Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
MOD OP EDIT: Please put general conversations about Trump here. Anything that is not exceptionally deserving of its own OP on this topic will be merged into this discussion. And let's keep things relatively polite. Thanks.
Comments (24161)
I am sorry Benkei, I don't know the answer to that question.
Quoting Benkei
I wish it were that simple but that is my cross to bear.
I refuse to think these are the only available options.
All this is not needed any more. These countries are on their feet, again. Now is it time to pull back and let the patients walk on their own. Therapy is not an eternal pact. It is supposed to be temporary and 70 year of therapy is plenty. America is like a nurse that is burnt out from the prolonged caring of patients who can walk. She needs to think of herself until she feels full again. This is Trump's vision. After that she will want to work on new patients.
Students work hard all year and many get burnt out by the summer. They get a vacation to recharge their batteries. Trump is leading America to its long needed vacation from world work, so the US is fresh to face new world challenges.
The Democrats do not wish to let the patients go, since to them it is about money and feeling a sense of control over others. They love dependency and using that as a leverage to manipulate for personal gain. This is the real reason Trump is being resisted with weekly scams. If the world and domestic patients leave therapy, the Democrat client list decreases. There are thousands of international lobbyists in Washington, lobbying based on the therapy status quo. This is big bucks for politicians as they sell out America under the old guise of post WW2, humanitarian need. Nobody wants that to change but the nurse needs a rest.
You're repeating a campaign slogan as if it bears some relation to reality. You realize that's just political marketing, right?
Pretty sure those who dislike Trump personally also find fault with his policies. So the two things are seen as being essentially related, with his proposed policies on (e.g.) immigration, tariffs, alliances etc. all being expressions of his deeply flawed character and ultimately designed for his personal enrichment. That's how I've seen it pitched at least.
Oh, and his willingness to lie about even the most trivial things is taken to be corrosive to our political system (it is), as is his constant attempt to undermine trust in the media.
Ideology is subjective. If it was objective, we would all infer and deduce the same conclusions. There would be one ideology. Accomplishments, on the other hand, are an objective measure. If I run the mile in 5 minutes this is not subjective or based on an opinion. It is what it is. It is a fact and not a subjective premise or conclusion.
The Democrats can't and don't argue against the facts of accomplishment; economy, since this will be noticed as being deceptive. If the official stop watch says 5 minute, and I argue 6 minutes, this is easy to see as being deceptive.
If your political approach is from a subjective angle, like being base on character or ideology, you are never be wrong no matter how deceptive you get, since there is no objective measure. You set the ruler; assumptions and premises, to favor you own opinion. Some will agree and some will not. This is not the same as the stop watch. Even if you hate me, 5 minutes is the fact.
The definition of character has to do with molding behavior based on morality; fixed set of underlying principles. If the left believe in relative morality, then character becomes subjective. Character can only become objective if we all followed the same rules. This is not the case. Fake news is not based on character using traditional morals.
I prefer looking at accomplishments and disregarding quirks in personality, since only the former is objective and scientific. Trump has quirk that can make me laugh as well as make me cringe. I am not perfect, so I may react but I do not judge based only on this. Instead he gets things done even while having to carry a herd of jackals in his back. That is not easy to do by any objective measure.
I have my doubts you even know what irony is.
Quoting raza
Were you awake during the 2016 election? Comey basically handed the presidency to Trump on a silver platter. He was not worried about compromising his relationship with Clinton. In fact Trump was all pro Comey, until it became clear Comey would not be another Trump yes-man.
Do you have any evidence at all to support any of your speculations? Have you, yourself, seen this evidence? All that quibbling you did over evidence suddenly disappears when it comes to you spinning your fantasies.
I don't respect conspiracy nuts; they are the lowest of the low on the intellectual ladder; the very bottom rung. You have zero creditably with me, and I don't plan on wasting a bunch of time fact checking your nonsense.
The Democrat party morality, accepts some of the seven deadly sins but not others. Character is not one thing for all. The Democrats hate greed, but can accept lust. Gluttony can go both ways, with being overweight not a sin even of due to too much eating, but big gulp drinks are taboo. Bill Clinton can have babes on the side but he can;t start a successful business and maintain character. Character is not a good way to go, if you consider yourself objective.
The Democrats are full of wrath, which shows lack of character in a traditional sense. But they may define wrath as not a deadly sin that can define lack of character, Character is too easy to scam so a scientist will not go there, even if half the people will agree.
Part of the list of deadly sins in the Democrat party morality are; name calling, greed, independent thinking, not towing the party line, and liking anything about Trump. Trump likes himself, he has money, he name calls, he is not a democrat, so he cannot have character by this subjective list.
Religious morality is the epitome of relative subjective morality.
Religious morality is based on the needs of the group, not the needs of the individual. It was developed before science, medicine and social programs. It was designed to minimize resources usage and maximize the group, since the group was poor and subject to various dangers. In that respect Character, was based on serving the group.
Look at the ten commandments, in the light of helping the group get along. Adultery or stealing may help some individuals benefit, but the group is placed under stress. The man of character, in this group, avoids these things, even if he has times of weakness when we would like to steal a bottle of wine and visit his beautiful neighbor. The group trust is not broken. If he did these things, there is ripple affect that impacts neighbors and families, some of which never heal.
In the "me" generations, the group became secondary, so these rules make less sense. However, the negative result of immorality, in the classic sense, needs to be supported by $trillions in social spending to mops up the mess. With the mess mopped up, we can create the illusion this is just as good. Old time morality did not need a mop, allowing even poor cultures to move forward.
If we go back to Trump, say Trump decides to cut back on the social mop. This will result in more of the mess, being left behind. This is the fear of the Democrats since the mess may lead to questing where it is coming from instead of why is ti not being removed. Then one would ask how can we reverse this mess making, without money? Traditional morality is one way.
By trolling do you mean logic and truth or propaganda slinging using emotional inductions? This is subjective based on any particular moral position. It is better to stick with facts.
I'm not sure anything meaningful can be said when one brings up an idealized driven concept of having the right character or morals for some job or position. And so ad hominems and straw manning ensue.
This I have to agree with. I was very surprised even shocked that the announcement that the investigation would be re-opened came three days before the election, affecting the result. Is this not illegal? It should be. I expected Hilary Clinton to win. President Trump expected her to win, it is evident from his 'victory' speech. It's sad, in a way.
Apparently we all know how bad President Donald Trump is. Let's see his list of achievements:
See the small orange slice for "Promise Broken" in this Trump-O-Meter chart?
That's pretty good by any standards. And "stalled" what does that mean, that America still is a Democratic country? Stalled in congress obviously.
Or is USA not a Democracy since Russia put in the president it wanted?
Also this:
Fareed says Trump is right:
And This
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/05/harvard_study_extraordinary_media_bias_against_trump.html
No, but against protocol, which is why the IG report criticised Comey.
Hi Michael, true, but as a dyed in the wool idealist I really think this was not fair. Not that I am saying things would be better with Mrs. Clinton in the driving seat. I mean how would she handle North Korea: "we came we saw he died (chuckle)"??
You asserted religious morality as being in line with the objective, but there is no objectivity to it, as it is all based on one's faith in their choosen religion. Hench religious morality is relative and subjective. It does not rest on an objective foundation, it rest in which religious beliefs you decide to put your faith in. That is relative subjectivity.
In fact I would argue that in general the deeper one's faith in their choosen religion the less able they are to be morally objective. Just take the LGBT community for example, deeply religious people have had a much harder time accepting them, despite the fact there is no objective evidence at all that the LGBT community is at all harmful to society.
And for those who are more considered with taxpayer spending than the lives of immigrants escaping abuse and gangs, "family case management cost the government $36 a day per family versus between $5-$7 per adult for intensive supervision. That compares to $319 per-person for a family detention center bed."
Again and again, the actions of this administration demonstrate that they view the lives of non-white immigrants as subhuman.
I'd love to watch you make that argument to the women he grabbed by the pussy.
Is that what I said?
I'm not entirely sure if this is just another ad hominem or not, despite me agreeing with it to some degree. I mean, Trump is just a puppet in all this and detracts to the fact that everything that's happening under his watch is all in alignment with what the Republicans have for a long time wished to accomplish.
Well, you are wrong.
Quoting tim wood
You really couldn't figure out what I was referencing there?
The guy can't speak proper English. He speaks American, according to Republicans. Anyway, I think there is a deep sense of cynicism apparent in saying Trump is a Russian tool. I say this because the amount of exposure that you get from running for president would almost certainly lead to such things being exposed.
Quoting tim wood
I do think he has some traits of antisocial personality disorder, along with a strong sense of narcissism. I don't think its psychopathy, bona fide. I've actually begun to think that most rational psychopaths, who value hiding their secret more than anything, would actually be dissuaded from running for such positions of power and influence.
Quoting tim wood
You might want to read up on the modus operandi of the Russian intelligence and counter intelligence agencies, like the FSB and so on.
Kompromat is one of the oldest FSB tool. At the beginning, I thought too that there simply couldnt be any truth to the Russian connection story, that at most, it profited Putin enormously to both have Trump in the WH and giving the impression he had put him there. Even if there had never been any collusion, Putin still stood to win by even just making a show of trying to meddle in the US affairs.
But the more everything goes, the more you have to accept that Trump is, one way or another, Putin's puppet. Directly or indirectly. Doesnt matter really, if the FSB has drawers full of pictures of Trump with russians ballerinas and bears, in the end, Trump has done absolutely everything Putin would have asked him to do anyway, had he anything sallacious on him. Assad, the G6+1, the trade wars, legitimizing the white nationalist base, shutting down trade in Asia, focusing solely on China and NK...
Yeah, I don't want to go down that conspiracy road. I just think it's ludicrous that Trump being Putin's favorite, as in many ways Bush was, is complementing his way of envisioning the current world order. It just smacks of the shit you hear from the crazy Alex Jones and other conservative news outlets.
In fact, I don't think I could live in the US if that were actually the case. So, yeah, here's me having high hopes for what Mueller discovers.
They simply dont get the girls. And very often, they just dont go the way you thought they would. Before tnis current trade war, and if we omit the Chinese, which have been economically belligerent for a while now, the latest venture the US embarked on was against Brazil, in 2016.
Yeah, shocker, guess most of you didnt know. I didnt either before yesterday.
So, since "trade wars are easy", I guess we didnt hear about the Brazil-US conflict because the Americans must have wiped the floor with the Brazilians. Right?
No. Turns out, trade wars arent necessarily easy. A trade war isnt a trade deal. Just because you can, in construction and real estate, for example, if you are much richer then your partners, just renege on your deal, or abuse the disproportion of power, doesnt mean you can do the same in a trade war. In a dematerialized world like ours, a simple signature from a government official, or even the threat of such a signature, can send vast economic backlash in distant countries. As such, the brazilian government floated the idea that they would simply stop all vetting processes for american pharmaceutical products. All holding patent requests from american pharmaceutical firms would be denied, and other countries companies would be allowed to pick up on them.
That sent the pharma lobby in Washington, one of the biggest ones out there, completely berserk. And so the Brazilian-US war never really flared.
This is what the Canadian government is now thinking about doing. And none, absolutely none of this, was necessary. This one is 100% on you, guys.
It isn't as bad as you think it is. In many cases the majority of the goods needed are supplied by neighboring partners or the tariffs aren't that destructive to the trade relations of both partners. Alot of this is just posturing and false signaling on both ends. Canada or the US wont suffer any economics losses due to their trade dispute. However, there is some substance to what's going on between China and the US. It's more of a concern with dealing with mercantilist economies.
I don't regard you as my measure.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/the-list-europe-migrant-bodycount?CMP=fb_gu
So did Obama. He just handed the children over to human traffickers.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-obama-administration-children-human-traffickers/
I do not think that a policy change can be equated to the above. The policy of the Vietnam war, for example, got a lot of people killed, but I do not think that could be called an attempt to "to willingly and gratuitously harm".
Any policy, for example the invasion of Iraq, will hurt people, but if you want to call it gratuitous that is not correct. The attempt is once again made to link policy change to monstrous personality, well if you admit that this is what you are doing, that's fine. I don't think all people will accept that link.
When the internet first started to go public, trolling meant something different from what it does now. Trolling was closer to a type of fishing, where you use a net or hook to troll for fish. The fish were analogous to new people visiting a web site. A hook or net was thrown into the water to catch these fish; new visitors, so they would stay on. The hook or net was often something controversial that would get people to respond and debate. The topic of Donald Trump is a good old fashion trolling net. The responses of the caught fish are predictable, based on political affiliation.
The term troll changed meaning, somewhere along the line. Now a troll is more like a mythological figure that lives under a bridge; the net. It can also be analogous to a Green Peace activists who treys to scare or diverts fish away from the trolling net. Some troll by destructive means, such as targeting certain people or by many ganging up against one. I do not do that. I do this by describing the holes the net, so some fish can escape. I don't do this to hurt the click through numbers of a web site. I do it more to help emotional thinkers approach their memory from the rational side. I try to keep the dolphins out of the tuna net, but not hurt tuna count of the fishermen.
For example, attacking the character of Donald Trump would fine, if there was a single set of criteria for defining character. But since character is based on a system of morality, and morality for many, is considered relative, modern character is subjective. Yet people act as though this is objective. This is a good old fashion trolling boat, but it never leads to understanding.
It is interesting how making morality relative, left wing thinkers, political leaders are now able to run a magic trick, that few people seem to see through. Relative morality is like a magnetic near a compass, where true north can be moved to where you want it to be. This fools people.
For example, many on the left, they feel some people have the moral right to break the law; illegal immigrants. Being lawful is a character flaw. This is heart felt and may have a inner logic, but it is really due to the hidden magnet that fools the audience to justify what it thinks it sees. The tuna will stay in the net but the dolphin will see the holes.
That you were wrong about your interpretations of my words. We don't need a bunch of children being caged to learn that it is a bad thing, we knew that well enough before hand.
Let's see you said your measure was evidence of which you have provided none, at all, for any of your assertions. In fact the only thing you provided evidence of is your hypocrisy.
That wasn't for the trolling, that was for him suggesting by PM that I was a fascist, Nazi and psychopathic idiot for giving him a warning. (And he said he was leaving anyway.) But again, we're off-topic, so speaking of fascist, Nazi, psychopathic idiots, back to Donald Trump.
Yes, she was being either stupid and/or crass. Don't know enough about her to know which or what combination. I would tend to gravitate towards the former though. I would like to think she is not as viciously anti-immigrant as some others in the administration.
Character, like morality, is based on the needs of the group, not the needs of the individual. If you misunderstand this, you will be vulnerable to the magic trick used to fool people. This misunderstanding is part of the magnet that fools moral compasses. If the compass is induced to point west, and one is not aware, they will think they are right, because they can't see the trick, and all seems to be kosher. One can act immoral, on good faith, due to being fooled by the trick.
Religious morality is about the team. Read the ten commandments and for the sake of argument, think in terms of the needs of a group. To maximize the group, you need to keep it whole, without division, and without a lot of added expensive that can add stress or resentment. That is an objective criteria. It is based on ancient times when resources were scarce and armies roamed the earth to conquer. The team needed to work together and be efficient. It was objective to harsh reality.
Character is not an individual sport based on individual needs, especially if this divides the team and adds a lot of extra social expenses. The LGBTQ community divides the team by its in your face style. I don't wish to see that. If these choices were discrete, I would not care. The man of character is not asking for special favors, since this will also divide the team. It is similar to stealing like a used car salesman. You may get your way, by shaming or conning others, but resentment will soon occur and the team will divide. This is not character. That is self serving and will divide the team, as you have indicated.
Trump tries to help everyone via the economy and via national security. These two action are for the team and not just for one group he is trying to hijack from the larger team. Make America Great Again is about the entire team called America.
Immoral behavior will attempt to undermine the group, called America, for personal gain. If you break into someone's house you are committing a crime against someone. Illegal immigration, which breaks into another country's house, is not good for the team. One can see the extra added social expenses needed to deal with this immorality. If you encourage that, one is not moral. A man of character tries to restore the team. Fake news is not moral since fake news is not truth, but gossip that can undermine the objectivity needed for character.
The Democrats have a moral compass, but it is only for their own team, which they have hijacked from the larger team. A smaller divided out sub-team makes character, relative to the needs the smaller team and not the larger team. The Ten commandment has no taboos on differences of opinion. This does not have to divide the team if the 10 basics are followed.
She doesn't care about your criticism of her or her jacket.
Ant-ILLEGAL-immigration. Funny how that slips by.
You are are giant hypocrite.
You claim your subjective morally is based on being a team player, but yet exclude Dems and the LGBT community from your team. That is not being a team, all you are doing is egotistically judging people who don't fit into you narrow and very subjective views. The only team you are playing for is your own, and the notion that Trump is trying to help everyone shows a great lack of insight.
