of those charges may be required in order for it to properly authorize any government officer to invoke the 14th Amendment.

But maybe Congress never intended those to be the implementation of the Amendment.  And we have to consider that Victor Berger was refused his seat in the House (and did not choose to invoke Marbury), merely because he was under indictment for crimes that stemmed from disqualifying acts.  (He was later convicted, but the House acted before conviction.)

As I said, turbulent, uncharted waters.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 16, 2021, 02:20:02 AM
It's been said before, and I'll say it again: you are a smart man, Jay.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 16, 2021, 11:34:59 AM
I have had one teacher in my life who I believe would be capable of conveying this particular information as clearly and succinctly as you, Jay.  She's a wonderful woman--and still my Facebook friend, in fact--and that is good company to be in.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 16, 2021, 12:35:25 PM
Thanks, folks!  I know I tend to go off on tangents or use too many words.  It's pleasing to learn that at least some of them land.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 16, 2021, 05:31:54 PM
...which means the ministers have to be constantly on top of their portfolios.

You missed a word there, Pete: THEORETICALLY they have to be on top of their portfolios. As we both know, that is often not the case.

Yeah, good point.

A hapless Opposition Leader pretty much lets the PM get away with doing their job unchallenged, meaning policies don't get the scrutiny they may require.

By contrast, an effective Opposition Leader can open up fault lines within the governing party which in turn can lead to Prime Ministerial paralysis (especially if the PM is unpopular in their own party).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 17, 2021, 06:03:22 PM
There is an armed protest scheduled at our state capitol building on Sunday.

A whopping 15 people showed up.  There were about 200 National Guardsmen there, backing up the normal garrison of a couple dozen state police officers.  The worst that happened was that people in passing cars yelled things out the window.  No attempt made to enter the capitol.

Maybe the message is sinking in:  you're not "patriots" saving the country from itself.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 17, 2021, 08:04:14 PM
There is an armed protest scheduled at our state capitol building on Sunday.

A whopping 15 people showed up.  There were about 200 National Guardsmen there, backing up the normal garrison of a couple dozen state police officers.  The worst that happened was that people in passing cars yelled things out the window.  No attempt made to enter the capitol.

Maybe the message is sinking in:  you're not "patriots" saving the country from itself.

Austin had 4. 

No sleep until after the inauguration, though.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 17, 2021, 10:18:10 PM
Do you think that Rudi might be actually losing mental competence? I don't mean as some insult but actually losing it?

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/rudy-giulianis-impeachment-trial-claim-denied-by-trump-campaign/news-story/22341ca01de2233c7a14fe080ffea933
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on January 18, 2021, 12:47:23 AM
President Trump is refusing to pay Rudy Giuliani's legal fees.

Didn't I predict that a few weeks ago? Or was it somewhere else?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 18, 2021, 11:07:12 AM
We apparently had about a hundred people at ours, mostly protesting mask restrictions.

As to not paying his bills, well, it's hardly news.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 18, 2021, 03:54:32 PM
We apparently had about a hundred people at ours, mostly protesting mask restrictions.

As to not paying his bills, well, it's hardly news.

And that's been the story of his Presidency, hasn't it? The way he's behaved, his operational method, was there for all to see for years before he was President.

That, for example, was how he was able to control the Republican Party. He offered everything that the Party leadership wanted, for example, nominating the judges they wanted. And in return he demanded absolute loyalty with the threat (that he always followed through on) of ridicule and withdrawal of his - and the voters' - support. He knew their weak point (that they need to get through primaries and then be elected) and he had control of the power over that weak point (a large portion of Republican voters supported him rather than the party).

I'm fairly sure that operational method - (a) find your mark's weak point and take control of it, (b) offer the mark everything they want, and (c) demand the mark's absolute loyalty and always apply pressure to that weak point whenever the loyalty is less than absolute - is how he ran his businesses over the years.

It's a method that worked well with the Republican Party, perhaps not so well with people like Putin, Xi and Kim...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: BazBear on January 19, 2021, 05:06:08 AM
Here in Vermont, Montpelier has been quiet, no pro-Trump demonstrations. On Sunday there were about 50 counter-protestors who had a peaceful rally at City Hall, holding signs and serving pancakes and coffee.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: apollo16uvc on January 19, 2021, 06:23:10 AM
Something might be happening... 

Confirmed now that the Marines are deployed to DC and have full combat gear. 

The National Guardsmen in the city were disarmed due to Democrat paranoia, and they tried to vet all 25,000 of them to weed out anybody that voted Republican at all in the last election.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: apollo16uvc on January 19, 2021, 06:50:02 AM
All signs point to a major military buildup for something big tomorrow, but I don't know what.

Also keep in mind that the USMC's Commandant, who is usually pretty active on social media, has gone completely dark in the last couple of weeks.  I also have inside sources that tell me that there are indeed Marines in DC right now, just not what they're doing. Understandable, since they have to maintain OPSEC.

Trump still technically controls the armed forces until 12 PM EST on the 20th. So if they're going to make a move, they have about a day to do it.

It's also possible that they're acting on their own initiative.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 19, 2021, 08:11:38 AM
Confirmed now that the Marines are deployed to DC and have full combat gear. 

The National Guardsmen in the city were disarmed due to Democrat paranoia

Source?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 19, 2021, 11:33:05 AM
The Democratic party was trying to weed out white supremacists, yes.  If you correlate that with "people who voted for Trump," well.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 19, 2021, 11:41:04 AM
Yes, I too would like to learn more.

A couple things to keep in mind:  National Guard are not routinely armed when in and among the populace.  And when armed, they are armed only to protect themselves.  That is, they cannot act as law enforcement or general troops.  Their rules of engagement are purely defensive.  So the National Guard being "disarmed" would be the rule, not the exception.  It would depend here upon the exact circumstances, orders, and rules of engagement.

As far as the National Guard presence in DC, it's easy to conflate the two purposes immediately at hand.  On the one hand there is an extraordinary presence of Guards in the Capitol, at other places, and immediately outside the District.  This is in natural response to the Capitol attack.  But for the typical inauguration, each state sends a a company or so of its National Guard to attend the inauguration and provide ordinary levels of security such as for crowd control, traffic direction, etc.  This is mostly ceremonial and it's very uncommon for those honor guards to be readily armed.  But of course this inauguration is special, so there may be special guidelines or orders.  Yes, there was special screening.  My inside source is my brother-in-law, who is a lieutenant in the Utah National Guard.  No, they're not asking who you voted for.  They're repeating the part of the ordinary initial screening for Guard troops to weed out extremists.  (If you excluded all Republican-voting members of our National Guard, you'd have maybe one platoon left.)

Now as for Marines in DC, there are always Marines in DC.  There has been a company of Marines stationed there since the Jefferson Administration.  And part of their mission has always been to guard parts of the capitol city as needed.  The White House, for example, is always guarded by Marines, usually in highly ceremonial costume, but not just as a show.  So if they are deployed now, it would be entirely normal.  If there are additional Marines in DC beyond the normal complement, that's something else.  And if they are armed, that too would be something else.  Again, there is a deep tradition in the U.S. against deploying active-duty military as a domestic police force.  "Full combat gear" may include weapons but, for example, not ammunition.  And combat readiness may be indicated simply because it includes helmets and body armor -- clearly indicated following the Jan. 6 incident.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 19, 2021, 12:38:54 PM
Accepting it may sound naive but from my position as an outsider with very limited knowledge of US processes, it doesn’t seem at all surprising that there should be a military presence from across the US at the inauguration of a new Commander-in-Chief of the US military, regardless of any other circumstances that may surround this particular inauguration.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 19, 2021, 01:57:05 PM
Accepting it may sound naive but from my position as an outsider with very limited knowledge of US processes, it doesn’t seem at all surprising that there should be a military presence from across the US at the inauguration of a new Commander-in-Chief of the US military, regardless of any other circumstances that may surround this particular inauguration.

I think what apollo16uvc is implying is that the Marines are there for some kind of nefarious reason. I want his source for that, otherwise it just sounds like the same kind of conspiracy theory nonsense that is destroying the United States.

People ask me "what is the harm of just letting people believe in their conspiracy theories?". This. This is the harm of letting people believe conspiracy theories. It starts with flat Earthers and moon hoax believers, and then it evolves into large numbers of people believing that wearing a mask to prevent the spread of a virus is oppression, and that the results of an election are fraudulent. And before you know it, half the country thinks Hillary Clinton runs a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 19, 2021, 02:17:32 PM
Accepting it may sound naive but from my position as an outsider with very limited knowledge of US processes, it doesn’t seem at all surprising that there should be a military presence from across the US at the inauguration of a new Commander-in-Chief of the US military, regardless of any other circumstances that may surround this particular inauguration.

I think what apollo16uvc is implying is that the Marines are there for some kind of nefarious reason. I want his source for that, otherwise it just sounds like the same kind of conspiracy theory nonsense that is destroying the United States.

People ask me "what is the harm of just letting people believe in their conspiracy theories?". This. This is the harm of letting people believe conspiracy theories. It starts with flat Earthers and moon hoax believers, and then it evolves into large numbers of people believing that wearing a mask to prevent the spread of a virus is oppression, and that the results of an election are fraudulent. And before you know it, half the country thinks Hillary Clinton runs a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant.

And from there it's only a couple of short steps to an armed insurrection, aimed specifically at preventing a transfer of power from one Presidential administration to the next.  That's not a slippery slope argument, given that it literally just happened

Half of the country is living in a horrific fantasy world crafted from the bat-shittiest ingredients that's constantly reinforced by a right-wing media complex, and they've decided they shouldn't have to abide by the results of an election anymore. 

