Author Topic: The Trump Presidency  (Read 399284 times)

Offline smartcooky

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #60 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.
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline twik

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #61 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?

Offline gillianren

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #62 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.
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Offline nomuse

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #63 on: January 31, 2017, 09:30:29 AM »
A New Order?

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

Offline twik

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #64 on: January 31, 2017, 03:54:39 PM »
Along with a sense of proportion, of honour, of decency.

Offline Peter B

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #65 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.

Offline Glom

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #66 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.

Offline twik

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #67 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.

But nah, Hilary was the hawk.


Offline nomuse

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #68 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.)
« Last Edit: February 02, 2017, 12:14:21 AM by nomuse »

Offline Glom

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #69 on: February 02, 2017, 04:11:23 AM »
Suddenly Britain not looking so bad, maybe?

Offline twik

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #70 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.

Offline twik

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #71 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/

Offline nomuse

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #72 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.

Offline BazBear

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #73 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.".
"It's true you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl." - Mark Watney, protagonist of The Martian by Andy Weir

Offline Peter B

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Re: The Trump Presidency
« Reply #74 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.