Democrats are not your enemy. You claim to be a team player but have these senseless subjective divisions. It is completely backwards.
Quoting wellwisher
Your own warped views are just that yours. Personally, I think your views are disgusting and you are clearly a judgmental homophobe.
Comparing illegal immigrants to rapists just marks you as a racist/xenophobic moron.
You did that. I compared a rapist with a boyfriend. It is how it is written.
And, by the way, many races of people are legal immigrants. Am I against legal immigration? No.
You moron.
Your contribution of falsely accusing someone of racism is of substance then?
I'm not going to play the time wasting game with you. You're obviously a xenophobe to make that comparison. I'd guess racism plays a part in your hatred, but yes, I don't know that for sure. It's just an educated guess.
An education might be a good idea for you.
I don't agree with that actually, but there is an element amongst right wingers whose rhetoric towards illegal immigrants needs to be combated with full force. Republicans is too broad a brush.
Don't be such a cry baby.
No, you didn’t.
I’m not a victim merely for repeating what you assumed me to be.
The topic of racism was not introduced by me. I was merely commenting on what was introduced.
Is that not how this works?
No, you won't be considered a racist and / or xenophobe for considering borders important my little snowflake (I'll bet everyone here does consider them important, I know I do), you will be marked as a racist and / or xenophobe though for comparing illegal immigrants to rapists, which you did do while contrasting rapists vs. boyfriends and legal vs. illegal immigrants.
Now let's see if you can work that out and respond to it without another self-pitying strawman / distraction.
Someone cannot be reasonably or rationally considered to be racist, in the context of an immigration discussion, if that same someone welcomes any race to legally immigrate.
However it is your thing, if you so desire, to be irrational and unreasonable.
Perhaps you are feeling a bit hurt.
It’s up to you. You be whatever you want to be.
But your nonsense is classic of today.
You made that claim after I rightly pointed out that you would be marked as a racist / xenophobe for comparing illegal immigrants to rapists. Which you will be. Folks aren't just going to bow down and eat up your rhetoric like it's doggie kibble. You're going to get it thrown back in your face.
Typical tactics of the Laura Ingraham / Sean Hannnity / Anne Coulter style dumb-down-right. Stoke irrational hatred of a minority group with suggestive rhetoric and when someone suggests that might have something to do with the minority group's race, start crying about how unjust they've been to you. Follow that up with a random strawman of your pleasing.
A victim has to be a victim of something, right?
I may have some opinions about your behavior. Do you care that I may do?
I accept you're not a racist if you say so. I'm just commenting on the effect of your words, and how they're likely to be responded to. If you can't stand the heat, don't start a fire.
Border jumpers know they may risk negative legal consequences. They KNOW this.
They KNOW it is legally wrong.
From many, many legal immigrant’s point of view, border jumping is wrong particularly as it negatively impacts on the legal immigrant.
I've never claimed border jumping is right (in general I would say it's not), but we can all play this game. Let's see, sexually abusing children is wrong and so is parking illegally, both have negative legal consequences, which are known. Therefore bad parkers are like pedophiles.
See? The analogy is offensive / inappropriate not because of a literal error in some comparable characteristic between the two situations, but because of its rhetorical / emotive content.
On the subject of pedophiles and child trafficking and as it may relate to separating, albeit briefly (if family relationships can be ascertained as a consequence of investigation), adults from children:
Tragically there is a large market for young children for pedophile networks. The most desirable kids toward this end are undocumented. This is so that once they are finished with, served their pupose, they are most easily disappeared.
This is a great cover for pedophiles. No evidence.
Many times adults abduct children and then pretend they are their parents.
Because the adults also have no documents it becomes wise, in order to protect these kids, to separate them and investigate these people.
No documents often means it is very difficult to ascertain relationships.
You are making your racism very clear.
Interesting article. Thanks.
It is nothing more than your belief system.
I can't, and won't bother to try to, dissuade a christian from being a christian and I am equally disinterested in attempting to dissuade you from your belief system.
Quoting Jeremiah
Same reply for you;
It is nothing more than your belief system.
I can't, and won't bother to try to, dissuade a christian from being a christian and I am equally disinterested in attempting to dissuade you from your belief system
For all I know they could be conducting such tests.
Regardless, vetting these people separately from the children they happen to be caught with has been going on for years.
A team player does not bring their personal business to the game. They do not gossip and try to divide the team. Identity politics divides the team. If two strangers met at a party and kept to neutral topics they may get along. If they bring up politics, such as pro and anti Trump, they may start to argue and lose their rapport. The left tries to induce and inject differences that divide people. They do not seek common culture.
Diversity creates team problems based on induced ignorance. If a group separates itself from the main herd, to be more distinct, members of the larger herd lose touch with them, and no longer know them as well as before. Strangers will induce a different emotion than will family. Diversity may build the self esteem of some via the smaller group, but this also makes walls with the larger team.
It would take all my time to learn the ways of every diversity group, such as 36 different sexes, to where I am sufficiently familiar with all, to overcome my ignorance and my fear of the unknown. The team player understands these walls is not very efficient, He does not separate himself by a wall, thereby saving others a lot of extra work and/or misunderstanding. If we all are on one team without walls we are family and not just neighbors.
The Jews, for example, based on their religion, are the chosen people. As such, they need to follow a certain strict path to satisfy the pact. This path will separate them from others. This builds a wall between them and others, where one is not allowed to fully exit or enter, unless you know the secret handshake.
This creates a wall of unknown, which can impact different people, in different ways, on both sides of the wall. It makes people in the opposites side feel like strangers or acquaintances instead of family; Arab world. Diversity builds walls of misunderstanding, that causes strangers to appear from family, so we are not all on one team. If the LBGT community stopped being its own separate island, with its in your face exhibition style, that is shocking to some, this would lower the wall of the unknowns. It come down to being an individual apart from smaller groups so there are less walls to separate us.
I am not pro-wall of diversity, because it is too much work for me to overcome all the walls others place to keep me out. I try to knock down the walls, so we can see each other. But many people have been conditioned to needs these walls, due to induced fears caused by the left for political gain.
Whom is the moral authority that we should be consulting on this accommodation? :chin:
Adolescent, boring goon-speak, essentially.
Although there is no “LGBT community”, A handful of loud activists who claim to speak, without being voted to do so via some democratic selection process by a nation or world of gay people etc, are not of a so-called whole community.
I said you are racist due to your racist comments.
I’ve answered your questions on this now.
In order to dissuade someone, you first have to defend your arguments and show why ours are poorly reasoned. You haven't done either.
I'd wager that you would never consider Norwegian, or French, British immigrants to be analogous to "rapists". Jeremiah is right, you're just a racist.
Just be that.
Why bother?
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Wow, that is a big bucket of crazy.
I want to make this very clear, I do not consider you my intellectual equal and I do not care about your backwards take on "morality. Diversity makes us stronger and what you are aruging for is mobocracy.
Similarly were then the same kind of people feeling the urge to defend US failing policy, then the decision to go to war and reurgitating the talking points of the jingoistic media (at that time). They had the need to rally behind their president and his ruinous decisions (just as now with Trump). The President simply could not make any bad decisions, and it was their responsibility to defend their president even on the earlier forum (old PF).
At least it's soothing to know that the Trump lovers will dissappear in the long run just like those Dubya lovers. Say the time when the next Right Wing Messiah comes, who with hindsight can tell the obvious truth about Trump's administration.
The actual “problem”, seems to me, to be YOUR problem. Therefore it is your problem to solve. Your projection of your problem is merely cast in my direction.
The advent of this problem of yours is the immediate jump you made as a consequence of a default reflex. Certain words I used appears to have triggered this reflex.
The reflex thus triggered by certain words created a mis-ordering of the words. The reflex changed their order.
I initially felt required (in order to try to help you, perhaps, consider this default reflex), work backwards as a consequence of your reflexive jump.
Working backwards may look to a default-reflex-pattern (what you manifested as in that moment) as my being defensive.
But this wasn’t my motivation.
The “reflexive jump” created a chasm within which I attempted to fill, for you, with my explanation.
If you were not so default inclined this is not something I would probably have not needed to attempt to do.
It appears that in essence “you” are defending your default reflex. (“You” still manifesting AS that default reflex).
A default reflex will not inspect itself. The “problem” you face, but seemingly choose not to, is one of identification (you as it) WITH the reflex.
The resolution to such a problem is to not identify AS the default reflex. This, therefore, is a problem of emotion.
You are either one with emotions or you are manifesting AS any particular emotion.
The actual processes at the border are the same now as they have been for years.
You made some racist remarks, live up to your error and stop trying to blame others for your mistakes.
Do you even know what the Zero Tolerance policy is?
An outright lie. The Trump administration changed the policy on January 25th 2018.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/white-house-framework-immigration-reform-border-security/
Were you feeling feeling irate or emotional when typing that response?
There's actually been some debate over this, given Robert De Niro's "Fuck Trump" comment at the Tony's, or most recently, the owner of a small restaurant in Virginia politely asking Sarah Sanders to leave her restaurant.
Personally, when facing an administration that separates families, places children in cages, and doesn't bother placing a systematic process for reuniting them, calls immigrants "rapists", "invaders" and an "infestation", amongst a deluge of other Naziesque comments and actions, then I'm not really interested in using civil language or politely engaging in those who defend or support them. Fuck 'em. Oppression thrives best against silence and civility.
The processes of vetting adults and children who are caught crossing illegally by temporarily separating them in order to do this have not changed. Remember? This has been the supposed issue the media and opposition have been attacking
Sure, other proposals have been adopted or are proposed to be adopted going forward (some being prospective, not retroactive, according to that document). It is hardly controversial that a new administration makes changes in how they administrate.
Now in that document you presented it does not contain those words “zero tolerance”.
As I stated. Trump’s political words.
I want to agree with you, and I do to an extent, but I also tend to feel that being philosophical in the face of the racism, xenophobia and / or general scumbaggery, lies and trolling of some of the Trump crowd (and I'm not aiming this at anyone specific in this discussion) is a dominated strategy and often tends to result in more of the same. Kind of like when faced with a barking dog you might have to bark back before you get things under control. Once they are then maybe dialogue is possible, but as I said before the kind of dangerous and demeaning rhetoric the Trump crowd regularly employs needs to be met with full force, and that won't always look very philosophical partly simply because it's in the political domain. And the futility of trying to be philosophical with someone who is being purely political was demonstrated earlier when reasonable responses to tom's off-topic distractions led to only more of the same. That's my take for now anyway. I'm open to being corrected.
No-one was banned directly due to this discussion and no-one will get banned for political views that are not very obviously racist or anti-semitic etc. tom got banned for stuff that happened afterwards.
Didn't mean to imply anything by that comment. I'm just enjoying the show.
Quoting René Descartes
Quoting raza
The zero-tolerance show did change things; illegal border crossers were prosecuted under criminal law, whereas previously this was dealt with under civil law. Minors cannot be criminally prosecuted, so the separation caused them to end up in different departments that don't communicate with each other (children with HHS).
ICE, responsible for the civil law approach, as a rule did not separate families with very young children due to the children's dependency on their parents. Now, children younger than five years old were separated from their parents some of them even unable to talk, that suggests ages below 3 and if my daughter is anything to go by: below 2 years old. I find it incredibly difficult to wrap my head around how people consider this morally acceptable; treating babies and toddlers as a means to deter illegal immigration.
Even if it were morally acceptable, there's no evidence criminal prosecution is effective. In fact, it was standard practise to follow the civil law route as it was more effective than criminal prosecution (which has a much higher burden of proof). The whole criminal court system was swamped as a result of the new policy, further underlining the change in policy was ill considered.
Absolutely agree for 99% of discussions here but not necessarily for this one. Refer you again to the OP.
[Cross posted. OK, you made some good points, for sure.]
You are being dramatic and emotional yourself. The worst burn I could feel here is a form banning, somehow I think I'll live.
There are times to set emotions aside and there are times not to, such as in moral concerns which requires the use of both. This is an emotional topic and if you think reason alone will lead you to truth here then you are mistaken. Also I would like to point out since this is text communication here then you are adding some of the emotion that you are reading. That is the nature of the written word.
Quoting Baden
I agree with both of you. Of course, we don't want this become a poo storm. There is a place for all that poo and that's the Shoutbox .
This was mostly meant to have fun at Trump. I'm not going to force anyone to say or not say anything, as that's not my job, and I accept everyone's opinion here. We don't want to be going too far into any extremes which may be offensive. Of course, I wrote an OP that was open to almost any discussion, but these must still conform to the site guidelines.
This isn't meant to be philosophical, it was just meant to loosely be a discussion about Trump or the whitehouse or anything else interesting that one would like to talk about. I'm fine with crazy conversations as long as they are not against the site guidelines.
I trust the moderators with any decisions they take regarding this discussion. Now back to Trump.
Then don't worry, as I can be an ass and not become consumed in the horrible flames of emotional blurriness. Personally, I think you are underestimating my skills to do both at the same time.
With the disasterous actions of Trump, Trump surely is in the center here. Trump isn't at all interested in an actual effective and functioning immigration policy and border control, he is ONLY interested how his actions are seen with his die-hard followers. It's not policy, it's only political rhetoric, which makes it's such disasterous "policy". As if the US government is controlled by tweets and speeches in rallies. Trump desperately wants the attention of his minority of supporters and what better is to anger his opposition with remarks as now with the latest:
"We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country. When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came."
Yeah, no cumbersome bureaucracy.
Hell with the "due process".
It fits extremely well the thinking of idiots that are Trump supporters, who haven't the clue or simply don't care at all how governments work. And Trump doesn't care or likely is incapable of understanding that implementing a tougher immigration policy in a democracy simply doesn't go like this.
Main objective with this policy is the shock value, to get the democrats to be up in arms and to create the image as if Trump would be fighting hard illegal immigration with his supporters. He cannot just come up with a tougher immigration policy that would be tolerated by the opposition (and likely would be something similar to Obama), he has to create a scandal, an uproar about it. Of course the reality is that this policy just creates a) a PR disaster, b) slight chaos to the whole process and c) likely demoralizes immigration officials. But all those things aren't at all important to Trump.
One really shouldn't treat Trump's remarks as if they would be policy openings of a normal functioning administration.
*despair*
Trump goes back to lying about separating families, something which now seems like he and his goons actually may have planned as a way to discourage asylum seekers. And it is working as desperate parents are abandoning their hope of asylum for hope of getting their kids back faster. While on Twitter Trump advocates for denying these people due process of the law altogether.
Somehow, I just don't think the topic of being cordial with each is the pressing matter here. This is not about polarization, this is not about Dem or Rep, or about the Left or Right, if you stand with Trump on this one then you are standing with evil, it is that simple.
This is the passage on our State of Liberty:
We are suppose to be a beacon of hope, but Trump has turned us into child snatchers.
http://thehill.com/latino/393856-migrants-told-theyll-be-reunited-with-children-if-they-sign-voluntary-deportation
Coercion using child hostages.
Oh I am doing "philosophy" as well. :wink:
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
Not at all what I was talking about. What I meant was that I don't need you notes on person to person communicate. I have tons of professional training and experience in that area already. You are not telling me anything I have not already considered. You gave your take, I listened to it, and at that point you were just beating a dead horse. I can only assume that you keep repeating these sentiments because you assume your position in this matter is correct and I am need of your guidance. That is not the case.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
That was a general statement, and not targeted at you, which is why I didn't reference you or quote you in that post.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
That sentence you just quoted refers to this specific aspect of child separation and not immigration as a whole. Just read a little closer, "if you stand with Trump on this one." You are seeing what you want to see, and you are reading too fast.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
I won't say reason altogether, but when it comes to the matter of their racism, well they won't be racist if they were being reasonable about it. Unless you are trying to argue that racism is a rational position? So I am not really sure what you point was here. I think you have a habit of reading things without full consideration of the context in which they are presented.
Quoting Mr Phil O'Sophy
Well, rest assured I am also quite calm in writing this and everything else I have written. I am fully aware I am a troll and have already admitted to be one. If you had read back a ways in the thread you would have noticed that. Personally, I think being a bit trollish at certain times is more effective and honestly you have not offered any evidence whatsoever to prove otherwise. You have a notion that your way is better, but really that is just an opinion.
Here is what I know from experience. Hardcore bigotry is not a result of reason, it is a result of emotions, as such trying to reason with them in that respects (read the words there and don't drag it out of context) is inefficient. Their position is founded in an emotional base and that is what they will understand and response the most to; however, when prejudice is ingrained deeply it is unlikely the efforts of a stranger will do much to dislodge it. What is important is to draw out their irrational position so that other people can see the many flaws, as the goal is not to change the hardcore, it is to display their hatred and ignorance, then set a disproving atmosphere of such behavior.