Our country is broken.  I don't know how to fix it (without running afoul of the first amendment, anyway).  I don't think it can be fixed. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 19, 2021, 02:42:02 PM
Accepting it may sound naive but from my position as an outsider with very limited knowledge of US processes, it doesn’t seem at all surprising that there should be a military presence from across the US at the inauguration of a new Commander-in-Chief of the US military, regardless of any other circumstances that may surround this particular inauguration.

The military presence customarily recognized for a new Commander-in-Chief is that of the top officers.  It is not common to present a show of force.  The ceremonial delegations from the States' National Guards have had a practical role in the past, the aforementioned crowd and traffic control.  It's not as if they join ranks and march in a big military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.  Inaugural parades and displays have historically been almost completely civilian affairs.  This is why Trump's desire for a military-style send-off has pursed so many lips.

And the President is not normally the Commander-in-Chief of the States' National Guards.  They are ordinarily under the sole command of the governors of each state.  So there is no regular duty for any National Guard to show homage to the President of the United States.  For the President to gain control over state troops, a series of steps has to ensue to "federalize" them, such as the declaration of a national state of emergency.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 19, 2021, 02:50:05 PM
I think what apollo16uvc is implying is that the Marines are there for some kind of nefarious reason. I want his source for that, otherwise it just sounds like the same kind of conspiracy theory nonsense that is destroying the United States.

Right:  without more information, there can be explanations for the alluded-to observations that have their roots in ordinary, or at least acceptable. practice.  It would take more information to separate the correct reading of genuinely disturbing occurrences from an uninformed reading of relatively unremarkable ones.

Quote
People ask me "what is the harm of just letting people believe in their conspiracy theories?". This. This is the harm of letting people believe conspiracy theories.

Indeed, the problem seems to have been that people didn't realize just how slippery the slope is.  Once you agree that facts don't matter on minor issues, you can easily extend that to disregarding facts when they literally spell out life and death.  How to fix America?  There have to be consequences for ignoring facts.  Until that happens, nothing else will have an effect.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 19, 2021, 03:00:40 PM
I think a large percentage of the adult population is a lost cause. You'll never undo the damage done to their ability to separate fact from fiction. But maybe with improvements to the education system and stricter laws against knowingly spreading misinformation there is hope for future generations.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on January 19, 2021, 03:09:52 PM
As a outsider it almost seems you are expecting something to happen tomorrow, do you all think that is the case?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 19, 2021, 03:29:35 PM
As a outsider it almost seems you are expecting something to happen tomorrow, do you all think that is the case?

I think it's very possible something bad will happen tomorrow, either in Washington DC, or somewhere else in the US. Maybe the level of security in Washington will be enough to discourage people from attempting something, but I'm not sure about the rest of the country.

But I'm also worried about what could happen over the next 4-8 years. I remember someone saying something along the lines of "terrorists only need to be lucky once, but their targets have to be lucky all the time" and I'm afraid that's true in this case.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 19, 2021, 03:57:30 PM
As a outsider it almost seems you are expecting something to happen tomorrow, do you all think that is the case?

One lesson to learn from the Capitol attack is that we seem to have lost the ability to predict accurately whether something will happen.  Do we expect something?  Not necessarily.  But with a city full of important Americans, foreign dignitaries, and ostensibly crazy (and armed) conspiracy theorists and Trump loyalists, if something happens we certainly want to be able to say we deployed more than three guys in windbreakers and some crowd-control barriers.

What's most deplorable about this is that it's the first time in my recollection of American history where we have not had a peaceful transfer of power.  Part of fixing America is restoring the rest of the world's faith in American democracy.  That, I fear, will take decades.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 19, 2021, 04:05:08 PM
I think a large percentage of the adult population is a lost cause. You'll never undo the damage done to their ability to separate fact from fiction. But maybe with improvements to the education system and stricter laws against knowingly spreading misinformation there is hope for future generations.

There's a problem with that - who's going to pass those laws?  Who's going to improve the education system?   I mean, we're where we are because of the people we've elected over the last 40 years, and one election isn't going to wipe all of that away.  Most of this work has to happen at the state level (especially with education), where the nutbars are the strongest. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 19, 2021, 04:24:15 PM
But maybe with improvements to the education system...

Kicking Betsy DeVoss to the curb is a good start.  But the problem is that while education is compulsory in the United States up to roughly age 18, the kind of education is not mandated.  My state, with its religious majority, allows many opportunities such as private academies and home-schooling that qualify as education but can be as ideologically biased as desired.  And this is the trend.  Even within the state-mandated curricula for public schools there are issues.  Sex education is taught in Utah from and abstinence-only perspective; no discussion of contraception.  Hence we have an embarrassing teen pregnancy rate.  Until it was struck down in the courts, teachers were also not allowed to discuss homosexuality in a favorable light.  Probably the worst example was in the county to the north of me, where high school students were required to obtain parental permission before watching a recorded speech by then-President Obama.

The educational system is just as highly politicized in America as everything else here.  The Republicans have figured out that well-educated people don't vote for them.  So they have had little desire to improve basic education.

Quote
...and stricter laws against knowingly spreading misinformation there is hope for future generations.

Those laws would immediately face harsh First Amendment scrutiny.  And they should, but our pendulum seems to be far to the side of leniency.  "Political" speech is the most protected speech under the First Amendment.  And it can be based on outright lies and still qualify as essentially protected.  And as I illustrated here or elsewhere, all you have to do is change the wording slightly and your "news outlet" can do nothing more than report rumors -- accurately characterized as rumors -- with all the trappings of conscientious journalism and you're completely off the hook.

I think it's absolutely odious what some people are doing while masquerading as "commentators" or "journalists" or "researchers."  They're telling outright lies, or at least poorly researched and documented tales.  They're deliberately stirring up people by telling them what they know will accomplish that, just for their own attention, amusement, and profit.  And we're supposed to accept the explanation that reasonable people just don't believe it, so they're off the hook.  Helping people to recognize fact won't happen until there's a desire to do so.  That desire will probably only happen when there are negative consequences for failing to do it.  Making that happen while staying inside the boundaries of what we want to be a free society isn't easy.

In the Trump incitement case, he may be in trouble.  As a number of arrestees are questioned and reveal that they thought they were doing what their President told them to do, and understood that he would have their back, it becomes more likely that the President -- at least negligently if not intentionally -- created a reliance that other people then acted upon.  This might make him civilly liable.  All those people who were arrested, injured, or killed might have a cause of action under tort law.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 19, 2021, 04:26:11 PM
As a outsider it almost seems you are expecting something to happen tomorrow, do you all think that is the case?

Yes.  Absolutely.  I cannot assume otherwise, not after what happened on the 6th.  We've never had American citizens attack Congress before, but we have had multiple assassination attempts on Presidents before, too many of which were successful.  I do not want Joe Biden or Kamala Harris outdoors under any circumstances - not for the inauguration, not for press conferences, not for ceremonies of any sort.  Screw the optics, screw the "can't show fear", there are thousands of people out there right this very minute who are itching to be the heroes of their own personal action movies.  I want large solid objects between the President/Vice President and any crowd they address at all times. 

There are way too many of those people out there, they are organized, and they have been emboldened by Trump, Hawley, Cruz, and the entire right-wing infotainment complex.  They are no longer afraid to show their faces.  They are no longer afraid to say the quiet parts out loud. 

The attack on the Capitol was the equivalent of the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861.  Like it or not, a second American civil war has been initiated.  It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 19, 2021, 04:49:18 PM
There are way too many of those people out there, they are organized, and they have been emboldened by Trump, Hawley, Cruz, and the entire right-wing infotainment complex.  They are no longer afraid to show their faces.  They are no longer afraid to say the quiet parts out loud.

The exposure and emboldenment is really all that's new.  There have always been way too many of "that sort" of people out there, which is either a cause or a symptom or both for never having really healed after the Civil War.  And they've always been organized, since the Civil War and onward.  They just went underground starting in the late 1800s and have stayed there under various names.  The Trump administration and all the enablers you name, and more, let them back up to the surface and whipped them up by calling them "patriots" and "fine people."

These idiots (I mean people like Sen. Cruz, Pres. Trump, and others) have no idea how [expletive] dangerous those people are, and always have been.  Prior to the Trump Administration, the only thing protecting us from them was the general belief in the United States that extremism and racial supremacy were Bad Things.  Sure, you could be your racist angry self among the Good Ol' Boys in your town.  But you just "knew" you couldn't do that if you were going to head over to Disney World or elsewhere out in public.  Now -- thanks to these feckless idiots -- you can drive your Confederate-flagged truck down the freeway, waving guns out the window, and terrorizing your political opponents with impunity.  That's what these people have always longed to do.  This isn't new.  It's just been Generally Frowned Upon until now.

Oh, sure, they wrap themselves in the flag.  But then without hesitation they beat innocent people to death with them.  They ally with law enforcement, but then quickly show how little "blue lives" matter to them.  It's never about the prosaically noble causes they espouse.  They're angry, racist thugs.  That's all they've ever been, and that's all they will ever be, no matter what empty, patriotic-sounding platitudes they sloganize.  But because certain politicians are just profoundly ignorant of anything except the privileged environments they've grown up in, they think it's all just a game.  They think they can dog-whistle these groups by stumping their cover stories and praising their efforts, and that no harm will come from it.

American politics has devolved to the point where the people who practice it literally think there are no actual consequences.  The economy will somehow always be strong.  Poor people will somehow always be docile and subservient.  People with the wrong color skin will somehow always stay where they're put.  America will somehow always be great.  Violent racists will somehow always stay safely just under the surface.  They'll always be re-elected so long as they promise to "own the libs."  And, laughing all the way to their capitols, they'll always be free to exploit whatever presents itself, with no accountability.  I believe it starts with holding politicians accountable.  Who's going to do that?  Other politicians?  Voters who look at these decisions as no more consequential that a sports tournament?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Trebor on January 19, 2021, 04:50:05 PM
As a outsider it almost seems you are expecting something to happen tomorrow, do you all think that is the case?

One lesson to learn from the Capitol attack is that we seem to have lost the ability to predict accurately whether something will happen.  Do we expect something?  Not necessarily.  But with a city full of important Americans, foreign dignitaries, and ostensibly crazy (and armed) conspiracy theorists and Trump loyalists, if something happens we certainly want to be able to say we deployed more than three guys in windbreakers and some crowd-control barriers.

What's most deplorable about this is that it's the first time in my recollection of American history where we have not had a peaceful transfer of power.  Part of fixing America is restoring the rest of the world's faith in American democracy.  That, I fear, will take decades.

What is worrying is that people did predict it, the people who invaded also planned it publicly on places like Parler.
It should not have been a surprise to anyone.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 19, 2021, 05:54:49 PM
I think a large percentage of the adult population is a lost cause. You'll never undo the damage done to their ability to separate fact from fiction. But maybe with improvements to the education system and stricter laws against knowingly spreading misinformation there is hope for future generations.

There's a problem with that - who's going to pass those laws?  Who's going to improve the education system?   I mean, we're where we are because of the people we've elected over the last 40 years, and one election isn't going to wipe all of that away.  Most of this work has to happen at the state level (especially with education), where the nutbars are the strongest. 

The educational system is just as highly politicized in America as everything else here.  The Republicans have figured out that well-educated people don't vote for them.  So they have had little desire to improve basic education.

Those laws would immediately face harsh First Amendment scrutiny.

Yeah, even as I wrote that I thought it would never fly in the United States. I just believe that "freedom of speech" shouldn't include government officials lying about election fraud. I get that not everyone knows they are spreading misinformation, but it starts somewhere.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 19, 2021, 06:00:59 PM
These idiots (I mean people like Sen. Cruz, Pres. Trump, and others) have no idea how [expletive] dangerous those people are, and always have been.

I really hope that Ted Cruz (and the others) watched that video of the insurrectionists on the Senate floor looking through his papers. They were ready to go after him because they thought he was betraying them (they were too stupid to understand that his objection to counting the votes was what they wanted). And some of them have been turning on Trump because they think he was weak for "condemning" the attack.

They have created a monster that they have lost control of.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 19, 2021, 06:48:55 PM
I think that a good start is what Jay said in a previous post: accountability. These days there is none. Some politicians were saying impeachment shouldn't be used as punishment. I believe that is exactly what it should be; people should realise that when you cross the line, there WILL be consequences and you WILL be held accountable, and that WILL be most unpleasant. Most importantly it should demonstrate to others that you CANNOT do these things.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 19, 2021, 07:08:56 PM
Yeah, even as I wrote that I thought it would never fly in the United States.

But you're not wrong to suggest it or want it.  Fixing American government ought to go farther than just sweeping the excrement-smeared artifacts of the Trump administration out the door.  Americans at heart want their system to be glorious, the envy of the world.  That means we might have to take a good long look at where we are and how we got here.  It's getting increasingly harder to isolate ourselves here and pretend things aren't vastly wrong.

Quote
I just believe that "freedom of speech" shouldn't include intentionally government officials lying about election fraud. I get that not everyone knows they are spreading misinformation, but it starts somewhere.

It should absolutely start there.  As you know, I live a short walk from our local law school.  Last year, when the building was still populated, they had a picture of Ted Cruz pasted up on one of the first-year study rooms with the caption, "If he can do it, you can."  Many of these people have law degrees.  They have zero excuse for believing that any of the lawsuits etc. around which the myth of electoral fraud was built had any viable evidence or means of success.  You and I might be forgiven for not having memorized the rules of evidence or knowing every laches precedent back to Justice Blackstone.  But these guys should have known better.  They are supposed to be experts in what it takes to prove laws were violated.  They knew from the very beginning that these lawsuits wouldn't succeed, and they knew all along that it was Trump's intent to stir up doubt by filling them.

And yes, they're government officials.  Say what you will about the rampant dishonesty of politicians, but it's not too romantic a concept to hold elected officials to a higher standard of accountability for what they say from their various pulpits.  We elect them to hold some power or sway over the people they lead.  That means what they say has greater weight and should clear a higher bar of factual support.

I really hope that Ted Cruz (and the others) watched that video of the insurrectionists on the Senate floor looking through his papers.

It's been widely hypothesized that the lackluster condemnations of the Capitol attacks from various officials is due to their fear directly for their own lives.  This is exactly what it means to have a state controlled by domestic terrorists.  If the people in charge fear to do the right thing because of reprisals from armed mobs, that is a terrorized state.

Quote
They have created a monster that they have lost control of.

And we warned them not to do this.  You can be we should do all in our power to hold them responsible for their selfish, ill-advised actions which have now put all of us at risk.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 20, 2021, 04:32:57 AM
There are way too many of those people out there, they are organized, and they have been emboldened by Trump, Hawley, Cruz, and the entire right-wing infotainment complex.  They are no longer afraid to show their faces.  They are no longer afraid to say the quiet parts out loud.

The exposure and emboldenment is really all that's new.  There have always been way too many of "that sort" of people out there, which is either a cause or a symptom or both for never having really healed after the Civil War.  And they've always been organized, since the Civil War and onward.  They just went underground starting in the late 1800s and have stayed there under various names.  The Trump administration and all the enablers you name, and more, let them back up to the surface and whipped them up by calling them "patriots" and "fine people."

These idiots (I mean people like Sen. Cruz, Pres. Trump, and others) have no idea how [expletive] dangerous those people are, and always have been.  Prior to the Trump Administration, the only thing protecting us from them was the general belief in the United States that extremism and racial supremacy were Bad Things.  Sure, you could be your racist angry self among the Good Ol' Boys in your town.  But you just "knew" you couldn't do that if you were going to head over to Disney World or elsewhere out in public.  Now -- thanks to these feckless idiots -- you can drive your Confederate-flagged truck down the freeway, waving guns out the window, and terrorizing your political opponents with impunity.  That's what these people have always longed to do.  This isn't new.  It's just been Generally Frowned Upon until now.

Oh, sure, they wrap themselves in the flag.  But then without hesitation they beat innocent people to death with them.  They ally with law enforcement, but then quickly show how little "blue lives" matter to them.  It's never about the prosaically noble causes they espouse.  They're angry, racist thugs.  That's all they've ever been, and that's all they will ever be, no matter what empty, patriotic-sounding platitudes they sloganize.  But because certain politicians are just profoundly ignorant of anything except the privileged environments they've grown up in, they think it's all just a game.  They think they can dog-whistle these groups by stumping their cover stories and praising their efforts, and that no harm will come from it.

American politics has devolved to the point where the people who practice it literally think there are no actual consequences.  The economy will somehow always be strong.  Poor people will somehow always be docile and subservient.  People with the wrong color skin will somehow always stay where they're put.  America will somehow always be great.  Violent racists will somehow always stay safely just under the surface.  They'll always be re-elected so long as they promise to "own the libs."  And, laughing all the way to their capitols, they'll always be free to exploit whatever presents itself, with no accountability.  I believe it starts with holding politicians accountable.  Who's going to do that?  Other politicians?  Voters who look at these decisions as no more consequential that a sports tournament?

I don't think, however, that there ever has been a time when so many have been so open, so organised and in such huge numbers. Social media (and I'm talking specifically about Facebook, primarily, and Twitter) has been weaponised and used to directly target these people. Organisations such as Cambridge Analytica, funded by the like of the Mercers are using these platforms to spread targeted messages of chaos and distrust.  Trump's pardoning of Steve Bannon is a terrible decision. Personally I think that Bannon is one of the most dangerous men on the planet. His fingerprints are all over the Trump presidency, Brexit, Orban and others. He actively wants to tear down and destroy democracies and he has access to the people with the money and inclinations to do just that.


I'm aware of the background of the interviewer  when he interviewed Yuri Bezmenov in the earkly 1980s, however the interview makes for chilling listening.
https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/yuri-bezmenov?rebelltitem=8#rebelltitem8
Many of his comments are absolutely true today.

"As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore," said Bezmenov. "A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fat-bottom. When a military boot crashes his balls then he will understand. But not before that. That's the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 20, 2021, 11:46:38 AM
Betsy DeVos has been my most-hated Cabinet figure for four years, and that is a high bar.  The attack on education was planned and it was serious.  And now, she resigns because "children are paying attention"?  That just made me hate her more!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Bryanpoprobson on January 20, 2021, 11:52:40 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/UUpaEpz.jpg)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 20, 2021, 01:30:48 PM
I don't think, however, that there ever has been a time when so many have been so open, so organised and in such huge numbers.

I suppose it doesn't matter whether we're just now learning their numbers or whether their ranks swelled in the Trump years.  Either way there are too many of them, and they're emboldened and more overtly organized.  The racist and nationalist sentiments have been there all along.  Now these groups are free to shamelessly express them, with aid and comfort from prominent figures in the Republican Party.

If Sen. McConnell's statements yesterday in the Senate are a strong enough indication, Donald Trump might have no future in the party.  But yesterday Trump was babbling about starting his own party.  And I imagine it will be populated largely by hate groups and deplorables.

Quote
[People] are using these platforms to spread targeted messages of chaos and distrust.

And for a kaleidoscope of reasons, the companies that operate them haven't been compelled to do anything about it.  Early on, they were just naive tech giants.  And yes, there's a certain naivété at work.  "We're just a fun platform where people can come together," and the real product is the social connectivity data that's generated.  Or ad revenue. Or a combination of many such factors.  When platforms like Facebook and Twitter came about, the companies had no idea what to do with all the problems that come with increasingly easy interaction with strangers.  So they completely ignored them, downplayed them, and literally expected the problem to just go away.  They were all nerds.  They had little idea how the world worked outside Silicon Valley.  There have been a couple good books written on this.