Also I fully admit to being intolerant of racism, because it is actually evil and destructive. I am also intolerant of child abuse and destroying families.
It's the bigness...
It is not likely the federal judge will grant a ruling to reverse Flores, and once more the Republican Congress is moving like molasses on immigration reform.
It is a logistical nightmare, because Trump and his goons are clueless idiots.
Of course anyone is free to say what they like, however we are dealing with two languages here: the insulting, brash language, and the more formal one. Speaking different languages to each other is confusing and frustrating.
So here is my take: Every President has good and bad in them. There is the matter of character, but I believe that is a moot point in the current line of the last 20 presidents or so. I mean they have all done some good. And they have had some serious character flaws.
Then there is the matter of policy. As long as it is in line with the law of the land, and fulfils campaign promises, then it is to be admired. The election process may have been faulty, but here we are. By the way much of President Trump's promises are being blocked by Congress. Is this good or bad? Maybe it is democracy in action. Or just that people cannot agree. That does not mean the other side is evil, does it?
To paraphrase the Bible - "can anything good come out of Washington?" in the present administration? Yes I think it can. Some of it may be damaging, but all policies are damaging. For example the lack of universal health care will result in the deaths of some people. Now are we to call anyone who blocks universal health care a 'murderer'? Some people are used to stating their case in this way, I am not.
Policies give life, policies kill. Policies separate families, start wars, end wars and much more.
So criticize the policy.
If President Trump opened the borders there would be another rash of hysterical criticism that he is destroying the country. Dammed if you do or don’t.
Which is a fine dinner but a poor breakfast. Do we make a world of progression or procession?
Donald Trump just gloated on Twitter that Democrat Joe Crowley, who has been a representative of NY since 1999, lost the Democratic primary tonight. What he failed to realize, however, was that Crowley lost to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist. "Clueless idiot" seems like an apt epithet for Trump, just given the last 45 minutes.
Yeah, and under the watch of every previous administration. Did you just wake up a little bit?
What did you think Hillary Clinton was going to carry on with?
And it is not as if Mexican governments have not been corrupt, along with so many other South American governments.
There is a two part solution to the illegal immigration problem. Since the Democrats are pro-breaking the law in terms of illegal aliens; sanctuary cities, should all America Citizens being giving a get out of jail free card, that they can use to break the law?
For example, I don't wish to pay taxes next year I can use my get out of jail free card. It can be used for anything, except murder and violent crimes, and has no expiration. It makes no sense to give this to people who are not citizens, but not to the citizens.
The second part is to place an added tax on all Democrats to cover the costs. The Democrats want illegal immigration and they claim to have a big heart. They will not mind covering the entire tab. If those on the right are officially out of the debt loop due to illegal immigration, they may be more tolerant, especially if they have their get out go jail free card. Those on the right would then be treated like VIP illegals, and have benefits. Everyone is happy!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/27/north-korea-nuclear-reactor-upgrades-summit-pledges
"North Korea has continued to upgrade its only known nuclear reactor used to fuel its weapons program, satellite imagery has shown, despite ongoing negotiations with the US and a pledge to denuclearise.
Infrastructure improvements at the Yongbyon nuclear plant are “continuing at a rapid pace”, according to an analysis by monitoring group 38 North of commercial satellite images taken on 21 June."
You mean like Sherriff Arpaio who was actually convicted of a crime? Or all those others who benefited from Trump's political pardons?
No one here is asking for open borders which means, such an argument is nothing but a straw man.
It is also fully possible for a president to be a clueless idiot. They are human after all.
https://www.rightjournalism.com/mike-huckabee-hen-owner-stalked-sanders-to-restaurant-to-continue-harassment-video/
I did not see a Huckabee quote showing he wants to "mobilize violence against a small business owner".
Could you give me specific directions to this supposed statement?
And do you agree with the stand the restaurant took against Sanders?
I didn't say he stated that. If I wanted to say that I would have said it. You can intend to do something without stating that you intend to do it. So, obviously he's not going to brazenly state that he wants the administration's supporters to violently intimidate the restaurant owner, but clearly if he makes inflammatory claims and continues to ratchet up the rhetoric that will be the result. I'm sure you're not naive enough to think he doesn't know that. The restaurant has already been attacked by the way. A protester has been arrested after throwing manure at it, which in itself is not so serious, but I doubt it's going to end there given the continuing intimidation.
Quoting raza
Yes, I wouldn't expect my staff to serve someone who happily takes a massive salary to lie to Americans, belittle the press, avoid legitimate questions, and spin and defend the indefensible especially concerning the recent border issue, particularly if I had Latino staff. It would be humiliating for them to serve someone like Sanders. And I see it as generally legitimate that those who are complicit in this administration's bad behaviour be publicly ostracized. Again, as with Roseanne, these are rich elites with every advantage. This kind of protest hurts them far less than they hurt the public sphere with their behaviour. It's the least that can be done.
So, do you support the administration's concerted attack on this small business owner?
Good that he protester got arrested. Personal responsibility, and all that.
So yeah, Huckabee he did not say that. He also did not obviously "intend" to do what he did not say.
I support their right to complain.
So if you support rejecting customers who have different political positions to the restaurant staff and/or owner do you therefore support a right for a Christian baker not to bake a gay wedding cake?
And I say if you think he's not aware of the effect of his words, you are extremely naive about the nature of politicians. Maybe you just have a rosier view of them than me. That's your prerogative.
Quoting raza
Quoting Baden
I support rejecting customers on the basis of despicable behaviour of the type Sanders carries out as Press Secretary, and my support particularly concerns members of the elite. A regular couple who are gay or having a gay wedding obviously doesn't fall into that category. Having said that, I'm not sure there's much point in legally forcing Christian bakers to write messages on cakes that go against their conscience unless that would mean widespread unavailability of services to those affected. I would probably prefer that they be boycotted or the gay couple just move on to the next baker. It's a gray area for me at that level.
Actually, Sanders violated 5 CFR 2635.702 by complaining on her official Press Secretary account.
Quoting raza
None of this follows from the specifics of the Red Hen "incident" (which I use here very loosely). The owners of the Red Hen asked Sanders to leave because of the role she plays in the Trump Administration. She was not asked to leave because she is a Republican or a Conservative (I imagine the Red Hen, given its location in Virginia, serves a far amount of Republicans/Conservatives). This has nothing to do with mere "political positions". Sarah Sanders is an individual, not a member of a minority class, and this is not analogous to a Christian baker refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, on the basis of it being a gay wedding.
That said, this whole issue is a non-story. A powerful, wealthy, public facing woman, who works for an administration that separates families, was denied food at a restaurant. Boo-hoo. No one should care.
While I agree that people should not be rejected as customers based on their political ideology, it's not clear that Sanders was refused for being a Republican or holding conservative views, or something similar, in this case. It seems she was refused resulting from her personal choice to work for the Trump administration and help carry out and defend what many perceive as unjust and illegal policies. This is on a different basis entirely than discriminating based on a person's sexual orientation.
Personal responsibility as to how one sees his words. The "effect" of his words could be such that people are even more persuaded to vote against those other politicians who advocate, like Maxine Waters, to harass administration officials whilst they eat at restaurants.
So yeah, Huckabee is just doing what a political type does.
It is hardly a grey area, surely.
Prior to the civil rights protests of the 50's white business people were enforced legally to not serve black people.
Of course many wanted to serve black customers.
So to my mind it shows how dangerous it is to grant government the power to tell private business owners who they should serve and who they should not serve.
This maybe true. I suppose it could be looked into and judged accordingly. By the way, she didn't complain in her tweet but rather described what actually took place.
It has been others, such as her father, that complained of the treatment.
Maybe things are simpler for you because you have a tendency to conflate and ignore nuance. Sanders was refused on the basis of her behaviour not her group. No issue concerning discrimination. A person who doesn't want to write on a gay wedding cake may object due to their religious beliefs and there is an issue concerning discrimination but it's muddied by the fact that they may still want to serve gay customers but feel uncomfortable exclusively about the institution of gay marriage. Someone who refuses someone on the basis of their race is a racist and definitely engaging in discrimination, which shouldn't be allowed.
Pointing out that discrimination used to be embedded in law is about the worst argument you could possibly make for having anti-discrimination not embedded in law.
I don't actually care either. I agree with the progress of the civil rights movement to get government out of the way of private business's approach to their own customers where no violence is implicated or carried out.
If the Red Hen won't serve anybody they don't like then they should not have to be forced to. But the consequence can still be that their stance could be broadcast.
And anyway, after all, they probably wanted their stance broadcasted in order to show their non-support of Trump. Correct?
You just agreed with me about the gay wedding cake. You're all over the place, bro.
Quote me where I contradicted myself then. What I said above is a criticism of your argument not an expression of mine. I explained my position very clearly. This is just bad reading comprehension.
You cannot make having racist views a criminal offense. This is why government should not be granted more power than necessary in order to keep it's propensity for tyranny restrained.
No, but you can make racist actions, like refusing to hire someone because they're black or they're a woman, a criminal and / or civil offense. And we do do that in every developed country. But are you saying it's tyrannical to not allow businesses to refuse to hire someone on the basis of their race, gender, nationality etc? Do you think we would have a more harmonious and better society where it was legally acceptable for corporations to only hire white males, for example? If this is the case, then what you are really doing here is using the strawman of a tyrannical government to encourage a tyranny of business, which most likely would hurt the most vulnerable and cause massive social unrest. Why would you want that? Is it because of some misguided notion of "Freedom"? Or are you saying something more nuanced?
You agreed law should be kept out of a private person's, including the operation of their private business, right to discriminate as to who to serve as customers.
The "customers", in the gay wedding cake case, is the specific customer of which desired a gay wedding cake.
A gay person who just, say, wants a birthday cake, is a completely different customer to that of a person wanting a gay wedding cake.
The Christian baker merely has a discriminatory and different view than you, or me for that matter.
The Red Hen owner had a different view to Sanders. The Red Hen owner had a discriminatory view of Sanders.
This is all fine by me.
And it gets publicized with which other people have opinions and with which they may take such opinions to the ballot box.
All the while THE LAW keeps it's potentially tyrannical hands off of it, just as it should have prior to the civil rights era.
No, I didn't. I made some important distinctions and qualifications (including using words such as "gray area" "probably" and most importantly pointing out what I considered to be discrimination and not to be discrimination. You are just not reading my posts carefully enough.
E.g. Most obviously...
Quoting Baden
It would have to be quite provable, otherwise it is tyrannical. Beyond all doubt. Competence over race.
Like this?
Weren't you earlier defending the law's tyranny against illegal immigrants though?
What would have to be provable? That they were discriminating? Isn't that how things stand?
We should be free to discriminate for any reason we choose.
We are therefore more encouraged to be honest.
If we are more honest then we a more out of the closet.
If we are more out of the closet, we are less suppressed.
The more suppressed we feel the more we are likely to oppress others.
The more honest about how and why we think and feel about things means we are more likely to face what others think and feel about those things.
I say let the true racists reveal themselves. Allow them that freedom.
Otherwise they will more likely perform horrible deeds as a closet racist pretending not to be.
Engage them by welcoming them into conversation. They may change their mind at some point.
If they don't, who cares?
Ironically (maybe), this is apparently the sign in the window of The Red Hen:
"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend"
Do you think this philosophy was in play when they addressed Sarah Sanders?
Quoting raza
lol no dude.
People who don't like racism...
Quoting raza
I hope not.
Anyway, thank you for the poem.
Constitutional law. It is not under constitutional law to make a Christian baker not discriminate against a customer who wants from them a gay wedding cake.
And it is not "tyranny against immigrants".
The border defines the boundary which defines the country.
To start with, immigrants have immigrated via immigration protocols. Protocols of a country of which those who are not said immigrants are not citizens of that very same country.
Maybe you do not know what country you live in.
You hope they would not follow their own philosophy?
Right. Says a lot.
One rule for oneself but for others not.
How things stand where?
That's a good one. Can you write a poem about it?
Never mind, I will.
There was a young lad called Baden,
Who knew not what country he lived in,
raza called him out true,
And he got really blue,
So he grabbed Sarah Sanders and kissed him
(Little bit of poetic license there.)
You won't need to license it. It's already protected as being definitively yours by the mere fact others will not want to claim it as theirs.
(It is merely my humor, however cynical it may be. It's not necessarily a product of offence taken. I try never to blame another for any offence I choose to take.)
You don't have to apologize, I'm pretty sure that's an accurate assessment. ;)
You inspired me to start a new project...
The Almighty Trump ( A Rough Draft)
There was a man named Trump,
His skin was oddly orange and
his gut was overly plump.
His hair style stumped all
that viewed it, while his tongue
constantly forked into lies
as he played the back nine.
He decried any blame
that befell his name with
a finger always pointing,
without shame, to the other side.
His words laced with hate left
a venomous stain on the brain, which
made all those who listened a bit insane.
From this madness he grew his fandom
into a new brand of fanaticism.
Against the voice of the many,
he was put into the Oval Office
with the aid of Putin’s mysterious
ways. And history set the stage for him to
write his own presidential page.
He declared he would build a great wall,
for the benefit of all. So he latched onto
fear and hatched his apartheid but
to his dismay, many cried out in pain
as he rounded up children and
locked them all away.
Trump then called to all his sheepeople to follow
him to the pentacle of the steepest steeple.
Where he assured them to greatness they
would all fly, but when they got to top and jumped
out into the sky, all they did was fall down and die.
:grin:
I guess it was not as in line with our laws as some here argued.
The judge noted this:
You were right,I was wrong. You solved the illegal immigration issue and have made our nation's border all safe again. The policy has been removed and the nation borders are now open for freely crossing and the only bump in the road is getting caught and released within the USA.
Seeing as you know exactly how to handle such complex issues as illegal immigration, could you please provide the address of where 10k of the minors who crossed the border without a guardian, that were NOT separated from their parents could go?
That is what I kept trying to tell you. The rest of your post is of course hyperbolic nonsense.
Whew! I am glad we agree on something!
Now, where would you like to house the 10K unaccompanied minors?
They are not nonsense, they are kids without parents.
Now what?
Not sure what this has to do with the accompanied minors that were removed from their parents who were accompanying them. Why you would think that somehow justifies child separation I have no clue and you are very obviously engaging in a straw man. Do you understand that? Do you know what a straw man is? Do you understand that the presence of unaccompanied minors is not an excuse to make more unaccompanied minors?
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
How about the lazy Republican congress doesn't take a break, and they don't take a recess until the job is done? Could we start there maybe?
One only has to look at the campaign against Obama by none less than the Clinton Campaign to see how undeserved it was. Or was it.
" A village in Kenya is missing and Idiot" Remember that one?
One does not have to be nice to be right. Trump has done and said many things which demonstrates he is on the lower end of the intelligence scale and his lack of experience is well known; as such, he is a clueless idiot. It is a fitting description and the fact that you find it crude has less to do with "philosophy" and more to do with you personally. Philosophy is the love for the pursuit of truth, that and only that, and all this conceptual decor you subjectively find pleasing is extra baggage you decided to drag along. This is exactly why I turned from philosophy and literature to science and math. I am not interested in who can be the most agreeable, I am interested in the truth.
We are in the Lounge category, so this is not a philosophical discussion (plus again, see the OP). If it were a philosophical discussion, it would need to be moved to the Political Philosophy category. Ergo, reasoned philosophical discourse is not required here. I would hope that we would get at least reasoned discourse. But it's not unreasonable to assume that some politicians are actually idiotic and/or clueless. Trump may be one of those. Certainly on foreign policy, every analyst that I've heard comment on him has described him in words that can be considered synonymous. Obama, on the other hand, regularly demonstrated a high degree of knowledge on foreign (and domestic) policy in speeches and public pronouncements. So, it's quite probable that those calling him an idiot were wrong (presumably, they were idiots). The point being that it's silly to assume that just because one politician is unfairly called an idiot or clueless that it's unfair to call all politicians that. That in itself could be seen as a partisan attempt at false equivalency depending on how it's stated.
No it's not. And you've just made a bare assertion without trying to reason for it, so that puts you in a self-defeating position here regarding reasoned discourse. Of course, you have to back the charge up with evidence and qualifications. But it's just a fact that some politicians are idiots or idiotic, at least in certain respects. On foreign policy, I don't think it's unfair to call Trump an idiot. There is a massive amount of evidence he is. In business, he's not. But the word "idiot" is most definitely not barred from inclusion in a serious point. It's just a synonym for very stupid and or ignorant. I'd agree that its emotive and can be unhelpful at times, but it's sometimes apt.