Nowadays it seems like the various social media companies are well aware of the political and social influence they have, and especially their ability to drive or respond to large trends.  And it seems that all they see, without additional oversight, is profit.  I think they've gone from being naive to being happy in a new role as power brokers.  They lack either the will or the technical ability to stop their platforms being used to create propaganda under the guise of "free speech."  Only when it seems they might incur regulation or be sued do they take steps to actually look at how their product behaves and creates a social "reality" for people.  The remedy, such as it is, is always too little, too late, and with too little enthusiasm.  As long as eyeballs are looking at their product, they try to squeak by with the minimum responsibility.

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Trump's pardoning of Steve Bannon is a terrible decision. Personally I think that Bannon is one of the most dangerous men on the planet.

He is truly an odious man.  And consider what he was pardoned for.  Bannon told Trump's followers he was taking up a collection to fund the border wall with Mexico privately.  And then used the money for other purposes.  Now normally if I had a group of followers, and someone was doing something that might alienate them from me, like using my name and reputation to defraud them, I'd normally be very anxious to stop that happening, so it would protect my reputation.  Former President Donald Trump has done this to the effect of condoning the fraud.  But of course his followers probably won't believe that.  They'll argue that Bannon was being unjustly prosecuted and that he's a great American patriot and hero, and here, have some more of my money.

Let's hope this comes back to bite him in the behind.  Now pardoned, Steve Bannon cannot plead the Fifth Amendment for evidence he might given on any federal charges against Donald Trump that might involve Bannon's exculpated crimes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on January 20, 2021, 02:57:23 PM
Let's hope this comes back to bite him in the behind.  Now pardoned, Steve Bannon cannot plead the Fifth Amendment for evidence he might given on any federal charges against Donald Trump that might involve Bannon's exculpated crimes.

Is that likely? I mean, was that a 'tactical' mistake by Trump? So he cannot claim self-incrimination but he'd just lie anyway, wouldn't he?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on January 20, 2021, 03:16:24 PM

He is truly an odious man.  And consider what he was pardoned for.  Bannon told Trump's followers he was taking up a collection to fund the border wall with Mexico privately.  And then used the money for other purposes.  Now normally if I had a group of followers, and someone was doing something that might alienate them from me, like using my name and reputation to defraud them, I'd normally be very anxious to stop that happening, so it would protect my reputation.  Former President Donald Trump has done this to the effect of condoning the fraud.  But of course his followers probably won't believe that.  They'll argue that Bannon was being unjustly prosecuted and that he's a great American patriot and hero, and here, have some more of my money.


Same mentality that made televangelists successful.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 20, 2021, 03:49:03 PM
Is that likely? I mean, was that a 'tactical' mistake by Trump? So he cannot claim self-incrimination but he'd just lie anyway, wouldn't he?

If he did, he'd be liable for perjury.  The scenario is that Donald Trump or one of the Trump clan is brought up on federal charges, and Steve Bannon is subpoenaed as a material witness to the crimes charged.  If Bannon was a party to any of those crimes, or if by testifying against a Trump he would have to reveal his involvement in some earlier federal crime, he could ordinarily refuse to answer that question.  But a Presidential pardon means that he has to answer, since incrimination is no longer possible.  If he lies, it's perjury.  If he still refuses to answer, it's obstruction of justice.  Either way it's a problem.

Whether it's a tactical mistake on Trump's part probably depends on information we don't know.

Another possibility is that those who feel they were defrauded by Bannon can sue him in civil court.  While he would bear no criminal liability, fraud is still also a tort, and you can't pardon for a tort.  Further, Bannon's acceptance of the pardon might constitute an admission to the acts.  This hasn't been fully settled as a matter of American law.  But I think a path moving forward is to hit these people where they live:  the pocketbook.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on January 20, 2021, 03:55:33 PM
Also, isn't it time to unpin this thread?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 20, 2021, 05:33:56 PM
Apropos of absolutely nothing, but Bannon always looks like a guy whose liver is about to give up the ghost. 

I am happy nothing bad happened at today's ceremony.  I have mixed feelings about Trump not being there.  His not being there to participate in the transition keeps the whole "it was stolen" narrative alive, but expecting him to do anything other than petulantly flounce like the spoiled child he is is like expecting water to flow uphill.  It's not going to happen, you know it's not going to happen, you wouldn't believe it if you saw it anyway. 

Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to relax for a while.  As expected, some of the cult members are starting to fall away, while others are doubling down.  Apparently the date to watch for now is March 4th, which is supposedly the original inauguration date "as specified in the Constitution" (it's not) and is when "the generals" rise up, arrest everybody, and install Trump as President again. 

There is genuine concern that some cult members will harm themselves today.  I only hope they decide not to harm others in the process. 

At least he didn't blanket pardon the insurrectionists.  That was a low-but-not-entirely-zero probability event, and that would have been bad
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 20, 2021, 06:17:09 PM
Apropos of absolutely nothing, but Bannon always looks like a guy whose liver is about to give up the ghost.

I've always thought he was Barron Trump from the future.

Quote
I have mixed feelings about Trump not being there.

I'm surprised at myself that I don't.  Traditionally the transfer of power is a handshake between the incoming and outgoing Presidents.  But Trump has no respect for tradition, and we have no respect for his respect of tradition.  It would have been an empty gesture, just like all of Trump's other attempts at cordiality.  And he probably would have still figured out a way to make President Biden's inauguration somehow still all about him.  And if he didn't, it's a fair bet the media would have.

Goodbye and good riddance.

Quote
There is genuine concern that some cult members will harm themselves today.  I only hope they decide not to harm others in the process.

Well I don't want anybody to get hurt.  I didn't realize it was getting as bad cosmological doomsday cults such as from 2012.  It's one thing to be disappointed that your favored candidate didn't win, and to have legitimate concerns about the political direction of your country because of it.  It's another thing to have expected Donald Trump be enthroned as some "God Emperor" and now to contemplate that it's the End Times since it didn't happen.

It's far too easy to create crazy religions in America.

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At least he didn't blanket pardon the insurrectionists.  That was a low-but-not-entirely-zero probability event, and that would have been bad.

As if he cares a single iota about any of them.

But at least now they can't testify against him, if they choose to invoke the Fifth Amendment.  Not that the rank and file insurgents likely would have any damaging testimony.  But if it is suspected that the Capitol assault was organized with the cooperation of members of the administration, that would be some dynamite.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on January 20, 2021, 06:56:06 PM
Let's hope this comes back to bite him in the behind.  Now pardoned, Steve Bannon cannot plead the Fifth Amendment for evidence he might given on any federal charges against Donald Trump that might involve Bannon's exculpated crimes.

Is that likely? I mean, was that a 'tactical' mistake by Trump? So he cannot claim self-incrimination but he'd just lie anyway, wouldn't he?


I would hope that the pardon doesn't protect him from future crimes, such as perjury. (even if his lies are regarding the crimes he was pardoned for).
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 20, 2021, 07:13:01 PM
[snip]

Trump's pardoning of Steve Bannon is a terrible decision

[snip]

I'm surprised he didn't pardon family members, less so that he didn't pardon Rudi Giuliani.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 20, 2021, 08:38:40 PM
I would hope that the pardon doesn't protect him from future crimes, such as perjury. (even if his lies are regarding the crimes he was pardoned for).

Prospective pardons are precluded by ex parte Garland.  A pardon may not issue to protect acts that have not yet been committed.  However, a pardon need not wait for a response from the government.  As soon as the act is committed, it becomes pardonable at any point.  An interesting point is that a pardon may be retracted up to the point where it is served on the beneficiary.  As soon as the person being pardoned has received a copy of the instrument of pardon, it becomes binding.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 20, 2021, 09:08:14 PM
I'm surprised he didn't pardon family members, less so that he didn't pardon Rudi Giuliani.

That would likely provoke a test of the extent of the President's pardon power.  The pardon power is not absolute.  Constitutionally, it is precluded "in the case of Impeachment," and there is great debate over what that actually means.  Just the fact of it being limited in the Constitution raises the question of reviewability. (Traditionally, though not required, the Justice Department reviews proposed pardons.)  But insofar as the intent of the pardon power, it's mean to correct miscarriages of justice.  And this would be the textualist interpretation, so the Supreme Court is not going to help out the Trump clan if it seems that the former President has used it to reward loyalty or protect his friends from the proper carriage of justice.  Pardoning family members, especially before any charges are filed, would probably prompt a review of the pardon power that frankly no one wants.

And again, it's not clear in various venues of U.S. law whether acceptance of a pardon constitutes an admission of guilt which would then have power in a civil trial.  So it's not necessarily a gift to pardon Trump's family members.  Can you imagine how many people would want to sue the little Trumplings in civil court if the pardon effectively stipulated to various acts?

At the prospect of federal criminal charges, it's possible the Trumps are circling the wagons, hoping that they can all just plead the Fifth and collectively avoid inculpation.  But the more probable explanation is that there's no guarantee any of them will be criminally charge for anything at the federal level (the limit of Presidential pardon power), so maybe the rationale is that a pardon would have been unnecessary anyway.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 21, 2021, 02:33:53 AM
Apropos of absolutely nothing, but Bannon always looks like a guy whose liver is about to give up the ghost. 


Whilst I would never wish ill on someone else, absolutely nothing of value to the world would be lost if it did give up the ghost.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 21, 2021, 07:33:06 AM
At least he didn't blanket pardon the insurrectionists.  That was a low-but-not-entirely-zero probability event, and that would have been bad.

As if he cares a single iota about any of them.