Quoting René Descartes
So, please let's save the philosophical virtue signaling for actual philosophical discussions, many of which could do with more of it, and understand the context here.
It's not virtue signaling. StreetlightX has already folded independent threads into this one because they happened to have Trump as the topic. So what is the stance of this website on discussing Trump? The way you're presently managing it tends to eliminate serious discussion instead of fostering it.
Do you apply that same standard to Trump?
Not at all what I asked.
I am sure that is your typical approach to the world, but I have made several reasoned arguments filled with relative content.
I really doubt you have the grit for it.
The stance is not specifically about Trump. The stance is that if the conversation, any conversation, is in the Lounge and the OP specifically describes the nature of the conversation as being inclusive of "laughing, crying, hating" (Trump in this case) then a less formal level of discourse, certainly including use of the word "idiot", is legitimate. If, on the other hand, someone starts a conversation on an aspect on the Trump presidency in 'Politics and Current Affairs' or especially, 'Political Philosophy', a more formal level of discourse would be required and use of the word "idiot" would be less acceptable and expected at least to be qualified and supported. Note that 'Politics and Current Affairs' is a less formal category than 'Political Philosophy', and 'The Lounge' is a less formal category than 'Politics and Current Affairs'. i.e. The site is set up with categories of various levels of formality that are expected to be adhered to.
You want me to notify you the next time a political topic is folded into this one because it's about Trump? You want me to flag your own moderators?
Yes, it is, which is why I answered you and Phil O Sophy and Free Emotion. It's just getting repetitive. The answer's not going to change: I'd like to see reasoned discourse here as everywhere but it's less formal here in the Lounge, it doesn't have to be philosophical, and words like "idiot" about a third party are certainly OK.
Quoting frank
Yes, of course I want you to notify any of us on this if you have reason to think the topic shouldn't have been folded in and a mistake has been made.
North Korea has increased nuclear production at secret sites, say U.S. officials
lol
The problem is he's painted himself into a corner about the whole thing being a massive success and by the time he manages to admit he's made a mess of it, it'll be too late. Kim will just string him out. Played.
I prefer the above wording, Niceties aside, I believe it falls into the category of 'fighting words'. In any case it is difficult not to get defensive or annoyed if in a discussion between supporters and enemies of a president, words like 'idiot' are used. Is Hilary Clinton a clueless idiot or and idiot with clues? It really gets bad. Points have been made, however, and knowledge has been gained so lets move on.
It bodes well for the American Dream if a clueless idiot can become a multi billionaire and president.
If you don't want to read my post then don't; but reading them then complaining about them kind of seems like you enjoy the engagement on some level.
I have always found that odd, as much as people complain about trolls they are attracted to them like flies on shit. They also think about what the troll has said much more fully than what Mr. Agree-to-disagree said. I mean here you are, already written me off as a troll, yet you keep engaging me.
That has to be one of the most thoughtless sentences I have ever heard expressed.
Which makes me wonder if calling Trump a clueless idiot causes such discord because it rings too close to home for some people. Perhaps they don't want to face the truth that the current President of the most powerful army on the planet is a moron.
Quoting Jeremiah
He is intelligent. But that's my opinion. Trump is intelligent, that is also my opinion. What was impressed on me during my stay in the USA, when there were Nazis permitted to march the streets, was that we should respect another person's opinion, even if we hate it. I thought this was admirable.
Quoting Jeremiah
The discord or whatever it causes is simply because I see a simple, stubborn pattern here:
1) Insult the person when you do not agree with his policies
2) Assume that (1) will provide validity the the argument against his policies.
You have to deal with the fact than many many people voted for this 'idiot'. What is the explanation for that, well maybe I have to accept the fact that they too, were 'clueless idiots'.
Which is the point, it causes those who judged Trump's character and policies as those which are good for America, it calls the judgement of those people into question. Yes, I see it now. I am also being called a clueless idiot for thinking Trump is not a clueless idiot. So be it. At least there is honesty.
Of course a total nuclear war will change my mind but if Kim Jing Un gets what he wants he is not going to need a nuclear war option.
I value freedom and the right of free expression and only in that interest do I tolerate their presence but in no way do I respect their views. There is such a thing as being too open minded and I draw that line at respecting the views of Nazis.
If that was your take away from the USA then you failed to understand what was really happening. That has nothing to do with respecting the views of Nazis, it was about respecting the Constitution.
Quoting FreeEmotion
You missed.
Quoting FreeEmotion
Never said that anywhere. I think you are actually driving to make me worst than I am so that I fit your caricature better.
I don't think we should respect other's opinions. The point you may have been attempting to make is we ideally respect a right to HAVE an opinion (that we might hate). The right to have an opinion and then expressing it is what is meant by freedom of speech.
It is therefore incumbent on a new administration to not only stop those heinous manipulations of other countries but to also not make USA citizens continually pay for them. After all, the political and corporate elites are not the ones who ultimately pay for the all of those acts.
So implement a progressive tax on corporations and the elite, create clean, hospitable centers to temporarily house immigrants who are escaping the countries we fucked over (the article does state that the US Government had a hand in this), and treat them with respect, provide healthcare services, etc. rather than separate them, detain them, and further demonize them as this Swamp-filled administration is currently doing.
Stop "fucking over" countries is how it should start.
After all, the US is only a colony of the British monarchy and their financiers such as the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers and their ilk. A full independence for the US is the only hope. A 2nd revolution is required as the 1st one was eventually countered over time by the usual war bandits.
The damage is clearly already done, and merely removing ourselves from interference in foreign affairs will not magically solve the humanitarian crisis in the Northern Triangle. Neither will "plugging the holes in the border" whatever the hell that's supposed to entail. Corporations should be taxed progressively regardless, and the US Government should be strong-arming them so that costs don't trickle down to consumers or the general public, but that's a long argument that's neither here nor there. Suffice it to say, if the US Government can spend trillions on a war we lost, and add over $1.4 trillion to the deficit thanks to a needless and fallacious tax cut, I think we can afford to spend on taking better care of people whose countries we helped spiral into chaos and violence.
Quoting raza
Damn, you are really going full tin-foil hat aren't you?
You would make the ideal patsy due to your naivety. They would have you dressed up in a brown shirt before you know it.
War is the finance game. When do these financiers make inroads? First wars are orchestrated causing depressions. This is when assets are accumulated because they go for a song. Therefore when the tide comes back assets are inflated accordingly. It's an obvious and successful business model.
Did the Germans bomb Buckingham Palace during the London blitz? Such an obvious and strategic target IF one was trying to undermine British morale.
But no.
Ah, no I do not.
Na, I'm Jewish, they would have murdered me.
Quoting raza
Except Buckingham Palace was hit by several bombs during The Blitz
Comparatively minimally for an easy sore thumb of what should have been a prime target.
So first you state that Buckingham Palace wasn't bombed, presumably because of some conspiracy involving the British Monarchy, despite the fact that not only was it bombed, but Queen Elizabeth wrote about how she and her Father the King were nearly killed during one of the strikes.
The Nazis' prime targets were strategic sites such as boatyard docks, factories, etc. that were not located near Buckingham Palace. It's also important to note that the bombs used in WW2 weren't very precise. That said, Buckingham palace was directly hit around nine times.
This is a pretty dumb conspiracy.
Elizabeth always sticks to her script. Have you not noticed that?
Now why is it, do you think, that Royal family members never appear as soldiers on the front line? Or any Rothschild family member for that matter (actual surname Bauer).
OK so what of the people who voted for Trump? "Tremendous?"
I my opinion, the words 'without interference' in article 19 in the universal declaration of human rights means without being insulted for doing so, like being called a 'clueless idiot', hence the confusion.
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Saying this doesn't interfere with another saying something else.
Being "insulted" doesn't interfere with your speech. And anyway, "insult" is a personal sensation or feeling of the one whom apparently feels insulted.
You said a few posts ago that Buckingham Palace should have been heavily targeted in order to destroy British morale. Now you are saying that the Royal Family should have been on the front line? You don't see the conflict around those two positions?
And Jack Bauer is always on the front lines.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Being insulted, and do not mean "insulted" does interfere with free expression of opinions. You are discussing a public figure among his supporters and haters. You call the public figure an idiot. Do you think his supporters will speak freely? When I feel that my views are going to be attacked, and in a most impolite way, I no longer feel free to speak. That is just my opinion.
I would like to make sure anyone could express their opinion without having to feel insulted at the response, in any case in any group that I am in. Because they are in the minority, Trump supporters will not be speaking freely, but I thought the idea was not to make minorities extremely uncomfortable.
Insult is a personal sensation? Sure, but once we know that what we say causes a certain personal sensation in another person, we are expected to stop.
You merely feel you no longer feel free to speak. If you no longer speak then that is an action you choose.
You choose to continue to speak or you choose to discontinue. You are exercising free speech either way.
And "public figures" should not be immune from being referred to as idiots merely because they appear on media.
There is no group rights and nor should there be.
Of course a so-called "member" of a "minority" group should not be protected from merely feeling uncomfortable about someone else's words.
There should be no such special rights for someone just because of their skin color or religion or ethnicity within a nation's laws.
More fake news from those wretched Republicans.
I think the minority member's argument would be that they ought be protected from discrimination based upon their minority status and laws need to be passed to that effect.
In what way is he or she a "minority member" of this forum anymore than I am based on my views?
Hanover is referencing what you said here: "Of course a so-called 'member' of a 'minority' group should not be protected from merely feeling uncomfortable about someone else's words," you goober.
Russian company indicted by Mueller shows up in court
Mueller served Concord Management.
Concord Management responded by showing up.
Mueller's team was forced to argue that their service of the indictment was improper in order to delay proceedings.
Mueller never expected this Russian company to respond and now Mueller is trying to step away from the case he invented.
A federal judge denied Mueller’s request to delay the court date, so he decided not to show up.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/05/mueller-would-prefer-not-to.php?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=sw&utm_campaign=sw
Are you his keeper? Is this the goon squad?
Your opinion on this matter is noted and dismissed. Thanks for your time.
My conclusion is that an indictment isn't a guilty verdict.
There's a saying that says you can indict a ham sandwich,
Nevertheless, there's consensus within the US intelligence community and GCHQ that the Russians interfered in the US elections. Since we're not privy to the details, we have to decide whether to trust that narrative. Considering the FBI, CIA, DHS, ODNI and the (Republican controlled) Senate that checks them all agree that Russia did meddle the likelihood of a conspiracy spanning all these different organisations becomes too small to seriously maintain.
That's not to say that there aren't a lot of open questions left as to who did what and why.
Therefore, what you are effectively saying, is that following the law is not necessary as a way of getting to the truth as to whether any laws were broken,
and that what IS necessary is the employment of "tactics" toward getting a result of an impression someone is guilty of something.
A verdict without DUE process seems to be the goal of these tactics.
That's not what I said at all. I said indictments of persons related to an ongoing investigation can interfere with that investigation due to the possibility of discovery procedures. So it's a tactical error to indict to early when there are still aspects of your investigation that you want to keep hidden until the investigation is finished.
For instance, if an undercover agent manages to collect information allowing the investigation to progress, then indicting persons too early could reveal the use of an undercover agent through discovery procedures (not directly but it can usually be inferred). Revealing his existence could make that method of investigation useless. So it's tactically unsound and seems to be the reason Müller's team is trying to delay the court case.
Quoting raza
This is just baseless conjecture. In fact, it's so incomprehensible to get from the article you linked to this, I don't even know where to point where you're going wrong.
It seems you've decided Trump is not guilty of consorting with the Russians and that anything suggesting the opposite is political manoeuvring. Even if the Müller investigation was politically motivated, that doesn't change the fact Trump could be guilty. Think about it, starting something that has no merit whatsoever for purely political reasons will backfire. It doesn't make political sense to investigate if there isn't a reasonable ground to start doing so. And given the consensus the Russians did meddle in the elections, it is important to get to the bottom of it and it is logical to start looking in the parties that - assuming the meddling was successful - benefitted from that meddling. That's not to say they are guilty. I think it's quite possible the Russians decided they'd rather have Trump than Clinton and acted independently or at least didn't collude with Trump directly.
And even if there were collusion we also need to ask ourselves to what extent it's illegal? I mean, if I hire a bunch of whizzkids to influence people through advertisements, stories and (fake) news, I'm not doing anything illegal. Replacing "whizzkids" with "KGB" doesn't make it prima facie illegal, it just doesn't play well with patriotic Americans if this were the case I suppose.
In the meantime, the Müller investigation has already uncovered illegal acts by several people that surround Trump and this certainly reflects badly on him. So that's a win by itself regardless of whether this eventually leads to Trump or not. And we shouldn't be enticed by this to think Trump is guilty by association either.
What other facts Müller will unearth remains to be seen and we'll see how his cases will hold up in court. So really, the only sensible thing to say with regard to the Müller investigation is: wait and see. And that goes for both sides of the aisle.
Pretty sure Prince Harry did.
How on earth could such a well resourced make such a tactical error merely for those reasons?
They know what is due process therefore would have taken discovery into account.
It appears that the tactic was employed because they were confident the indicted party would not bother to respond on account of the fact they know they cannot be physically got at.
You forgot to add lol at the end there.
Can't point to where I am wrong?
A true statement indeed.
Also, if Mueller's tactic was merely some technical error then he can hardly be trusted as to his competence.
One requires due process to also protect from the dangers of incompetence.
Yes, because you don't make sense most of the time as your brain seems to go into paranoia-overdrive. And the complaint as if people aren't allowed to make mistakes is pathetically elitist and divorced from reality. You've been often pointed out your mistakes, lack of evidence and absence of logic in this thread - I don't need to repeat it here. So you can hardly be trusted as to your competence. Is that it?
The evidence of this is your personal vitriol.
Not such potentially deadly "mistakes" as those who have such powers ("elite" powers) as Mueller.
Due process has some protection from such "mistakes".
The remedy should be obvious. Indict AND allow such due process as 'discovery'
Without the two together is a description of tyranny.
Even those people are allowed mistakes and it's precisely because of that possibility that the law has remedies for it. A conspiracy or isn't.
The evidence of this is your personal vitriol."
Quoting Benkei
You would like to think I am a victim but it is merely an observation of your state as expressed in your words.
Examples: "paranoia-overdrive"
"divorced from reality"
"pathetically elitist"
This is an exhibition of a juvenile state of emotion. A defensive reaction when intellectually challenged.
Quoting Benkei
There is no excuse for such a "mistake" when you are talking about a team of operatives and lawyers.
It is just not feasibly possible that such an entire sophisticated entity could be so clumsy. It's political gamesmanship and the bluff was simply called out.
These people are intelligence and political operatives with many collective years of spying, counter spying and audience manipulation.
One has to be particularly naive to not realize the game. The naivety factor is the companion of juvenile states of consciousness.
Please lecture me on the finer points of politics, oh infallible wise one.
More examples of a juvenile state. A state that also tends to believe the dogma of it's religion, that of Statism. Mueller seems to be the current leader of a statist cult.
What the hell are you on about???
Yes. If by triggered, you mean, frustrated that somehow, claiming that Mueller (the man who most likely cost Clinton the throne, by the way) being the head of a Statist cult doesnt send you into deep shame at your intellectual inadequacies.
How many more of your claims do you need properly debunked before you admit that whatever motivates you to post here, well, it isnt a search for a rational argument?
Quoting Akanthinos
Is that the appropriate tone, do you think, for asking a question? This is why I used the triiger term.
Quoting Akanthinos
Feel free to posit your theory.
Calling all fellow goons. Calling all fellow goons. We appear to have someone stepping out of line.
You're really scary dude.
I stand with my opinion about the rationale behind the Mueller investigation. Others simply disagree, then some react in an emotional fashion in their disagreement, and then I simply point to the structure used which shows the reactive emotional elements in play.
"Troll" suggests I am playing you, but I am merely illuminating the play itself.
Your opinion on the matter has never been the problem. Your inability to engage arguments and to produce evidence is. The fact you confuse people pointing out your inabilities with an irrational attack on your opinion is what is playing the victim is all about (I'm different and everybody hates me for it. Sob. Whine.). So we're wasting our time on trollish behaviour obviously as you've demonstrated not to be interested in substantive argument and that's why I don't like you and am less interested in taking your delicate sensibilities into account and will say that considering Mueller as the head of a Statist cult is more paranoia again.
Edit: correction. That was still too considerate. That statement was straight out of the playbook for ramblings of a mad man.
Any more?
Chairman Mueller has determined that seeing as we're in the lounge, a certain amount of insanity is allowable, so due to HIS glorious clemency, raza escapes the gulag. All hail!
What would be the accusation to presumably act upon in such a way ("ban") if we're not in "the lounge"?