But at least now they can't testify against him, if they choose to invoke the Fifth Amendment.  Not that the rank and file insurgents likely would have any damaging testimony.  But if it is suspected that the Capitol assault was organized with the cooperation of members of the administration, that would be some dynamite.

Given that some of them are giving television interviews saying, "yeah, I was there, and I did it because the President told us to," along with all the selfies and livestreams they posted to social media, I don’t think the Fifth Amendment is on their radar.  They genuinely do not believe that  they or Trump did anything wrong. 

Their attorneys have their work cut out for them.  A lot of relatively affluent white people are about to be introduced to the uglier side of the American criminal justice system, and they aren’t going to understand.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 21, 2021, 10:51:06 AM
Mass prosecutions of those people will be good for the country not just because, you know, armed sedition but because we need to show that affluent white people can suffer consequences, too.  They haven't, much, historically, and everyone knows it.  So even if they knew they'd done anything wrong, which they obviously don't--see that woman hyping her real estate business at every minute--they might have assumed they'd never face consequences anyway because affluent white people.

I expect the state charges against the family to roll any minute now.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 21, 2021, 12:31:55 PM
Given that some of them are giving television interviews saying, "yeah, I was there, and I did it because the President told us to," along with all the selfies and livestreams they posted to social media, I don’t think the Fifth Amendment is on their radar.  They genuinely do not believe that  they or Trump did anything wrong.

For those against whom there is a prodigious body of evidence, it's true the Fifth Amendment won't help much.  The other side of the coin would be people who just wandered into the Capitol after the breaches and committed no other offense.  Asked later, "Were you present inside the Capitol building during the riots?" it might still be advantageous to take the Fifth because you don't want any part of a chain of evidence constructed against you solely by admitting that you were there at all.  If there is little other evidence to place you at the scene, why would you voluntarily admit to that?

Classically the Fifth Amendment protects against coercing a confession for one thing under subpoena for something else.  But the phrase "would tend to incriminate" is important because you can be perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing, but be caught up in something where describing it could persuade a reasonable person that you might be involved.  Your testimony only has to tend to incriminate you, not reveal actual wrongdoing.  Again, it's unlikely that people in that situation would have evidence against Donald Trump that would make them material witnesses.  But that's sometimes the dynamic of refusing to testify.

As you say:

Quote
Their attorneys have their work cut out for them.

It really does take a lawyer to sift through various options for cooperating with authorities and advise a client conscientiously, and every case is different.  Another option, of course, is cutting a deal for testimony.  Promising immunity from prosecution for some crime in exchange for testimony that reveals and admits to that crime is a time-honored way of resolving these issues.

But back to the group you identify:  people who collected copious amounts of evidence against themselves under the mistaken belief that their actions were authorized by the President.  Keep in mind that Donald Trump still faces a trial in the Senate, and one possible outcome of that trial can be a bar against holding any subsequent public office.  Pardoning people who say they are acting on his authority, yet doing something illegal, would undermine his likely defense that he had no intention of inciting violence and did not direct the crowd to break the law.  A pardon says that any justice meted out to them for their actions would have been a miscarriage.  Instead he has to pin the blame for the riot solely on them in order to be acquitted.

Quote
A lot of relatively affluent white people are about to be introduced to the uglier side of the American criminal justice system, and they aren’t going to understand.

Not only will it be shock because they think they're innocent, but probably also a shocking discovery that the wholesome, brave image that law enforcement wants to portray in general largely vanishes when you are accused and convicted of a crime and being dealt with by them.  Yes, Trumpsquatch finally got his organic num-nums.  But I agree a large number of other people are going to realize they really aren't as special as they thought they were, and that what those other folks were saying about police misconduct wasn't as farfetched as it sounded at first.

But on the plus side, there is the potential for meaningful police reform if someone other than the BLM community registers complaints for the same alleged behavior.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 22, 2021, 05:22:05 AM

Quote
A lot of relatively affluent white people are about to be introduced to the uglier side of the American criminal justice system, and they aren’t going to understand.

Not only will it be shock because they think they're innocent, but probably also a shocking discovery that the wholesome, brave image that law enforcement wants to portray in general largely vanishes when you are accused and convicted of a crime and being dealt with by them.  Yes, Trumpsquatch finally got his organic num-nums.  But I agree a large number of other people are going to realize they really aren't as special as they thought they were, and that what those other folks were saying about police misconduct wasn't as farfetched as it sounded at first.

But on the plus side, there is the potential for meaningful police reform if someone other than the BLM community registers complaints for the same alleged behavior.


It must be quite the feeling of watching guys wearing FBI jackets walking up the drive of your nice twin-garage, 5 bedroom suburban house that's located in the nice (read "white") part of town ....

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/fbi-agents-raided-home-in-stone-oak-arrest-made?video=4363bf09-030b-4042-b888-65c08e960662&jwsource=cl

Add in the sinking feeling of realisation when they cart you away in handcuffs that your whole life is about to dramatically change for the worse forever, just because you were dumb enough to buy into a load of Facebook memes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 22, 2021, 01:05:29 PM
There's evidence that local and state police in various parts of the United States have been infiltrated by white nationalists, racists, and other unsavory elements.  And there is evidence that the police unions that supply officers to these departments are corrupt in any of several ways.

Not so at the FBI.  It takes far more education and training to be an FBI field officer.  There is far more invasive screening of candidates.  (In fact, it's the FBI who investigated and uncovered the corruption and misconduct in local police forces.)  The FBI doesn't care that you're wealthy, white, and aligned with "blue lives" interests.  In this case, all they care about is that you participated in a riot in which a federal officer was killed.  On the flip side, it means they're not going to take any subject -- black or white, wealthy or poor -- into a back alley and beat him to death.  The problem that BLM organizations have is that affluent white people can't believe that local police treat people differently depending on these factors.  This is because their ordinary interaction with law enforcement is often preferentially cordial.  It takes cases like this where you're seen only as "criminal suspect" to provide evidence that local police may be the ones affording privilege.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on January 23, 2021, 10:55:13 AM
The more that comes out about the attack on the Capitol, the more it sounds like there was a serious and organised attempt to harm or kill legislators.  Some of the information here is very worrying :

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/conspiracy-oath-keeper-arrest-capitol-riot/2021/01/19/fb84877a-5a4f-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html

Quote
Self-styled militia members from Virginia, Ohio and other states made plans to storm the U.S. Capitol days in advance of the Jan. 6 attack, and then communicated in real time as they breached the building on opposite sides and talked about hunting for lawmakers, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Quote
“We have about 30-40 of us. We are sticking together and sticking to the plan,” co-defendant Jessica Watkins, 38, an Army veteran, said while the breach was underway, according to court documents.

“You are executing citizen’s arrest. Arrest this assembly, we have probable cause for acts of treason, election fraud,” a man replied, according to audio recordings of communications between Watkins and others during the incursion.

And possibly most disturbing, given the reference :

Quote
Some messages, according to the FBI, included, “Tom all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3floors down,” and “Go through back house chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps.” Another message read: “All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas,” the FBI added.

From what I understand, there are still a lot of these so-called "militia" groups around, and I doubt we've seen the last of their attempts to disrupt the new administration.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 23, 2021, 12:25:02 PM
The more that comes out about the attack on the Capitol, the more it sounds like there was a serious and organised attempt to harm or kill legislators.  Some of the information here is very worrying :

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/conspiracy-oath-keeper-arrest-capitol-riot/2021/01/19/fb84877a-5a4f-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html

Quote
Self-styled militia members from Virginia, Ohio and other states made plans to storm the U.S. Capitol days in advance of the Jan. 6 attack, and then communicated in real time as they breached the building on opposite sides and talked about hunting for lawmakers, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Quote
“We have about 30-40 of us. We are sticking together and sticking to the plan,” co-defendant Jessica Watkins, 38, an Army veteran, said while the breach was underway, according to court documents.

“You are executing citizen’s arrest. Arrest this assembly, we have probable cause for acts of treason, election fraud,” a man replied, according to audio recordings of communications between Watkins and others during the incursion.

And possibly most disturbing, given the reference :

Quote
Some messages, according to the FBI, included, “Tom all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3floors down,” and “Go through back house chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps.” Another message read: “All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas,” the FBI added.

From what I understand, there are still a lot of these so-called "militia" groups around, and I doubt we've seen the last of their attempts to disrupt the new administration.

Not only that, but there's also an active investigation into whether some Republican senators actually provided an unauthorised tour of the building prior to the rioting and attempted coup.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/15/us/impeachment-trump#the-capitol-police-are-investigating-whether-lawmakers-gave-pre-riot-building-tours-as-pelosi-names-leader-of-security-review
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 28, 2021, 08:10:48 AM
[snip]

There's an interesting sub-Reddit going on at the moment: https://www.reddit.com/r/byebyejob/ Lots of very well paid people suddenly finding themselves out of very good jobs. So far I've spotted a lawyer, a CEO, our absent-minded friend above and a woman outed by her daughter. Schadenfreude and karma appears to be a real thing!

I've taken to visiting it once a week or so to see what new rewards for silliness have been made...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 29, 2021, 05:57:40 AM
It’s amazing the lack of self-awareness some of these conspiracy theorists have. I’m in the middle of a Twitter row with one who honestly thinks a ballot-counting machine is just a big dumb brick that looks for a mark on a piece of paper. The fact he tweeted from a device that can do better scanning and checking than that seems to have escaped him. Now I admit I don’t know exactly how those machines work but intuitively I have the feeling they’d have a bit more sophisticated workings than just looking for a dark mark somewhere. Like barcode checksum digits on the ballot papers maybe?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 29, 2021, 06:43:43 AM
It’s amazing the lack of self-awareness some of these conspiracy theorists have. I’m in the middle of a Twitter row with one who honestly thinks a ballot-counting machine is just a big dumb brick that looks for a mark on a piece of paper. The fact he tweeted from a device that can do better scanning and checking than that seems to have escaped him. Now I admit I don’t know exactly how those machines work but intuitively I have the feeling they’d have a bit more sophisticated workings than just looking for a dark mark somewhere. Like barcode checksum digits on the ballot papers maybe?