I am afraid we are too far off-topic to pursue this line of inquiry. Please send any further queries directly to [email protected]. Or read the guidelines. Now, on with Donald Trump...
My bad.
You mean Comey?
Mueller's a Republican, a conservative, and a Bush appointee, so not in any alliance of mine.
"Robert Swan Mueller IIIis an American attorney who served as the sixth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2001 to 2013. A conservative Republican, he was appointed by President George W. Bush"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller
I couldn't find the reference to statist cult leader in there though. I presume that's listed in alexjonesopedia.org.
Anyway, apart from pointing out that Mueller's political allegiances don't match up with mine (and, no, I don't like the Democrats either) I'm just having fun with you. Carry on...
Comey was being paid by Putin, wasn’t he?
I feel like it's a mule I'm being presented with here actually.
Hm, you may be onto something, scout! Things are getting eerie in here. :scream:
Mueller is a German name, not Chinese, so it's Führer Mueller.
It's at least a relief to suppose that a self-imposed offer of Hari Kiri after such an error would amount to a similar lexical inappropriacy.
Ah yes, sorry, I knew as I was writting that that something was wrong. But Mueller is still a Republican. Not much for a Statist Guru.
Good idea. Let's start pumping some balloons guys.
If Secretary of State Clinton had won, would she have been subjected to such a volume of harsh criticism and name calling? I hope not, after all isn't it a crime to hate the President? A hate crime basically.
Well, yes. She was being called a pro-NWO murderer all the time during the elections, why would this have stopped with her getting the seat?
Quoting FreeEmotion
Huh. :brow:
No. I don't remember a time where the POTUS was not hated by at least 25% of the US population. I mean, I was still a kid during the Bush father years, and he's pretty much the last one who tried to do more than just pay lip service to bipartisanship.
When you say things like this, do you not have all the examples of places where even being slightly critical toward the powers can land you in criminal court? And these places, do they not seem to be radically worse then where you are right now?
No, but it's actually a crime, an ignorance crime, to think it's a crime to hate the President. That's on the statute books. So, I'd be careful if I were you or you might get reported.
So, you two think we don't know he's President and are just pretending to think he is... I like it. :up:
Quoting raza
Do you think these people requested President Obama perform oral sex on him, or do you think he's a rather loose closet homosexual (presuming you're referring to men) and just offered on the off-chance it would help? Interested... :chin:
(And don't be boring and tell me you were being metaphorical.)
Well, if that one doesn't get you an invite next year, I don't know what will. Bravo :cheer: .
I thought the Whitehouse press briefings were a revenge routine. :smile:
OK, well all this beats posting videos painting Trump as an underdog. Clearly he is, but eventually those brown kids he put in concentration camps will stop oppressing him and with a little love he'll recover.
Interesting how those "cage" photos turned out to be years old or the one where the parents put their little boy in a cage as a staged protest.
This is the definition of a concentration camp:
"Concentration camp: internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial. Concentration camps are to be distinguished from prisons interning persons lawfully convicted of civil crimes and from prisoner-of-war camps in which captured military personnel are held under the laws of war. "
https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp
Now, tell me in what way that doesn't fit.
It vaguely only fits this definition providing "temporary" is added. Parents do put their children through much suffering in their attempts to cross illegally. Apparently, also, 80% of women are raped inside Mexico during their border endeavors. No doubt some of these had children who may have had to witness such atrocities.
Well, that's a good enough reason to inflict further psychological harm on these children by separating them from their parents. But the question remains, how do we get these psychological damaged brown kids to stop this continued oppression of our billionaire hero underdog President? How can we support him in defeating them once and for all?
With regard to further psychological harm/trauma it is just not feasible that all children in this circumstance go straight from where they are found into some immediate loving arms and home without some extra trauma time in-between.
Trauma usually has an end, and once it ends (with regard to any particular circumstance) the time it took to resolve it is really just part of the deal when undertaking risk.
There are risks to a dangerous enterprise. Temporary time working to resolve trauma while investigating what may actually be going on with the risk-takers is just how it will be.
We do not live in Utopia.
My question is how can we help Trump to defeat these children and their left-wing agitator supporters?
Guns may not be enough.
Hm, I thought the game was to accuse critics of Trump of claiming that Trump voters are Nazi fascists when they didn't and then follow that up with blah blah blah. Is that not the game?
Probably a good idea. ;)
That Communism for Russia was orchestrated in the backrooms of Wall Street in 1917 as a way to defeat the economic powers of the Tsars. Mad, eh?
That's true, but Wall St was engineered by Dutch traders who were being manipulated by Russian freemasons who also secretly staged the American Revolution which was originally planned by Peter the Great to get back at the Catholic Church for excommunicating the Patriarch which had been a secret plot by time travelling American Capitalists from the year 2346 to make sure Donald Trump would be elected so that the global economy would crash in 2024 thus eliminating the threat of AI taking over the world and turning all humans into batteries.
Now we're talkin' :cheer:
I agree.
However, the unanimous coalition against Trump means that one should support Trump, since the world needs an element to shake it up. The alternative to Trump at the moment is going down the same path we've gone until now, and it's worse.
Common, dude! One should assess not blindly support. Like everyone (including the Republicans) is against that Neo-Nazi who recently won the Republican nomination for a house seat in Illinois. So...we should support him to shake things up? Insanity, please wash your brain out with insecticide and report back to me when you have sufficiently cognitively deloused!
Washington Post ranking of 15 Democrats who might challenge Trump does not include Clinton.
Another news story broadcast widely showed a brown child up close inside a cage then depicted as being held by border security but further photos revealed that this child was put in this cage by his parents as part of a staged protest action.
You've jumped the gun, old chap.
I was talking about, therefore, "cage" photos as dis-info.
To answer your question, yes I do understand.
Next!
Oh! And all this is hyperbolic nonsense. Get a grip.
Should probably also add it to the quote cabinet.
It seems to be universal. I remember a quote by former North Korean Leader Kim Jung Il that 20% of the population of North Korea were ready to take up arms to overthrow the government, given a chance. To them, I don't think he was their 'beloved' leader at all.
https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0103/p01s04-woap.html
I am somewhat relieved that president Trump is not alone as a victim of hate. ( Apologies to the Eagles ) . Since all religions and atheists also preach kindness and goodwill to all, I am not sure why politics needs to be fuelled by both love and hate.
Many are not their parents which is why the definitively accurate DNA testing is being done to confirm family relation before unification.
After the unifications, what do we do with the children that were brought into the USA under false pretenses?
"Many"?
I'm assuming Europeans will be footing the whole bill for NATO in future.
Quoting Maw
Which is absolutely unthinkable, right? I mean, you see a half-starved kid on the side of the road on your trek from El Salvador to the frontier, and by God, if you don't share at least 75% genetic material with it, that kid is toast. God forbid extended family or even neighbours do something as unAmerican as trying to help a kid they have no parental obligation toward. That's communism.
Have you not heard of Operation Mockingbird?
"Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth."
Operation Paperclip was another interesting program.
Well documented where? In the news?
Don't you notice the hypocrisy in your position? You accept the news as trustworthy when it suits your agenda but not when it doesn't.
You are being quite the idiot.
Not in the news. In documents. In fact, documents "the news" generally avoids.
http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/cia/operationmockingbirdCIA.pdf
I see. It is all so clear now. Your obvious investigative skills are wasted on you here.
Yes Maw, many.
Then there's your comment with regard to how many unaccompanied children reach the US border. They seem to be separate issues and your "many" seemed to initially refer to unaccompanied children as that was the context to which you were replying.
Which has already been determined to be an unrealistic timeline to reunify.
Quoting Benkei
Because Benkei, it gets hard to stomach the rage of trying to handle the illegal immigration situation of our own making, the 2,500 kids separated by the Zero tolerance policy being implemented, against the unaccompanied children that have been taken in since January of 2018.
I wonder where the rage is for the number of children that are sent to our border unaccompanied? Do people think that it is in the tens of kids? The hundred of kids? The thousands of kids?
If people have NO idea how many are showing up unaccompanied, how can the rage be the same?
We, the USA, are horrible, despicable people without a heart or an ethical compass because we implemented a Zero tolerance policy in separating immigrants seeking political asylum, when caught NOT AT A PORT OF ENTRY.
Who is the USA that takes in the unaccompanied children that present themselves at our border?
And where is the backup that confirms that the "majority of adults who are with children are THEIR biological parents"? Those seeking political asylum KNOW that if you are traveling with children, the USA cannot hold them in an adult detention center. To think that those trying to enter the USA don't know that "a" child is a ticket in to be released and given a court date a year from now, is naïve at best.
I'm wary of the "kill Trump" bandwagon because it's so loaded with crap designed to attract an audience, but in this case, there is no reasonable or moral way to ally with the administration.
Face it: they screwed up.
Frank, I already "Faced it", Thank you kindly for acknowledging my change in perspective, I can see it was duly noted.
Now that I have "faced it", I am asking for solutions for those children, who were NOT separated by the Zero tolerance policy.
If you only have the means to care for 4,000 minors, unaccompanied or separated, seeking asylum at our border what do you suggest we do with those that arrive once those 4,000 beds are full?
Again I ask: without help from the Internet, could you please tell me how many unaccompanied children have presented themselves at our Southern Border in 2018, NOT including those separated by the Zero Tolerance of 2018?
Why is no one willing to guess how many unaccompanied children presented themselves that are NOT a result of the Zero tolerance policy?
Did you hear the NPR story about the Guatemalan woman who was separated from her children due to zero tolerance? With go-fund-me money she got out on bail and was driven up to NYC where her kids were being fostered.
Yes, I did hear the story and I think it was an amazing reunion and they are blessed to be together again.
Quoting frank
The point I am making is that the level of international outrage of how many children have been separated from their 'biological' parents seeking asylum is minuscule in comparison to how many unaccompanied children have presented themselves/found wandering after Coyotes got them to the USA desert since January 2018.
We have somewhere near 3,000 kids that we are trying to reunite with their parents whom all came across the USA border illegally and were separated by the Zero Tolerance policy. Additionally we have over 13,000 kids that presented themselves "unaccompanied" in fiscal year 2018.
Where is the outrage of the parents decision to send 13k to the USA alone? The USA is not reaching across the border and snatching kids from their parents arms. You do understand that right?
Yes. While trying to find a link to that NPR story (glad you heard it), I saw that Americans adopted about 30,000 Guatemalan children in 2015.
Step 1: Do not give a fuck what non-Americans think about it. It's not their problem.
Step 2: Vote for somebody who has a little bit of morality in 2020. Good idea?
Where is the outrage of the parents decision to send 13k to the USA alone?
and then the second 13k that come from now until December?
Just how many children do you think we can adopt?
The USA has agreed to take in over 1,400 refugees from Australia because Aussies think that holding them on Islands in detention camps, without food or medical attention is humane.
How horrible the USA is in taking in immigrants that other countries cannot vet.
If the USA treats it's illegal immigrants so badly, why are people still trying to sneak in?
I don't know. I'm picturing Mr and Mrs Lopez teaching their kids how to navigate by the stars so they can get to the Mexican border by themselves.
More likely the Lopez's are either dead or they couldn't care for their kids.
Apparently most of the Chinese girls who didn't get dropped in buckets.
A few years back the US was welcoming immigration from the south because of a labor shortage. Why is it a big problem now? To some extent its manufactured. We need those immigration judges so people don't have to wait two years to have their asylum requests heard.
Trump and co. did that on purpose. Playing to their base.
So vote for somebody with a little morality in 2020.
?
Maw, your remark about me is amazing considering you were the one that moved me on this issue. :sad:
You just keep repeating the same old Fox news talking points, Tiff. In and among the obvious fallacies of reasoning, it gets boring. For example, how can the US be treating immigrants badly when Australia is worse? Can you see why that's not even worth responding to?
Baden, Fox talking points for you maybe but living in a border state that is burdened with absorbing the costs of illegal immigrants? It is a bit more personal for me.
Quoting Baden
Baden, if you feel I am not worth responding to, then don't respond.
However I fail to see how parlor comments (Maws) about another forum member (me) does anything to further conversation with another forum member (frank) about a topic of a thread.
Absolute peanuts compared to the trillions Trump just piled on the national debt to give tax breaks, the vast majority of which will go to the rich and big corporations, and which will have to be paid for by this generation's children. Your priorities are twisted. You give the impression that you'd rather see immigrants treated inhumanely than sacrifice a modest amount of cost while at the same time being happy to support Trump and his cronies stealing your money day in day out. Where's your outrage over the $139,000 that Zinke flushed down the drain to fix a couple of doors in his office, about all the other kickbacks and corruption Trump is engaged in? I don't see it. But when it comes to poor immigrants, suddenly it's close up the purse and save the cents. Why?
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
I won't respond to stuff that's obviously fallacious and off-topic (this discussion is not about Australia and I bet not one person here would support their awful treatment of immigrants which is indeed worse than the US on the whole, but is obviously also zero excuse for Trump's concentration camps) but that doesn't mean I don't think you're not worth responding to in general.
Fair enough, but I only moved you because an actual Holocaust survivor acknowledged parallels to family separation policy and detainment in concentration camps, to the pre-genocidal era of Nazism. Not every Holocaust survivor agrees with this parallel, by the way, I recently watched a video in which a Holocaust survivor denounced such analogies, but I think he is very mistaken.
The point I was making with the Sisyphean task remark, is that you continue to bring up questions or remarks that were answered or explained by articles, or research that I and others have provided across this thread. For example, you ask why there wasn't outrage towards Central American parents who send their children across the border alone (i.e. unaccompanied minors), but I directly shared with you an article about the dire situation in these areas, whether its extreme poverty, or ubiquitous gang violence, or, most likely, a combination. If your son was approached by gangs, or threatened by vicious gangs, or if your daughter was threatened with rape or murder, the logical (though nevertheless difficult) decision is to send them away, because anything would be better than death. That's why there is no "outrage". These parents aren't sending there children away because they want them to abuse our public resources or some nonsense, or come to America just to join MS-13. They are sending them away to escape certain violence and poverty, and to try and find a better life, as any parent is wont to do. The fact that this has been brought up several times but you can't seem to absorb it and learn from it, demonstrates that a lot of what I and others say are falling on deaf ears. Hence the Sisyphean task.
And come on Tiff, you just shared a Breitbart article ffs....
This Breibart:
"Breitbart News Network... is a far-right syndicated American news, opinion and commentary.. Its journalists are widely considered to be ideologically driven, and some of its content has been called misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by liberals and many traditional conservatives alike. The site has published a number of falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and intentionally misleading stories."
Far-right racist publications should be out of bounds for quoting in any debate here, Tiff.
(Although Breitbart is admittedly more of a grey area than Der Stürmer etc.).
Hurray Tiff!
Not sure what you mean, but I digress.
Tiff deserves credit for sincerely arguing her case, I'll give her that.
You moved me. That was enough for me.
Quoting Maw
Correct me if I am wrong but if someone is wanting to claim political asylum, they need to present themselves to the country of entry. If my understanding is correct, than any Mexican citizen should be able to present themselves at the USA border, claiming political asylum, which is something we can handle. We can vet or deny and if the latter is the case, they are returned to their country of origin, Mexico, right there, where it CAN be done.
Now, how can someone from Guatemala present themselves claiming political asylum at the USA border? Further more, how can the USA deny asylum and return them to? Mexico? Mexico is the border in which they presented themselves but returning them to Mexico is not returning them home. How are these folks moving through Mexico to the USA without being 'caught'?
Respectively, the new President of Mexico is implementing border police at both the Northern border in which we share and Mexico's southern border with Central America.
AND that development speaks volumes to me. It tells me that we are finally going to have some international cooperation in keeping each countries borders strong. Is it a result of the Trump administrations actions? I don't know yet but time will tell.
Quoting Maw
I understand the reference, I was just shocked at the commentary you were offering frank about me but I respect your honest opinion.
Quoting Maw
And don't think I don't "get this", I do. I am just not capable of taking care of more when I am barely able to take care of my own. Maybe you are in a position where you can?
To be honest Tiff, the answers to some of these questions are answered in some of the articles I've shared. "How can someone from Guatemala present themselves claiming political asylum?" You submit your claim at a designated point of entry and US officials determine if you have credible fear of returning to your home country. If you are denied asylum, they put you on a plane back to your home country, and this includes Guatemala or any country that you originated from.
With all due respect to conservatives, traditionalists, Republicans, etc... I (as a U.S. citizen) may share some of your views, and even many of your feelings. We are united, Left and Right, in the hope that any parallels to 1930’s Germany (avoiding the N-word label here) are most premature and completely unwarranted. And it may be politics as usual, the same old game.
But a well-known quote comes uneasily to mind: (forgive if it has been mentioned already)
[i]First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.[/i]
- Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)
In other words... Who’s next?
It's a good quote and relevant. My use of the term "concentration camps" is not meant as a direct parallel to Nazi Germany though. As I mentioned before, the British are responsible for bringing us concentration camps and not all involve torture and gas chambers. But Trump's cages can be called concentration camps according to the definition of the term:
"Concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial. Concentration camps are to be distinguished from prisons interning persons lawfully convicted of civil crimes and from prisoner-of-war camps in which captured military personnel are held under the laws of war. They are also to be distinguished from refugee camps or detention and relocation centres for the temporary accommodation of large numbers of displaced persons."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp
(The reason I think the term "detention centre" is less apt is because of the avowedly punitive intention behind the policy as expressed by Jeff Sessions, for example, on several occasions.)
The use of your Niemoller poem contradicts this statement.
I stand corrected.
Please read my post again, if you don’t mind. And forgive me if I was not completely clear the first time. To emphasize:
I HOPE and PRAY that any parallels to Nazi Germany are incorrect, wrong, and baseless.
I FEAR that they are not.
(In these kinds of statements about these kinds of issues every word and letter is critical, it seems. It feels like driving in a traffic jam during a blizzard while on the phone. But anyway... :wink: )
Thank you. :victory:
Your a sweetheart Posty~ Thank you for your support~
:up: Definitely. It was clear that you were referring to the larger existence and (sordid) history of concentration camps. I was probably cherry-picking the most vivid example to me. Thanks for your reply.
Madeline Albright has no moral basis on which to claim anything. If anything, she's worse than Trump.
Ha! Yes, more distinction and emphasis was needed on my part. Niemöller’s quote is more elegant than my editorial page opinions.
I stand corrected. Boy o boy what a thing to say.
Half a million kids dead. Reaction: "Meh". These are the people that run our affairs. I don't think even Trump would have had the stomach to have said that. (Though he did want to invade Venezuela just for the fun of it...)
Not *meh* from me. Just more of a cynical fart from me. What can I do, I'm not gonna get depressed over evil scummy shit like that.
I didn't mean you, Posty, I meant from Albright. That was her reaction. (This is also, by the way, a major reason I could not but have absolute contempt for both Clintons.)
:ok:
What a tragedy.
Yea, I’m with you on that I think. He has control of the football. What will happen next? The spotlight glares. But does it light the way, or blind the driver? Do all roads really lead to Rome? Even backwards in time? Are they still lined with the followers of Spartacus on the Cross-roads we still ride?
Yes, indeed, do they?
Quoting 0 thru 9
Or into the future?
Quoting 0 thru 9
Spartacus, the poor soul.
Quo vadis?
The picture is you in the middle of a dark wood surrounded by loud animal calls that translate to "Vote for me!" but all you can see are bright gleaming eyes in the gloom, the source of which you can never fully discern. And that's as good as it gets until there's a forest fire.
Viva la Revolution!
Oh wait, that won't happen in America, will it?
Latin for “Where are you going?” (had to look it up). And as you know, the popular Roman epic film from the 1950s, when Hollywood was required by law to make at least one Biblical or Roman epic per year. Preferably both. Would you say the current POTUS possibly reminds one more of Nero or Marcus Aurealius, the philosopher-king? :snicker: Or other? Julius or Augustus Caeser? Should he wear a toga? It might actually be a good look, especially if the Senators wear togas too. The House of Representatives can dress like the House of Lords then, if they wish.
What would @Ciceronianus the White say, I wonder...
Perhaps he might know an answer to this troubling question.
I think he shares characteristics with more than one emperor. These come to mind:
Didius Julianus, who became emperor by being the highest bidder at an auction held by members of the Praetorian Guard;
Flavius Honorius, who has been described as follows: "Honorius was racist, wasteful, cowardly and would betray his most useful subjects due to jealousy."
Valentinain III (Flavius Placidius Valentinianus), who didn't have the ability to govern the empire as it fell apart, and aggravated its fall by his vindictiveness and self-indulgence.
I don't compare him to the great-villain emperors like Caligula or Nero, or even Domitian, because it seems to me he's more in the way of a petty, mean and ignorant man, though he shares megalomania with the likes of Nero, and appears ridiculous like Elagabalus, though in a different way. Domitian was far more intelligent. So I compare him with relatively unknown and inept rulers like those above.
Where is all of this headed, Ciceronianus? I almost feel despairingly sad at the current status of The Republic.
Maybe a turn to religion and mysticism?
https://memegenerator.net/instance/58479235/dr-smith-lost-in-space-were-doomed-were-all-doomed
Thanks.
I have little faith in any of our politicians. I think the time has come which H.L. Mencken thought would come:
"The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. 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."
But still, money is what matters in our Great Republic, most of all in politics. So, I think that ultimately it will make a difference where the money may be obtained and how it may be maintained. If both can be arranged for in the current climate, it will continue. If not, it will change, if only gradually.
We're compared with Rome far too often. Money certainly mattered in Rome and the Empire, but the legions were more important--they had to be satisfied. That's where money was best spent. Here and now, money is best spent in what the Supremes have considered a form of free speech; paying politicians, directly or indirectly, to do one's will.
I'm going to meditate over those deep insights. I appreciate you sharing them. By chance do you still run that blog of yours? I would gladly follow your musings about politics and the current state of affairs.
Yes, I'm still at it, for good or ill.
Does Trump's appeal also work that way? Is it more the way he makes his audience feel as opposed to the product (or lack thereof) that he's selling?
And if you have Medium newsfeed, look for Zander Nethercutt's article on Pepsi. It's fascinating.
https://www.ft.com/trumptoronto
There's a workaround if you use Chrome or Firefox, if interested PM me.
Use this website to bypass paywalls:
https://outline.com/
Insert the URL of paywalled article.
Quoting FT
From the article above.
Well, the links between the Russian intelligence and other structures of power in the post Soviet, now Russian Federation, are more credible given this investigation in my mind. Anyway, I always knew that Trump got help from the Russian intelligence community, just that the above gives more substance on how that happened.
Well, Mueller won't let him bullshit out of this situation. There's no way he could pull off a fake news or "I don't remember" card here.
Look at the hatchet job they did on James Comey. There’s a fair number of people who will believe Comey was lying, but Trump wasn’t. Heck, I bet some of them are even reading this.
If they due interfere with due process, things won't end well. Anyway, Mueller isn't the only investigational committee and if he does get shut down on any idiotic premise the power hungry nutjobs in office can muster, then the investigation will continue with the Senate committee or Congressional committee with everything Mueller has discovered being true and genuine evidence to adhere to in those committees also.
That's how I see events flowing if Mueller gets shot down. I don't think the evidence accumulated by Mueller's team can be discredited on any grounds. I hope I'm not wrong about this.
:pray:
And by the same logic the US is even worse as it, despite producing 40% of its own needs (which it could ramp up), it imports oil and gas from terrorist countries and shouldn't they be guarding against that? 40% of imports is from OPEC and gulf countries and also 40% from the evil Canadians.
:lol:
Meanwhile, the fact that the left maligns Kavanaugh isn't the fucking news. Are there good arguments against him becoming a member of SCOTUS or not. If not, why is the left wrong.
Not complaining are we? :joke:
I'm special. I'm a holistic complainer and complain about EVERYBODY. It's only fair.
I think Mueller himself will eventually be under investigation.
The entire Mueller process is a political stunt for the midterms. The establishment does not like Trump since he is successfully rocking the boat and messing up the international and national donor gravy train. This stunt is all about swaying public opinion via fake news. If the Mueller team had anything they would have leaked it by now, since this has been the pattern. They are looking to stain Trump by associations to third parties.
Trump has the authority to force Mueller's hand, but Trump is allowing it to continue, since he is gaining sympathy vote by being seen as the victim of the swamp, fake news and desparate Democrats. They are trying everything to discredit him, but it is all backfiring at the polls.
The FBI said there was evidence that many players has hacked Hillary's private server. These would have included our own intelligence agencies. They would have hacked her server to act as a sentry to help defend its potential vulnerability. If my job was to protect a VIP, I would follow them and eavesdrop so I can keep them in sight. This is not to hurt them, but to protect them.
What would happen if Trump had soldiers, loyal to any president, in these agencies, who had had access to this firewall protection data? Trump would have a Trump card, that he knows he can play at anytime. There wood be no need to act or fire anyone, since he can pardon himself and play the winning hand.
Image how many Democrats, including Obama, may have used this server to talk strategy. Or how many of the foreign players who are against trade balance used that server. Or how many donors used that server. Trump is being nice since he does not feel cornered. It is also possible Trump may already know the Mueller hand, through insider people loyal to the president. Washington is about suck-ups who do it for their own careers and who calculate who the winning team is. Trump is the winning team and Washington will eat its own.
You are aware of the massive conflict of interest Hannity is facing in this story? That he's the third secret client of Cohen?
So this has all been a personal vendetta?
"The entire Mueller process is a political stunt for the midterms."
How do you account for the fact that Mueller (a Republican) was appointed by a Republican (Rosenstein), and Rosenstein was a Trump appointee? I'll certainly grant that Dems have, and will continue to use this politically, but isn't this typical of our political system? Need any reminders about Trump's making political capital out of the negative Hilary news?
" If the Mueller team had anything they would have leaked it by now, since this has been the pattern. They are looking to stain Trump by associations to third parties."
What pattern? There have been no leaks! We don't know what Mueller might uncover - and there's no justifiable basis for believing that an absence of leaks entails either Trump's guilt OR innocence.
The best case scenario for Trump is to let it complete and have him fully vindicated. If the Republicans are hurt politically in the meantime, that's unfortunate - but the same thing happens to Democrats. Personally, I'd like for our system of government to work, but it won't work well by applying double standards - so we have to expect political fallout, both deserved and undeserved.
As if it weren't obvious before, Trump doesn't merely loathe illegal immigration, but non-white/non-European immigrants tout court, while using white nationalist language.
https://youtu.be/mPqDmTftW94
Wut. "Intelligence agencies of today are the intelligence agencies of yesterday".
Makes a whole lot of sense. :worry:
Because you apparently have very little reading comprehension.
And I'm not sure what "wut" is. It must be my comprehension at fault there.
The US won their independence from England quite some time ago.
That's a no-brainer. In 2015 trade with EU totalled £353,981,863,263, and trade with US totalled £80,568,126,775.
And isn't US food all full of chemicals and poisons and rat droppings and stuff?
Not for the Boris Johnsons and Nigel Farages of this world.
Yeah, I suspect they're not interested in what's best for Britain. We already know that Farage is being paid by Russians, and with a name like "Boris", Johnson must be a KGB sleeper agent.
The US president has an independent voice and uses it. It's refreshing.
Place evidence here > ...
Evidence? Why do I need evidence? I thought this is the conspiracy theory discussion? How else do we explain all this talk about Mueller et al. being part of some corrupt deep state anti-Trump mafia?
Trump did May a huge favor by insulting her and taking the side of a hard Brexit. The British public on the whole, like most of Europe, consider him a despicable baboon. They'll rally around May and her soft Brexit now and generally give him the finger. Great news.
Is it a soft Brexit? As far as I know it doesn't suggest staying in the customs union or single market.
Wrong as usual.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-even-more-unpopular-europe-he-us-survey-shows-790700
https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/BSt/Publikationen/GrauePublikationen/EZ_eupinions_Brief_Trump_englisch.pdf
Follow the link. Trump's UK approval is about 20%.
From the article you linked:
"According to the survey, conducted in December, 23 percent of Europeans approve of Trump’s performance."
It was not a survey of the UK.
Humiliated...
Well, you're a dumbass that doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm just using my independent voice. It's refreshing.
There's a graph that breaks it down by a few different countries:
It looks to be 22%. Just below the 23% UE28 line.
The full survey is linked as a pdf and the results for the UK are included separately. Now stop making stuff up.
Cross posted. Yes, that's called evidence I believe. So, as I said, it's great news for May that the dumb baboon came after her. Could be the factor that makes the difference.
Snowflakes across the board, though, find him a bit raw. Snowflakes want to hear niceties from the same ones who, while sounding nice, bomb the s#!t out of countries.
Approving of his visit isn't the same as approving of him.
He isn't their president so tough titties.
Americans voted him in however.
Well this is a bizarre non sequitur.
That's ambiguous. More people voted for Clinton than Trump.
They have a steep learning curve. Someone like Trump will eventually impact in the positive, but maybe only when the UK gain their own independence from the EU.
Trump isn't positive by any reasonable measure.
The US has a proportional system to prevent a small number of states from dominating the rest.
Other countries, such as NZ, use proportional systems.
US economy is a more than reasonable measure.
I'm aware of how the electoral system works. I'm saying that it's ambiguous to say that Americans voted for Trump when he lost the popular vote. It would be more accurate to say that the States/Electoral College voted for Trump.
Quoting Benkei
I don't think it's immaterial. Here is a guy who has shown contempt for the electoral process, and has gone so far as to suggest that "We'll stop it" (referring to Trump becoming President). And give me a break, I'm not an idiot, I know fully well that "we" doesn't refer to the American people, as he blatantly lied to Congress. "We" refers to the FBI. He started the investigation into Trump because he hated Trump.
On top of that, he's an outright immoral character who lied and cheated on his wife, and then claimed to Congress that he ALWAYS said the truth all the while admitting to hurting his wife. Really, a despicable man, and I think he should be in jail.
Unironically said by a Trump supporter.
You allude to a class system. Elitism. This is why Trump succeeds. He appeals to those who are the actual backbone of nations. The one's who grow your food and fix your roads.
It took until now to realize that's wrong? You'll stop supporting Trump now I take it.
Another non-sequitur. People who fix roads may be low class in your view. In mine they're working class. Trump is low class. Learn the difference. And if you think Trump is not the elite, you're deluded.
He's rich but not a snob. Compare that with British political elites and Obama and the Clinton/Bush cartel.
What is even more despicable is the way the Democrats are trying to unfairly defend him.
Yes, but that matters little when he's serving the elites by putting them in his cabinet and giving them massive tax breaks.
Peter Strzok just gave a hard-to-rebut defense of the objectivity of the Russia investigation’s origins
Like Trump. :brow: Have you been drinking?
Unironically said by a Trump supporter.
All workers got the tax break. This upset his political opponents because they want to keep their supporters on the plantation.
What's material about the number of people he spoke to when the start of the investigation was already established? The number was immaterial and only latched on to perform the show.
I don't presume to know what someone meant exactly on the basis of ambiguous language in a medium that isn't used accurately. At that point in time it could've referred to Americans, or at least that portion that voted Democrat, e.g. meaning Hillary would stop him or the people voting for her. So since that's a plausible explanation and I assume some form of standard of proof is necessary, you don't really have anything to go on as you can't read minds.
So what you're demonstrating again is your personal bias by assuming his guilt.
@Agustino You must admit your comments are a little bizarre considering your history of support for Trump and your excuses for his despicable behavior towards women. Strzok pales in comparison.
Of course. The obvious point being he had nothing to derail him with, in regard to Russia/Trump collusion theory.
And still not.
Strzok wrote, “I was one of a handful of people who knew the details of Russian election interference and its possible connections with members of the Trump campaign. This information had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.”
Of course. The obvious point being he had nothing to derail him with, in regard to Russia/Trump collusion theory.
And still not.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Trump tried to obstruct justice, and use state agencies in order to further ideological goals without regard for the rule of law. Here is a guy who WROTE that he and the FBI will stop Trump - what better evidence do you want?!
How absurd. The working class got a tiny tax break, some as little as five dollars a week. The rich got huge amounts, for those earning over a hundred thousand, it amounted to thousands. So, the policy you support rips the working class off. The tax policy I and other social democrats would support would reverse the tax breaks for the rich elites and give the working class more in tax relief. If you were not on the elites side you would support that. So, do you?
Sure, it is a possibility, but a highly unlikely one given the context. He was not Hillary, so "We" cannot be Hillary. It must be a group that includes him. Granted that he worked for the FBI, AND they were working on a Trump investigation, the "we" most likely refers to the FBI. You are a lawyer. Do you deny that this is the most plausible explanation, especially given the animosity he displayed towards Trump coupled with his not so upstanding character?
Non-sequitur. You focused on moral character specifically adultery. Plus, he said in a personal text, "we" will stop him not specifying "we". And you take that as enough evidence for a conspiracy. It's so laughably ridiculous. I mean it's one word in a private text. Have you even considered that he was just sounding off? Trump on the other hand told Comey to "give Flynn a break". Even Giuliani admitted that in an interview recently. That is asking for corrupt behavior. And he's the President. Don't you think he has more influence than this nobody in the FBI? Again, you're so partisan and hypocritical, it's honestly bizarre.
With regard to this particular side of their character, equally bad.