The machines we’ve used for the last couple of elections have an electronic interface (you spin a dial and press a button to cast a vote); when you’re done they print out a paper ballot that has a barcode representation of your votes across the top, with a human-readable summary of the votes below.  The tabulating system reads the barcode, but the human-readable portion makes hand recounts and audits easier. 

There’s still room for shenanigans - I have no way of knowing the barcode is an accurate representation of my votes.  Audits and recounts should catch that, but if they’re not done for whatever reason, there will be room for doubt.

I would still prefer a paper ballot that I mark myself.  Yes, they have their own problems, but when we did that I never had reason to believe my vote was being miscast (granted, when we were doing that the Republicans had not yet completely lost their goddamned minds). 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 29, 2021, 10:40:34 AM
We get a paper ballot that we fill in by hand.  Sure, I drop mine off at a drop-box, but it's exactly the same paper ballot as I'd get if I went in for in-person voting.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on January 29, 2021, 10:56:40 AM
The point, surely, is that literally every method of voting has ‘room for shenanigans’. Unless I go to a polling station and literally point to my chosen candidate in front of everyone there is always a step in the process where someone else has control of my ballot. I drop it in a box and I trust that the responsible people then deliver that ballot and count it correctly. The problem is that ugly now we are supposed to believe that appropriate measures to check the votes are properly counted have not been put in place for one system while at the same time accepting the other as above criticism.

Mr Twitter has literally just argued that the electronic ballot counting machines are so simple they’re easily fooled while the Dominion machines are so sophisticated they are... also easily fooled. 🤦‍♂️
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 29, 2021, 12:33:14 PM
Isn't it sad that Trump's former presidency is still the one we're talking about the most?
This shit is going to ripple.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 29, 2021, 12:59:20 PM
This is the front page of my mail-in ballot from the 2020 election.  It's okay in the U.S. and in my state to post pictures of unmarked ballots.  Some jurisdictions forbid posting pictures of marked ballots.  In-person voting is done with fully-electronic voting machines with paper printout backups.  You can see the printout scroll by, in human-readable form, as you vote.  But as I've said many times, almost all voting in Utah is by mail using the pictured ballots.

The brick that reads these sheets is fairly dumb.  You can see the registration marks along the top and side edges.  The marks along the bottom are different for every ballot front-page that I inspected.  I don't have photos, but there are also ultraviolet-revealed ink marks that seem to follow the same numerical encoding strategy as our postal codes.  I say the machine is dumb because the conversion of the filled-in circles to a digital data set is clearly optimized for high accuracy at high volume.  The matrix barcode at the top identifies the voting precinct, which determines which candidates should appear in elections for city offices.  It's the same for everyone in my neighborhood.

Clearly some established document security and tracking methods have been employed to guard against forgery.  There may be others that I'm either not familiar with or don't have the proper equipment to see them.  Obviously keeping some of them secret would be advantageous.

The reason this part of the process is allowed to be stupid is that the validation process for a ballot is stepwise.  The marked ballot is placed in a privacy sleeve, which is then inserted into the return envelope.  The voter signs the sleeve, which has his name, address, and a barcode on it which presumably identifies him and provides checksum-like verification.  A tear-off panel on the return envelope reveals the barcode and signature.  Signature and registration verification occurs with the ballot still sealed inside the return envelope.  At this point ballots may also be rejected if, for example, the ballot had been sent in error.  Signature verification is automatic, using AI software, with potential negatives reviewed by bipartisan reviewers.

A web portal exists to allow voters to check on the status of their mail-in ballots.  If the signature check fails, the county clerk affirmatively notifies the voter of this and allows a cure procedure.  You can also request a replacement ballot.

Accepted ballots are then opened, and the signature sleeves destroyed.  From this point on the ballot is effectively anonymous, although the unique markings allow such things as automated recounts, duplicate-scan rejection, and subsequent digital manipulation of the tabulated votes.  But at this point the ballot is considered authenticated, so encoding and tabulation are the remaining steps.  The scanner reads ballots and confirms the physical document-security measures.  The tabulator is a computer system that enforces authentication requirements on humans that are allowed to manipulate cast votes (e.g., reject groups subsequently deemed invalid) and data-integrity and -security constraints.  That's the part that has to be smart, and therefore the part most susceptible to tampering.  It's typically air-gapped from area networks and physically protected.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on January 29, 2021, 11:50:48 PM
Isn't it sad that Trump's former presidency is still the one we're talking about the most?
This shit is going to ripple.

Yes, and if I'm reading it right, Trump is going to keep hold of the Republican party, meaning the impeachment trial is likely to fail, but hopefully the ban on holding office in the future will take effect.

I get the impression that Trump has shown Republican members of Congress how strong his hold on Republican voters is, meaning his threat to start the Patriot Party has teeth. The Republican members of Congress consequently fold as they did during Trump's Presidency because they know he can end their political careers if they don't toe his line. I therefore suspect the trial vote in the Senate will be similar to the last impeachment.

So even if Trump can't be a Presidential candidate in the future, he'll have a lot of influence in choosing the 2024 candidate.

It's interesting to contemplate how much influence he'll retain if he somehow ends up in jail.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on January 30, 2021, 06:07:28 AM
The point, surely, is that literally every method of voting has ‘room for shenanigans’. Unless I go to a polling station and literally point to my chosen candidate in front of everyone there is always a step in the process where someone else has control of my ballot. I drop it in a box and I trust that the responsible people then deliver that ballot and count it correctly. The problem is that ugly now we are supposed to believe that appropriate measures to check the votes are properly counted have not been put in place for one system while at the same time accepting the other as above criticism.

Mr Twitter has literally just argued that the electronic ballot counting machines are so simple they’re easily fooled while the Dominion machines are so sophisticated they are... also easily fooled. 🤦‍♂️

It's a symptom of our "post-knowledge, my opinion is as valid as your facts" times. Trump didn't invent the tactic but he sure perfected it and weaponised it. There was a time where innocent until proven guilty was the norm. Now you can just blurt out any old nonsense and expect others to disprove it. The art is to constantly blurt out BS 5o the extent where your interlocutors have no chance of keeping up.

Sadly, vast swathes of the population has fallen for this guff. How it ever gets corrected I do not know.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on January 30, 2021, 11:11:32 AM
Yes, and if I'm reading it right, Trump is going to keep hold of the Republican party, meaning the impeachment trial is likely to fail, but hopefully the ban on holding office in the future will take effect.

Well, he's been impeached.  (Twice.)  The question now is conviction.  I'll be honest that I'm uncertain what results the Senate is going for other than keeping him from holding office.  I fully expect him to end his days in prison in New York State, frankly; I don't expect the Senate to send him there, even if that's what they're trying for.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 30, 2021, 02:01:33 PM
Isn't it sad that Trump's former presidency is still the one we're talking about the most?
This shit is going to ripple.

Indeed, as we've belabored, the Trump presidency is the symptom of a larger problem that we're now taking greater notice of.  It won't go away, and we shouldn't stop talking about it.  Separately, Trump won't go away because he loves the limelight and will take greater pains to seek it.  And we'll keep taking the bait because Trump knows it's human nature not to look away from the road accident.  Fixing American conservatism means first weaning it off of Trump.

On the other hand, I never expected to have to talk much about the Biden presidency.   I can remember a time when you got up in the morning and part of your morning ritual was not looking at your media devices in dread to see what new horrors your president and his party had unleashed on the world just in the past eight hours while you slept.  You could even go whole days without hearing the President's day-to-day.  Torrents of rage-tweets were simply not a thing.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on January 30, 2021, 02:18:45 PM
I get the impression that Trump has shown Republican members of Congress how strong his hold on Republican voters is, meaning his threat to start the Patriot Party has teeth.

You might be onto something.  Enough Republican voters might be of the Trump variety that allowing the conservative party to split would ensure that neither ever got enough votes to beat Democrat candidates.  But also, the departure of the far right from the Republican Party might make fit moderate enough that a few moderate Democrats jump ship.  But it's entirely possible that the Republican strategy is to contain the damage and try to gloss over it.  "Let's just forget about it and move on."  They're hoping the short attention spans of the American voter and media outlets will let the detestable faction of the Republican voter base slink back into the shadows.

Quote
It's interesting to contemplate how much influence he'll retain if he somehow ends up in jail.

Or whether some deplorable like Cruz, Graham, or Green is able to rush in and fill the vacuum.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jeff Raven on January 30, 2021, 04:42:27 PM
Yes, and if I'm reading it right, Trump is going to keep hold of the Republican party, meaning the impeachment trial is likely to fail, but hopefully the ban on holding office in the future will take effect.

I get the impression that Trump has shown Republican members of Congress how strong his hold on Republican voters is, meaning his threat to start the Patriot Party has teeth. The Republican members of Congress consequently fold as they did during Trump's Presidency because they know he can end their political careers if they don't toe his line. I therefore suspect the trial vote in the Senate will be similar to the last impeachment.

So even if Trump can't be a Presidential candidate in the future, he'll have a lot of influence in choosing the 2024 candidate.

It's interesting to contemplate how much influence he'll retain if he somehow ends up in jail.

The Republican Party created its own monsters, first by not reining in the Tea Party candidates, and then allowing Trump to abuse the power of the office to run roughshod over Congress. They are far from the party of Reagan, and equally far from the ideals of the GOP. And the few that did stand up to him (e.g. Flake) were either cast aside or did so too late, such as when they were already heading out the door.