However, at least Trump appears to be more honest and stick to his values and points with regards to the other issues (immigration, tax cuts, Obama care, etc.).
It's a written communication, where he expresses the desire that some faction, which includes him, will "stop it" (Trump's election). It's laughable to think that the "we" didn't refer to the FBI.
Hey, you're halfway there. :party: :cheer:
I didn't say it didn't. But haven't you heard anyone ever sound off about something they couldn't follow up with? Saying we'll do this, we'll do that while actually just sounding off because they can't? That never occurred to you? Instead you think the conspiracy theory is more plausible. Really? Common, dude! :)
Even if he couldn't follow up with it, the fact that he indicated to anyone that the FBI may be used for such purposes is disgraceful to say the least...
I agree it's disgraceful and anti-democratic if he said that meaning the FBI, but if he was sounding off as we all do sometimes it's not something that requires any further thought. Look, if there is a real conspiracy here, it's likely to be discovered. My bet is there isn't. Let's say I'm 95% on that. I'd put money on it if I could get decent odds. What's your bet. Do you really think the conspiracy is more likely?
Stick to his values. Good one.
Yes, I think no conspiracy is less likely than 95%. At the very least, I'm quite sure there will be evidence for the intent to create a conspiracy. Let's say 75% on that.
OK, we'll see. I won't forget this any more than you didn't forget my Hillary prediction. :D
Perfect ;)
"Grossly negligent" attracts a criminal prosecution.
Now match that with Strzok's txts: "Trump's an idiot, a bleeping idiot, Hillary Clinton should win 100 million to one,"
and
Lisa Page. ‘Trump’s not ever going to be president, right?’ Srzok replied, ‘No, no, he’s not. We’ll stop it.’
Yeah sure, of course not only was he apparently not biased but also did not act from his bias.
This guy seamlessly transitioned from investigation of Hillary, and henceforth her exoneration, and onto the Russia/Trump conspiracy theory investigation.
There should be no taxes on income, ideally.
I'll have to go back and check though to see if I misunderstood or misinterpreted his words. But he's clearly too experienced and too intelligent to hold such a naive view, and once that's eliminated as an explanation there seems to be only one other possibility: he was being disingenuous.
Doesn't mean there was a grand conspiracy, of course, but it did raise a red flag for me concerning his credibility.
Anyway, Trump's political effectiveness lies in the way he wields those rules, and identifies all the more strongly with them: he taps into this shared underbelly to acknowledge and play with those rules. Hence the 'wink wink' character of his tax evasion stuff, for example. The upshot of course is that Trump then is anything but an outsider here to 'bend the rules'. On the contrary, his success lies in adhering to the rules more effectively than most. Outsiders, true outsides, who aim to alter the rules of transgression, are the real threat to the order of things. Trump is, for the most part, right at home in the political environment he finds himself in. Which is a sad indictment on that environment.
But then the Government won't have enough money to pay benefit scroungers who are too lazy to work, and then how am I going to afford my beer and MacBook Pro?
Precisely! Zizek's insight actually pinpoints what I've intuited about Trump (despite being been unable to articulate it) quite well. That is a big part of what makes him effective.
It's like we live in a world largely built upon lies, however small and seemingly insignificant these may be, and he somehow exploits this collective insincerity to his advantage.
He didn't create this situation, though, and in a strange way maybe his presidency represents a sort of "cunning of history" in which something more genuine will arise once he's gone. Probably not.
Not tax on income.
High tax (could be 30 to 40%) on non necessities. E.g, Mac pro, beer, new cars, new furniture, new tv's etc.
No tax on essential food items.
What could this also create? Not only cheaper food but recycling (buying 2nd hand goods, making things yourself).
How about no income tax for the working class and tax the rich elites more? Why is it so hard to agree to that? Anyone would think you were on their side just like Trump is... Could it be that all your talk of supporting the working class is just empty and you are just as pro-elite as him? :chin:
So the poor will be even more worse off? Because below a certain threshold they don't pay taxes anyway. Instead in your scenario they'll pay more on anything that isn't basic food and second-hand crap.
:lol: Your plan is a trillion dollar give away to the rich elites you claim to be against.
Quoting Baden
Should be trivially easy to agree with. Take tax dollars the elites have taken from the deficit (and therefore from everyone) and instead let the working class benefit. This would also be good for the economy because the working class tend to spend what they have rather than save. Increased consumer spending leads to increased economic growth. So, unless you were lying about caring more about the working class than the elites, you're a social democrat just like me.
Many crazy rich people work ridiculous hours to get rich. Someone like me just likes working as a craftsman because it is pleasurable. Don't like office environments and don't like office work hours.
Most people just want more free time, even if the pay is less, and play around with their kids + make stuff at home, and also enjoy a more intimate community.
Let those mad crazy people work those crazy office hours or crazy hours related to running a business enterprise and therefore let them get rich in the way they consider wealth to mean.
It does not make sense to make those types resentful by taxing them for their ingenuity.
So, you're on the side of rich elites because they all create jobs (which is nonsense, business owners and entrepreneurs create jobs, most rich people don't create anything). At least you've stopped pretending now.
:vomit:
Seems an oversimplified scenario.
Most of the rich people I know have been the beneficiaries of wealth accumulated by their families. These same people, in my admittedly limited experience, are far more likely to buy up properties and extract rents from working people than open up businesses and create jobs.
On the other hand, lots of poor people I know work their asses off, sometimes with multiple jobs, just to afford basic necessities.
I know, if only we could find a way to stop folks who want to give the working class a better tax deal from oppressing them, we could all live in Trump's dumbtopia. :lol:
The "poor" require incentive IF they desire new stuff.
Second-hand "crap"? That's elitism right there. Second hand does not mean crap. People are so fickle and narcissistic that they go for the latest thing just to have the latest thing.
I exploit those narcissists by picking up second hand bargains while enjoying the good life on the cheap.
Such narcissists deserve to pay higher tax for their status symbols (merely a consequence of their unresolved childhood issues).
This sycophantic worship of rich elites by the likes of @raza I really don't get even though Zizek (seeing as Street brought him up) reckons it's Calvinism's fault. To a European, it's insane.
Under my scheme they would pay the greater tax......because they buy new stuff + want to flash their symbols of status.
We can exploit their unresolved childhood neurosis, and they won't even mind. Let them feel above. Letting them feel above keeps them exploitable.
No, they wouldn't. They pay about 35% of their income in income tax. There is no way your increased consumer taxes on some goods would more than counterbalance that. You're making stuff up again. Or, if you think it would, provide evidence this time. Show us the numbers.
Under my scheme the working class will have more income from paying no tax on it.
You don't have a scheme. You want to give 1.7 trillion* in tax revenues mostly to the rich (because that's where they'd go.) Now show us the numbers how your increased sales tax would more than make up for that.
*Data here: https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-tax-revenue-3305762
They would buy the most stuff therefore must pay the greater tax.
Yes of course I am making this up. No nation has implemented my plan.
Think of farmers. Farmers growing essentials. Essentials that are not taxed. Farmers that are not taxed on their income.
Essential farm based food is not crap. Cheaper good food for poorer people.
This may be getting a bit off topic but one of the strange things I've noticed about the genuinely wealthy - at least since I've been around "old money" over the past 10 years - is their general avoidance of the sort of status symbols so admired by the poor and middle classes within America.
They'll send their kids to $40,000 elementary schools, they'll go on lengthy trips around the world, etc. but they'll also drive average cars, wear average clothes, etc. They're so comfortable with their wealth as it's been passed on through their family for generations, that they lack the insecurity of those who need to show off.
So I have a foot in both "worlds" in the US - the "elites" and the "deplorables" (where I grew up) - and am uniquely situated to recognize the different cultural markers and guiding values defining each group.
The reason why is obvious. But there's no point just asserting. Show us the numbers. Back it up with evidence or it's just more hot air like when you claimed Trump had higher popularity ratings than May in the UK.
Well I'm just an "average" American who grew up in the belly of the beast (suburban Los Angeles) and it's insane to me too. Doesn't seem like it'll ever change, unfortunately.
My scheme would help eliminate the need for such expensive control.
This would be the reason a government would not want my plan.
They do not want people to be more free. Their control makes them personally rich and tyrannical along with it.
Government's idea is for larger government. And who pays for that?
My scheme reduces amount of government agencies - reduces government control of work.
More hot air. Show us the numbers. Data. Presumably you've calculated all this and are not just making it up as you go along, right? So, show us your calculations.
You need to merely go about your day and imagine the plan. Imagine paying an extra 40% on a new laptop and paying half the price for your food and electricity.
What you save on no tax on income you can also easily pay the extra 40% on the new laptop while the workers who brought that laptop to the store, + plus the store workers, are not paying tax on their income.
You will enjoy work more without income tax. You may become more productive as a consequence of work satisfaction.
This might make you more happy.
More happy may make you feel more charitable - may feel like helping your neighbor out more.
What do control bodies such as governments and politicians want for humanity? Well, politicians are usually lawyers. They are inherently adversarial.
They want people to form tribes. They want insecurity so that people seek them for security - which gives them more control over citizens.
It's psychology, in the final analysis.
Economics is psychological.
Psychology first, economy follows. That is the rationale. In fact it is essentially philosophically based.
Still no data, no statistics, no overall numbers. :yawn:
I better help you out because it's clear now you don't have any numbers or even a vaguely clear idea of what they are.. Excise and sales taxes currently bring in less than 7% of government tax revenue and individual income tax brings in about 50% of tax revenue in the US*. But you think raising sales taxes can turn that less than 7% of revenue into more than the 50% of tax revenue that you would lose by charging zero income tax. And you think just paying an extra 40% on goods like laptops etc would close that gap. Do you realize how hare-brained that is and that you'd actually have to raise sales tax so much and make everything so expensive to theoretically close that gap that in practice no-one would be able to afford the goods and therefore no-one would buy them and sales tax revenue would actually go down if you attempted that?
*https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-revenue-source-1934-2018/
Of course, economics has nothing to do with actual data and numbers. You just think up some semi-plausible sounding psychology, apply that to your country and voilà, everybody gets rich. Thanks for that. :up:
I can't remember where I read it but this is a genuine phenomenon - something like 'status symbol creep': as status symbols of the rich become more widely acknowledged, what counts as a status symbols shifts in order to maintain that symbolism. And the shift in spending form the rich has moved from goods and tangibles to services, insurance, 'experiences' (holidays, etc) and education instead: things that are harder to 'see', but end up 'opportunity hoarding': it's no longer goods which are exclusive, but the means to accumulate them. Anyone can save up and buy a Prada bag. Good luck sending your kid to Harvard.
Or they want something that's in good condition and still in warranty.
Quoting raza
Being poor is incentive enough. This notion that the poor are poor because they're not trying hard and have no reason to do better is nonsense.
And, of course, the problem with making things more expensive is that less people will buy them, which will weaken the economy. If the people can't afford to buy your TVs then your business won't grow and the rich business owner isn't going to create all these jobs you say he will. Republican policies like trickle-down/supply-side economics don't work.
Not everything more expensive. And we would throw away less. We may want to produce less new junk. We may want to chase our tails less. We may want to just cook and eat good food.
When we chase our tails less we will less want useless new shiny stuff which we use to try to numb our violated senses - violated from chasing our tails - numbing our sense of insecurity.
Less stress from paperwork related to bureaucracy around job systems.
We all can be like undocumented workers where we work for the pay we get - straight cash.
Straight cash means less government which means less government taxpayer's expenses.
There is always trickledown. There is nothing wrong with it. It is natural.
Quoting Michael
You will have more income to buy things.
The thing is that there would be more choice. There is no choice if every worker has to pay tax on income.
Whereas there IS choice as to whether to buy a taxed something or not.
It makes no sense to limit choice.
Limiting choice is limiting freedom.
Quoting Michael
There is not one reason for being poor.
And some who appear poor to your eyes may be secretly quite happy, relatively, comparatively. What, for instance, are the suicide rates for the "upwardly mobile"?
Inflation hits 6-year high, wiping out wage gains for the average American
Then there's the $437 billion of buybacks due in the next quarter, a new record after the previous quarter set a new record with $242 billion.
Why are these companies spending hundreds of billions on buybacks instead of on increasing wages or investing for future jobs? Because these tax cuts are never about helping the average worker. It's about helping the very rich become richer.
Yup that's exactly right. I've never quite felt at home where I live now to be perfectly honest, and I think it's largely due to a sense of (lower) class awareness that I never had before moving here.
I do think the place is pretty anomalous - I've heard it has the highest percentage of kids going to private schools over public than any other city in the country - but it's definitely related to those less tangible things like access to elite schooling, to frequent and distant travel, and the like.
There are however certain things about living around old wealth that I find to be far superior to living in the suburbs - most significantly, there's a certain quirkiness among the inhabitants that I find congenial. Not uncommon to have a great conversation with a random stranger about philosophy, or history, or science, etc.
So lots of really artsy, intelligent, and intellectually-informed people in this area who (because they already have it) aren't obsessed with business and making money. Somewhat akin, I imagine, to the old aristocracies. But yeah, I also feel like (and am) "the help."
Laughs ensue.
You suggested a 30-40% tax on anything but the necessities, but the current tax rates in America are:
10% $0 – $9,525
12% $9,526 – $38,700
22% $38,701 – $82,500
24% $82,501 – $157,500
32% $157,501 – $200,000
35% $200,001 – $500,000
37% $500,001+
So how is not having to pay 10-24% in income tax going to mean that you have more income to buy things that are 30-40% more expensive?
The suburban life is really different here in Thousand Oaks where every other car is a Maserati or high end BMW or sone such.
It's further up there if you like next to North Ranch. But, I always liked living in Reseda rather than Westlake more, due to the fact that everyone seems more friendly instead of pretentious about their status. Cities just do that for some reason.
Yes that's true. We have family friends who live in your area and they're total snobs. We've visited them a few times and it's definitely a "higher end" sort of suburb relative to where I grew up, which is in the east San Gabriel Valley.
These days I live just 10-15 miles away from my hometown (I'm in the Pasadena area now), and as mentioned it's a much different world in essential ways. Lots of museums, JPL, Cal Tech, non-corporate bars and restaurants, unique architecture, privately owned bookstores, etc. I do prefer it to the cookie-cutter homes and strip malls where I was raised.
And yet I feel like I can relate to working class people who grew up in cities like mine more than I can to the blue bloods I'm around now. Something about those shared life experiences (going to public schools, getting a job at sixteen, working while going to college, etc.) makes me much more comfortable on the whole around working class people - regardless of racial differences - over the affluent and highly-educated white people in these parts.
I watched this as you made it sound like Strzok came off badly but the Republicans were destroyed here. And in the video you presented it was Gohmert who was told to take his meds as he went nuts on attacking Strzok for adultery. The same Gohmert who sucks up to porn star fucking Trump. What a scumbag. :vomit:
https://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/podhoretz-on-gohmert-that-s-scum-to-ask-about-strozk-s-wife-during-house-fbi-hearing-1275830851783
He pissed on her in the article and then told her it was raining in the press conference. I'm watching the press conference now. He just called his own interview fake news, and then said he was confused and thought the UK wouldn't be able to trade with the US. You might as well have a chimpanzee up there. He has no idea about anything including what his own words meant or why he said them.
You know, no matter how small a piece of shit may be in your soup, it's still a piece of shit in your soup.
Well, Trump humiliated himself and Boris will be the one eating the shit soup in the end, so all good I guess.
Put down the crack pipe.
:cheer: :cheer: :cheer:
Dunno what it is, but it sounds hella good.
I can see this etched at the entrance of the Trump presidential library and casino, but he will take credit for the quote
We must go back to the island, Jack!
You may very well be the least self-aware person I know.
Yes, it's a essentially a 'keeping-up-with-the-Joneses', but instead of comparing your socio-economic success with your immediate neighbor, you benchmark your success against a particular socio-economic group higher than your own, which necessarily leads to frivolous spending and debt accumulation etc. in order to maintain a certain level of respectability. Edmund Burke is an infamous example of feckless spending in order to appear wealthier than he was, and as a result suffered from debt for much of his life. Curiously, it seems that Brett Kavanaugh suffers from the same affliction.
The brown people are destroying our culture thing again. Fuck off, Trump. We don't need your advice.
Let me count the votes that matter: 304 in favor of Trump, 270 in favor of Clinton.
I'm not knowledgeable enough about the issue to make that call. I will say that given Trump wasn't elected president at the time, it is very plausible to me that by "we" he meant voters or the American people at large. I find that explanation more likely than a reference to the FBI.
As a lawyer from what I've seen and heard so far there is simply no evidence either way.
It's actually "favour" you redneck.
At this point you can only consider pointing out that fact as tantamount to trolling...