If Trump decides to create his own party, I think that can actually be a very good thing, assuming that the more reasonable members of the Republican Party use the opportunity to reorganize and get back to what they traditionally have believed in and done. They can show the radicals like Marjorie Taylor Greene to be the dangerous nutjobs they are, and start to bring some sanity back to that party.

That said, I also think that the Democrats have completely screwed things up in many ways, and have made it more likely for Trump to keep more power than he should. They should have waited a few months before delivering the articles of impeachment to the Senate, and instead worked on a reasonable agenda to begin to bring things back toward the middle. By putting Trump on the sidelines while actual progress was made, he would be shown to be less important. Instead the trial has much less chance of succeeding, feels rushed to many, and will be trumpeted as a vindication by Trump and his supporters if it goes the way it seems likely to. If they had instead worked with those on the right, many who are afraid of the 'evil socialist agenda of the liberals' would be put at least somewhat at ease, and therefore they wouldn't automatically cling to Trump and his craziness.

I also think that President Biden should have, instead of flat-out canceling Keystone, put it on hold for a period of X days, while alternatives can be investigated. Even if the ultimate decision would then have been to cancel the project, the workers would have felt more heard, and he would have been seen as looking for reasonable solutions that can address everyone's concerns. Instead the decision can be seen as knee-jerk anti-oil and oil workers.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: raven on January 30, 2021, 09:21:48 PM
For good or ill, just like FDR pioneered used radio to reach the masses and JFK used television, Trump definitely showed the terrible power of social media. Mostly ill in Trump's case, unfortunately.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on February 13, 2021, 05:24:52 PM
So Trump escaped impeachment again, when it was clearly shown he was guilty. The majority of Republican senators have shown their true colours: votes before truth, the mark of a 'real' politician.

The Democrats now better use the 14th Amendment, otherwise like that senator said: "...we will have only ourselves to blame for the consequences". And you can be damned sure their will be consequences.

Personally, I think that statement will go down in history, along with such remarks as "...I sure hope nothing happens tomorrow, but if it does, I am not going to be the person to stand in front of a board of inquiry and explain why I gave you permission to fly my rocket boosters in an environment I knew they would never qualify to fly in".

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: smartcooky on February 13, 2021, 09:27:44 PM
43 GOP cowards!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: molesworth on February 14, 2021, 05:01:23 AM
I'm puzzled (and a bit worried) as to what kind of hold Trump has over the Republican party.  This would have been an ideal opportunity to get rid of him after the damage he's done to their party over the last four years.  The election loss and Georgia run-offs should have been a big incentive to drastically reduce his influence within the party.  And the damage done to the USA, both internally and on the world stage, should have been good motivation as well.

Although he still faces other charges, the fact he's been acquitted of stirring up this riot opens the door to all sorts of future unacceptable behaviour from politicians at all levels.  And I fully expect Trump to run again (and quite possibly win again) in 2024.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: peter eldergill on February 14, 2021, 10:41:38 AM
At this point the Americans should just get rid of the impeachment process all together. Because, seriously, what's the point?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 14, 2021, 11:42:54 AM
Several Republicans have openly admitted being afraid of their base.  As this proved they should be.  But caving in to them wasn't the correct solution.  I'm just hoping that the majority of voters--who support the process--realize that their leadership is unethical cowards and votes them out.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 14, 2021, 01:18:41 PM
Indeed, impeachments are not criminal trials where statute and precedent apply.  An impeachable offense is whatever the House of Representatives as then constituted considers an impeachable offense.  The standard of proof on such offenses is whatever the Senate considers the standard of proof.  In each of these deliberations, the Houses can -- and ideally should -- rely on precedent set by other impeachments.  And now we see that if a President should use the power and influence of his office to invade the Capitol by force and wage armed battle against the Congress, that does rise to treason, bribery, or a high crime or misdemeanor.  If not that, then what?

Other impeachments have failed by closer votes for lesser offenses.  Andrew Johnson was impeached and acquitted by only a single vote for removing his Secretary of War in violation of an unconstitutional law.  That's purely administrative.  Nobody was about to storm the Capitol or place Congress in fear for their lives.

We're now looking at a bar under the 14th Amendment.  But as I wrote earlier, Congress cannot simply declare that the President is guilty of insurrection or rebellion as the text defines it.  That would amount to a bill of attainder, forbidden.  A determination under the 14th Amendment would require a finding following due process.  To be sure, a number of processes are... in process.  But a determination would have to wait for a guilty verdict in one of them.  And they are likely to take longer than the two years in which we can guarantee a Congress favorable to such a move.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on February 15, 2021, 03:03:43 AM
Indeed, impeachments are not criminal trials where statute and precedent apply.

Or where little things like jurors actually turning up, not knowing the defendant, not meeting with the lawyers individually, and not themselves actually being involved in the actions that are on trial are important factors in the due process....

Clearly the framers of the constitution understood there had to be some mechanism for holding the President accountable to the House, the Senate and ultimately the people, but if the records of actual impeachments have shown anything it's that there are huge gaping issues with getting a meaningful outcome, not the least of which is the almost inevitable fact of partisan votes when it comes to deciding the verdict. If there has been any outcome at all from these impeachments of Trump they have empowered him further, because he's been acquitted twice so now he will believe, and be justified in doing so, that he can do whatever the hell he wants and no-one can touch him. We can now be pretty certain that, barring miraculous changes in the party, the whole Republican campaign in 2024 will be centred around reclaiming their 'rightful place' following the supposedly stolen 2020 election. This political car crash is not over by a long shot.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: gillianren on February 15, 2021, 10:13:37 AM
To be fair, he's always believed he can do whatever the hell he wants and no one can touch him.  Historically, this is not the first nor second time he's pretty well gotten away with it.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Jason Thompson on February 15, 2021, 10:43:56 AM
To be fair, he's always believed he can do whatever the hell he wants and no one can touch him.  Historically, this is not the first nor second time he's pretty well gotten away with it.

True but the most galling thing about all of this is that it would seem he is right, and he effing-well shouldn’t be.

In theory no-one is above the law, but in practice there is evidently a threshold where yes, actually you are above the law, whether because the penalties are insignificant for some in their position or because the people making and enforcing the law... don’t.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 15, 2021, 11:19:43 AM
I wonder if it would be better if impeachment trials were decided by a jury of citizens instead of Senators?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: VQ on February 15, 2021, 12:21:20 PM
I wonder if it would be better if impeachment trials were decided by a jury of citizens instead of Senators?

Maybe a simple majority vote by both houses, with the punishment being not removal from office but removal of the immunity from normal prosecution?
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 15, 2021, 02:45:37 PM
Ostensibly impeachment is a checks-and-balances procedure.  While I think an ordinary federal jury would do a better job of dispensing justice, the overall purpose is for Congress to assert itself over the executive.  The Framers understood partisanship. I think they felt that today's hyperpartisanship would not arise.  Or if it did, the "lordly" decorum of the Senate would reign it in.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on February 15, 2021, 06:28:11 PM
Several Republicans have openly admitted being afraid of their base.  As this proved they should be.  But caving in to them wasn't the correct solution.  I'm just hoping that the majority of voters--who support the process--realize that their leadership is unethical cowards and votes them out.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-16/why-does-trump-still-seem-to-hold-sway-republican-party-us/13155588

This article discusses the problem. In particular it points out how McConnell on the one hand has threatened Trump that he's still on the hook, but on the other hand voted to acquit.

ETA: The Australian ABC has a short weekly TV show called Mediawatch which critiques the less impressive activities of the media. This week's program included a segment about the effects of legal action by the two voting machine companies on some media outlets: https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/fox/13156896
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: LunarOrbit on February 21, 2021, 06:48:58 PM
I've moved the discussion of the current emergency in Texas and the power grid to a separate topic: The future of the electric grid (https://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=1840.0)
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Obviousman on February 21, 2021, 08:31:46 PM
Thank you!
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: JayUtah on February 22, 2021, 10:20:57 AM
I've moved the discussion of the current emergency in Texas and the power grid to a separate topic: The future of the electric grid (https://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=1840.0)

Good idea.  I originally expected to make it a Rick Perry topic, but the engineering is more fun to talk about.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Glom on February 24, 2021, 09:24:27 AM
The Framers understood partisanship. I think they felt that today's hyperpartisanship would not arise.  Or if it did, the "lordly" decorum of the Senate would reign it in.

Our House of Lords seems pretty good in that regards. Unelected apparatchiks with jobs for life and hence no reason to care what you think can counterintuitively work sometimes.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on January 27, 2022, 10:58:44 AM
But to me, the kicker is that the current and previous two administrations have had a common policy, which is that foreigners (unless they have been lawfully admitted to the United States) have no rights, including the right to be alive.  A legal researcher for the Obama administration spelled its reasoning out pretty clearly.  The United States is at war with an unspecified enemy.  The entire world is a battlefield.  So if you are a non-American located on this battlefield, then you are a combatant.  And combatants may be killed.

Do you have a source for this claim?

The most obvious source in support of this "claim" would be the words and writings of the officials of the three administrations cited.

We're not in the days of Kennedy and Nixon, when assassination of a foreigner would be a covert operation.  They brag about it on television these days.  Calling this a "claim" is a bit like referring to "Joe Biden is the president of the US" as a "claim".  (OK, some people do dispute that particular "claim".  But no matter.)

This may take a while, but we can go a little at a time.  Let's start with this article.

https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=facpub

Back from 2003, this one clearly would not have anything to do with the Obama or Trump administrations, but we'll get there eventually.

Apart from the wealth of information contained in the article, one might note the quote from then vice-President Dick Cheney, in which he states that foreigners who enter the United States illegally and conduct terrorist operations killing thousands of innocent Americans, do not deserve the "guarantees" and "safeguards" that would apply to American citizens in the "normal judicial process".

Well that certainly shows that I had a serious misunderstanding of the judicial process.  I thought the function thereof was to determine who were and who were not the criminals.  So how do you know whether someone conducted a terrorist operation killing thousands of Americans?  I thought you had a trial, and a prosecution presented evidence, a defence disputed that evidence, and then a judge and/or jury would indicate whether they found the evidence sufficiently compelling to conclude that the person had indeed conducted such a terrorist operation.  In other words, you followed the "normal judicial process".

But apparently, some unspecified party has the ability to determine, outside of the normal judicial process, who has and who has not conducted terrorist operations, and who therefore is and is not entitled to the "guarantees" and "safeguards" of the normal judicial process.  The purpose of which is now unclear to me, since it seems that we have been able to determine the accused's innocent or guilt somehow outside of the normal judicial process, so why is there a need for a judicial process at all?  Does this apply to all kinds of crimes?  Why should murderers, kidnappers, or paedophiles enjoy the "guarantees" of "safeguards" of the judicial process?  If we can determine their guilt or innocence outside of the judicial process, well, just throw them into prison if they are guilty, and let them go if they are not.  Why do courts even exist?  Vice-President Cheney also does not seem to have explained why American citizens who have conducted terrorist operations should have such guarantees and safeguards, but foreigners should not; perhaps it is easier to determine whether or not foreigners are terrorists, than it is for Americans.  I'm not really sure.  Perhaps vice-President Cheney has explained all this somewhere else.

In the 1940s, the Americans were among the allies who opposed Churchill's plans to have summary executions for Nazi leaders.  Apparently the American government has become more omniscient; it could not then determine the guilt or innocence of Nazi leaders without a judicial process, but it can now determine the guilt or innocence of foreign accused terrorists.

But vice-President Cheney wisely applies his doctrine only to foreigners; Americans accused of terrorism must go through the normal judicial process.  This seems a bit odd, doesn't it?  Don't you think that Americans who support the government's position, that it should be able to deal with accused foreign terrorists outside of the normal judicial process, would also support the government's right to deal with them, outside of the normal judicial process?  Or do Americans only support the government's right to imprison or execute other people without trial?

More coming on the rights (or lack thereof) of dirty foreigners, in the eyes of not only the Bush administration, but the succeeding administrations.  But I'll give everyone a chance to have a look at this article first.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on January 27, 2022, 11:09:54 AM
Is it true Trump can wage war in Iran and he can be "by force of law" 4 more years as president?

Oh, God, who’s making that ridiculous claim?

I do not know who made this claim, but I think I have a guess . . .
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Luther on January 27, 2022, 11:14:36 AM
At this point, he should find it impossible to get delivery, much less hire a lawyer.

I suppose he could pay in advance.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on February 15, 2022, 02:51:21 AM
Quote
The Bengals can still win if Mike Pence has the courage.

I laughed when I read the story behind the above Tweet.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on March 31, 2023, 04:08:35 AM
Well, gosh...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-31/donald-trump-indictment-what-happens-next/102169848
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on December 27, 2023, 09:53:52 PM
Is this true? Has anybody met him, and can confirm it? Or is it just a character assassination?

Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on December 28, 2023, 04:03:06 AM
"Old men fart" shocker.

If Trump gets into power again, then his farts will be the very least of America's worries.  "When fascism comes to America, it will come  wrapped in the flag and waving the cross."
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on December 28, 2023, 08:55:38 AM
What is described here, is way beyond normal. This is Lord Meron of Nabol in his last days.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Zakalwe on December 29, 2023, 04:33:00 AM
What is described here, is way beyond normal.

Trump has been beyond normal for a long time. That he farts and soils himself is little more than another titillation in a festering pile of disgraces and outrages. The shocking this is that he still appeals to so many of his cult. Very dangerous times lie ahead for America if this monster grasps power again.


This is Lord Meron of Nabol in his last days.
I have no idea what any of that means.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Halcyon Dayz, FCD on December 29, 2023, 09:54:33 AM
I've seen people refer to him as Diaper Don for years.
Allegedly it is his bad diet that causes incontinence.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Allan F on December 29, 2023, 11:44:46 AM

This is Lord Meron of Nabol in his last days.
I have no idea what any of that means.

It's a reference to a book series by author Anne McCaffrey, the book named "Dragondrums", where a very hated despot is critically ill, and his chambers have to be cleaned by servants, and is described as being very nasty.
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Peter B on December 30, 2023, 05:50:20 PM
What is described here, is way beyond normal.

Trump has been beyond normal for a long time. That he farts and soils himself is little more than another titillation in a festering pile of disgraces and outrages. The shocking this is that he still appeals to so many of his cult. Very dangerous times lie ahead for America if this monster grasps power again.


This is Lord Meron of Nabol in his last days.
I have no idea what any of that means.

It just occurred to me that the popularity of the death penalty in the USA has normalised among Trump supporters the idea of its application to crimes other than those it's currently applied to...
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: jfb on January 02, 2024, 02:40:28 PM
"Old men fart" shocker.

If Trump gets into power again, then his farts will be the very least of America's worries.  "When fascism comes to America, it will come  wrapped in the flag and waving the cross."

Yeah, this is just petty.  I've seen a few of Meiselas' videos, and they've been of variable quality, but this is just ... stupid.  It's not the thing to focus on.  Nor the hair, nor the makeup, nor Melania's past career. 

Being a moderate Democrat and little-l liberal sucks.  I want to take a tire iron to everybody; MAGAts, progressives, pundits and commentators across the entire political spectrum, rank and file Republicans for being cowards, rank and file Democrats for being cowards, Nikki Haley for torpedoing her own campaign1, non-voters for being smug nitwits, social media addicts, just ... [garyoldmanscream]EVERYONE!!![/garyoldmanscream]. 

I hate that we always get distracted by petty bullshit like this. 


1. It was about slavery, Niks.  The only "states rights" the Confederacy cared about was the right to own slaves and to block admission of non-slave states into the Union.  This isn't difficult.  You aren't running for Governor of SC again, you're running for President for crap's sake. 
Title: Re: The Trump Presidency
Post by: Dalhousie on January 30, 2024, 10:30:52 PM
But to me, the kicker is that the current and previous two administrations have had a common policy, which is that foreigners (unless they have been lawfully admitted to the United States) have no rights, including the right to be alive.  A legal researcher for the Obama administration spelled its reasoning out pretty clearly.  The United States is at war with an unspecified enemy.  The entire world is a battlefield.  So if you are a non-American located on this battlefield, then you are a combatant.  And combatants may be killed.

Do you have a source for this claim?

The most obvious source in support of this "claim" would be the words and writings of the officials of the three administrations cited.

We're not in the days of Kennedy and Nixon, when assassination of a foreigner would be a covert operation.  They brag about it on television these days.  Calling this a "claim" is a bit like referring to "Joe Biden is the president of the US" as a "claim".  (OK, some people do dispute that particular "claim".  But no matter.)

This may take a while, but we can go a little at a time.  Let's start with this article.

https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=facpub

Back from 2003, this one clearly would not have anything to do with the Obama or Trump administrations, but we'll get there eventually.

Apart from the wealth of information contained in the article, one might note the quote from then vice-President Dick Cheney, in which he states that foreigners who enter the United States illegally and conduct terrorist operations killing thousands of innocent Americans, do not deserve the "guarantees" and "safeguards" that would apply to American citizens in the "normal judicial process".

Well that certainly shows that I had a serious misunderstanding of the judicial process.  I thought the function thereof was to determine who were and who were not the criminals.  So how do you know whether someone conducted a terrorist operation killing thousands of Americans?  I thought you had a trial, and a prosecution presented evidence, a defence disputed that evidence, and then a judge and/or jury would indicate whether they found the evidence sufficiently compelling to conclude that the person had indeed conducted such a terrorist operation.  In other words, you followed the "normal judicial process".

But apparently, some unspecified party has the ability to determine, outside of the normal judicial process, who has and who has not conducted terrorist operations, and who therefore is and is not entitled to the "guarantees" and "safeguards" of the normal judicial process.  The purpose of which is now unclear to me, since it seems that we have been able to determine the accused's innocent or guilt somehow outside of the normal judicial process, so why is there a need for a judicial process at all?  Does this apply to all kinds of crimes?  Why should murderers, kidnappers, or paedophiles enjoy the "guarantees" of "safeguards" of the judicial process?  If we can determine their guilt or innocence outside of the judicial process, well, just throw them into prison if they are guilty, and let them go if they are not.  Why do courts even exist?  Vice-President Cheney also does not seem to have explained why American citizens who have conducted terrorist operations should have such guarantees and safeguards, but foreigners should not; perhaps it is easier to determine whether or not foreigners are terrorists, than it is for Americans.  I'm not really sure.  Perhaps vice-President Cheney has explained all this somewhere else.

In the 1940s, the Americans were among the allies who opposed Churchill's plans to have summary executions for Nazi leaders.  Apparently the American government has become more omniscient; it could not then determine the guilt or innocence of Nazi leaders without a judicial process, but it can now determine the guilt or innocence of foreign accused terrorists.

But vice-President Cheney wisely applies his doctrine only to foreigners; Americans accused of terrorism must go through the normal judicial process.  This seems a bit odd, doesn't it?  Don't you think that Americans who support the government's position, that it should be able to deal with accused foreign terrorists outside of the normal judicial process, would also support the government's right to deal with them, outside of the normal judicial process?  Or do Americans only support the government's right to imprison or execute other people without trial?

More coming on the rights (or lack thereof) of dirty foreigners, in the eyes of not only the Bush administration, but the succeeding administrations.  But I'll give everyone a chance to have a look at this article first.

A very belated thank you.  As a non-American on the global battle field (and very occasional visitor to the US), I find this very disturbing.