[U]The Unwelcome Guest[/u]
The greatest danger Trump poses is he makes the unacceptable acceptable.
If we start to forgive the President for his transgressions, lies and insults then we only embolden him.
It is not normal to have a President who mocks the disabled, attacks the press as the enemies of the people, who refuses to release his tax returns, who is openly sexist, who apologises for white supremacists, who retweets far-right content, who smears allies, who praises dictators, who rips up international rules, who undermines an independent judiciary and who uses the White House to further his business interests.
Nor it is in the UK’s interest to have a President who has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord, ruptured the Iran nuclear deal, risked peace in the Middle East, undermined NATO and started a trade war that threatens British jobs and livelihoods.
And it is deeply depressing we have a President who has separated child migrants from their parents, withdrawn from the UN council on Human Rights, called migrants vermin and dismissed African states as “s**tholes".
We have a choice. We can fawn before such a man or we can confront him.
If we choose the former then we legitimise his behaviour.
If we fail to do the latter then we are abandoning the standards previously established for holders of that office.
[/quote]
:clap: :clap: :clap:
I liked the Trump baby balloon.
:lol:
In a last ditch effort to silence those who fail to see the wisdom of your tired criticisms, you decry the truth as trolling. Nope, Trump's victory was in fact huuuge, devestating to his opponents, and it will shape politics for generations.
Clearly, for the worse.
I'm not silencing anyone here, Hanover, common. I'm just stating the fact that you keep on bringing that fact up as if it was some punchline itself serving as a form of some argument to your opponents who disagree with you on matters pertaining how he won the election or at least why and how he did it. You just assert that he did, and that's that. If I'm not mistaken this is some logical fallacy, no?
Not entirely objective; but, rational enough to not fall into a highly exploitable trait that Republicans seem to posses of being frightened of big government, enough so that they take stuff like, "Obama was a Kenyan Muslim out to destroy America" as having some substance...
Do you even read the comment sections on facebook, which was now undeniably exploited by some intelligence agencies (Russian GRU, according to the latest indictments of the Mueller investigation), to stoke fears to unseen levels, among an already frightened and paranoid electorate of the US population.
Why thank you m'am. *Takes a bow*
Quoting Hanover
Like declaring a popular vote loss as a "huuuge victory". Probably right.
If you think that's a double standard you don't know what racism is. Do you think I'm racist for calling Trump an ape? Or do you think it's OK to call black people apes as if that isn't a historically recognized racist way to refer to them? Which is it?
The streets, once filled with daily commuters, now filled with pandemonium, bedlam, and mayhem, brought about from a few well written tweets and Facebook posts.
It ain't the same America you grew up in or where you grew up. Take that as empirical evidence if you'd like.
Didn't you get the memo? There is no "objective" any more. It's all just opinion and "alternative facts" and "fake news" is just anything you don't like, even if it's literally a recording of you from the day before.
I might be very late to the party, but, as a rule, there are no taxes on subsistance items.
Modernized Prosperity Gospel.
The stuff is as crazy socipathic as it is widespread.
Thank you.
I have simply spent so much time on /lit/ that I desensitized myself to trolling. I just call stupid when I see stupid, and sadly, that's not how one must act with Trumpers.
The discipline you impose on me is sorely needed. :smile:
Agreed. As I said, he needs to stfu now. Putin will likely throw him some bananas though and we'll get more of this crap over the next few days.
A few more scathing editorials and he'll be begging for mercy I'm sure.
My point is not that he'll care, it's that I don't get why you feel the need to protect him. As far as I remember, you supported Kasich who despised Trump and certainly isn't defending him now. This is not necessarily a progressive vs conservative issue. Many traditional conservatives are as critical of him as anyone else. So, why have his back?
Why this advice to change course? His followers are delighted and his detractors outraged.
It's a rhetorical point not actual advice. Spinning barbs his way is its own form of entertainment, which I'll make the most of while he's still around. As you may have noticed I'm not uni-critical here. I take Madeline Albright's crimes, for example, far more seriously than Trump's stupidities (until he starts a nuclear war). It's fun to mock him though and he more than deserves it.
The economy is booming, he's tough talking, but not declaring wars, is right that we need major immigration reform, and is picking some splendid Supreme Court candidates who are willing to rein in the over-interpretation of the Constitution.
Real people are better at discussing it.
Governance by Aristocrat humour...
Fuck this shit. Americans deserve Trump and all the hate.
For the most part we don't care about the hate. Its nothing new. Same spew different year.
About Trump. I think the most important thing to consider about Trump as POTUS is whom he is the harbinger for. Who will be the next president? Or what kind of person will be president in 50-100 years from now.
The 2016 US presidential election was the first time I immersed myself in the campaigning process of both major parties. In disgust with Clinton & Trump, I wasted my time & energy to throw my vote away on the Libertarian Gary Johnson.
I like reading about Trump & his administration. He's very busy, active. He has a gift for brinkmanship, whether you approve of it as a tactic or not. I dislike watching or listening to media of him, unless I'm in a cynical mood about the hopelessness of political activity for the species, in which case I laugh at the bitter reality of things that should be taken more seriously. What does it matter? Left, right, liberal, conservative, multi-party system costs/benefits, two-party system costs/benefits, single-party system costs/benefits. Human nature dictates all... in politics as much as anything else the species participates in. I think people that obsess over political activity in any space & time are narrow-minded and mediocre.
I don't know about mediocre, but its definitely a sort of soap opera.
I’m assuming from this comment that your skin color does not fall under a category popularly referred to as “white”.
Is it somehow an added virtue to not be of this “white” category thereby elevating commentators of “non-white” status within in some opinion hierarchy?
But isn't morality concerned with controlling oneself to act responsibly, rather than allowing "human nature" to dictate one's behaviour?
The first is that it is a well designed cartoon on an artistic level.
The second is that it will embolden support for Trump and blow back into the face of London’s mayor.
How And why?
Taxes were an initial step, it seems to me. Turning around an economy should theoretically, and historically, take a far greater time than what has passed to date.
Why? By revealing hypocrisy and immaturity of Khan.
Because 40% tax are for new goods deemed luxury and non-essential.
And every one of those same goods can be bought without paying any tax. They are usually referred to as being “second hand” or “recycled” or “up cycled” or “made with your own hands”.
People need incentive to be inventive and incentive to be wise, instead of just acting as demanding, spoilt brats.
So many “non-white” people love the richness of many European cultures.
You appear to be discriminating against “non-white” people who choose to stay in or move to European countries.
A culture that has European roots does not make it “white”.
Skin pigment is not a culture.
Anyway, it is also relevant that those which are not beholden to the level of decorum of diplomatic officials allow themselves to voice their discontent in such farcical ways. And I very much doubt Carmen Yulin Cruiz lost any steam from her "NASTY" joke.
You admonish your kid with baby talk?
Al I can say is that it was never my strategy with my kids.
And what I was saying is that because much fewer people will be able to afford these new goods then the economy will suffer because much of the economy involves the production and sale of new goods. Fewer buyers mean that businesses can't grow, which means fewer jobs.
Their income would be higher + they spend less on essentials therefore can afford non-essentials occasionally.
For a low income earner "occasional" purchases of non-essentials is and was always the case, unless they are bad at understanding credit.
I explained this. The increase in income is lower than the increase in price.
To right-wingers supporting the power takes priority over conscientious reflection - that is what makes them right-wingers. That is why 90% Republicans support Trump. I would like to think that all those people don't really approve what he says and does, because that would be just too sad. They stand behind him because he is the leader.
The increase in income is steady. The increase of price impacts "occasionally". Non-essential or luxury items (electronic "toys, etc) are not bought by low income earners in consistent timing with arrival of income.
Essential purchase of (non-taxed essentials) will, of course, time correlate with income.
Consumers without good sense because they feel cushioned by "get now - pay later" credit schemes is not something that successfully sustains economies but merely perpetuates boom and bust economic outcomes.
I think we need some perspective here. I don't think he's vicious and psychopathic as much as stupid, incompetent and corrupt like much of the administration. Rationally, I don't see how the harm he has done so far can be considered more than the Clintons who presided over a genocide by proxy of half a million children in Iraq (media outrage quotient = roughly zero), or Bush 2 who went in and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of more civilians in the same country. Obama was no angel either. He needs to be opposed and called out and he's dangerous for democracy and has caused much harm but he's not the cold killer the Clintons were, or that Bush and Cheney were, or that Putin is. He's a different kind of beast.
Yes, it's interesting that he's the most popular President among Republicans in a generation. Sad for them.
Every day, the Trump presidency gets worse. There is always a new low, a new lie, distortion, insult, or outrage. He likes causing chaos, he rolls smoke grenades into crowded rooms and is amused by the panic. He's trashing everything the US stands for, both sides of the aisle. We're watching the destruction of the American nation, and nobody seems to be able to prevent it.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/06/26/us/russian-trolls-exploit-philando-castiles-death/index.html
People, by nature have immoral tendency. Selfishness and immorality cannot be removed from human nature simply by defining "human nature" such that it includes morality. Actual morality requires effort from the individual.
Quoting punish me
That's exactly why Plato argued that democracy is a bad form of government which inevitably ends in tyranny. Those who really desire to get elected do so of self-interest. They get elected through means which are compared to offering candy to children. The population is like children, not knowing what is really "good" for them. The "good person", who would make a good ruler, recognizes that being a good ruler is the most difficult job, and has no interest in taking on that job. According to Plato, the good person will only move toward taking on that task if life under the bad ruler becomes worse than the perceived task of being a good ruler. This will be not until after the democracy has degenerated to a tyranny.
Quoting raza
So I assume there's a plan, method to the madness. Cut taxes, and make up the missing income with tariffs on imports? Replace the overt tax with a hidden tax, causing insult, annoyance, and possibly chaos in the international community by reversing the convention. That sounds more like madness to me.
Quoting raza
The tariffs on steel and aluminum are because these are luxury items? I thought Trump deemed Canadian metals as a threat to national security and this was the premise which gave him the right to impose such tariffs, overruling existing trade conventions.
Yeah, he's not declaring wars. Bravo. Somone give this guy a medal. Better yet, a meeting with the Queen and a Nobel Peace Prize. What about the needless and predicable chaos and death he recently caused in the Middle East? Oh [i]that[/I]? Never mind, the economy is booming. It's only the lives of innocent children.
If the press is in the business of supporting candidates, then candidates ought attack those supporting their opponents.
Obama dropped 26,071 bombs in 2016 alone. Oh that? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/america-dropped-26171-bombs-2016-obama-legacyQuoting Sapientia
Actually, Obama did get a Nobel Peace Prize.
I had to laugh. The old 'why didn't you stop me mummy?' defence.
Amen. It is crude at times, rude at times but always honest.about how he sees things at the time, even if that position changes. He is showing the under pinning of most he meets with. People either love him or hate him, there is no in between.
What do you mean "if". The vast majority of your news is privately owned, private owners have private interests, and there's no regulation concerning bias, ergo... CNN is selling anti-Trump stories and Fox is selling pro-Trump stories etc. Sure, call that out. But you can call it out in an intelligent focused way or you can just make blanket childish and unnuanced denunciations. No prizes for guessing what Trump does.
And though Trump gets a lot of bias thrown at him, that's a good thing within limits. It's better for the media to tend toward being critical of power, as long as it's factual, than the opposite. It's better for us to know the bad stuff they do than miss some of the good, as the bad is likely to be more damaging if missed. So, CNN is biased against Trump because they hype up the negative, they don't make it up though. Trump does say the stuff they report him as saying. He does constantly lie etc.
The US press will generally give you a pass if you do something like support or ignore Israel murdering Palestinians, generally just kill lots of brown people in the middle East for whatever reason, or support dictators, warlords who do so in whatever way it serves your interest etc. because there's not much money in making people realize how deeply and brutally immoral your country is. But yes, breach some stupid protocol or say a rude word and they will eat you up because there is a partisan audience for that. If Trump came out and actually said that, I'd be right behind him, but he's not going to give up his mass slaughter privilege. He just hasn't used it to the extent of some of his predecessors yet.
Helsinki is a perfect background for the biggest covert operation/espionage success in history . :grin:
:starstruck: I was thinking about someone writing a novel and what an awesome name for a place holding this kind of meeting.
And the solution is a government run press?
What color were the Nazis and the Russians?
There's nothing moral about sitting on the sidelines criticizing the one keeping you safe at night.
Not exclusively but regulation works. Ever hear of the BBC? Compare that to the shitshow that is CNN and Fox.
Quoting Hanover
America's not killing Nazis now Hanover or Russians (not that they ever did kill Russians). I'm not criticizing FDR here.
Quoting Hanover
Would you consider it moral to criticize those keeping you safe at night if a left-wing US government invaded Israel and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the process? Or would you just keep your mouth shut and let it happen.
What regulations do you propose on CNN and Fox?
Fool yourself into thinking America offers you no protection. It really doesn't matter. They'll protect you anyway.
My proposal would be that you put more funding into a regulated national broadcaster like NPR so it could be something like the BBC and would not be by law allowed to be openly biased. For private organizations like CNN and Fox they could show bias if they wanted, but they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news if they're not actually news, just like if you're selling any consumer product you're required to advertise it accurately.
More fool you for living in a country someone wants.
Quoting Hanover
From who though? Europe has a nuclear deterrent that's enough to keep Russia at bay and it's not in Russia's interest to attack us. Besides, I think we ought to wean ourselves off relying on America and spend more on our own defense. Let you save money and go home. Everyone wins.
Don't be an fool. American's "offering protection" is nothing but post-colonial pseudo-colonialism. You screwed every one of your Five Eyes partners with ECHELON.
We need American protection like the grocery owner in Little Italy need the "insurance" offered by thugs.
I'm actually not the first to argue that the BBC is biased. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC
A free press is a check on government power, and it's typical of oppressive governments to control the media. A government imposed law illegalizing bias or even offering a certification for those organizations the government finds unbiased is an oppressive act. You're free to argue the BBC is a straight shooter, but surely you see a problem with the government blocking those news organizations that offer news varying from the BBC's governmentally decreed "unbiased" views.
If we did allow the government to decide what news to report, I propose Trump decide. If not him, then who and why? It's an awfully powerful position, and I hope my side gets chosen to write the history.
Why isn't Ireland negotiating for a nuclear free North Korea?
No-one is doing that. Trump is pretending to do it. But that pretence has already fallen to pieces. Give it to the UN and China I say. Look, everywhere the US has gone since after WWII you've made things worse not better. You've caused the deaths of literally millions of innocent civilians, and especially in Asia. Go home, leave the world alone, stop messing things up for everyone else. We don't want you policing things unilaterally.
It's simple. European media is better and less biased than yours. Follow our relatively successful model instead of your relatively failed one. Same goes for health care etc. You're just slow learners over there.
As you might be surprised to learn, I have little power over such decisions. Your hypothetical of what the world would be like without American international military involvement is obviously unanswerable, but it's very doubtful the West would have fared so well without US protection. But, whatever, be an ingrate. I'll still invite you over for tea.
You're on a quite the hate train today. I like your passion though. You're almost as brazen as an American. Almost.
America is doing something right though. We've exported our goods and culture throughout the world. You can't get away from us.
On the other hand, Ireland's biggest export is your fleeing people. I think there's probably more Irish in Boston than Dublin. If you guys hate us, why do you keep coming over here?
If the US had stuck to acting within the bounds of the UN, as it originally did in Korea which was a UN operation, or would agree to do so in future, fine, but that hasn't been the history. And even if its other actions did benefit the West, so what? There's a whole world out there to worry about. My proposal is just that the rest of the world, especially Europe, pay more for their own defense and the world act through the UN, then we don't need to have these arguments and we can all drink tea or grit juice or whatever you fancy. Trump is right in his odd way, why is America paying to police the world? He just doesn't realize the answer is not charity but more like self-interest.
Quoting Hanover
Huh? If I hated you, why would I be giving you such good advice? Ireland has a better media environment, a better social welfare system, a higher GDP per capita, a better health care system, lower levels of poverty, and more charming people than the US. But you've got grit juice, so you win, I guess.
That Michael Higgins though. Just adorable. https://www.boredpanda.com/people-love-ireland-president-michael-higgins/
There is nothing more absurd then an american trying to tell the rest of the world that they don't know how to drink or hold their liquor.
Let's see... A challenge of sorts. How about a rabbit that gives birth to a house full of people playing Trivial Pursuit where they're arguing over whether Sally already answered the pie piece Arts and Literature question but Kevin can't find his stapler to fasten his letters from back home that were unstamped.
I'd think that's more absurd than an American commenting on Irish drinking habits. So color you wrong.
Love Michael. Pocket prez. We've got an asset, you've got an... :zip: But seriously, combine Ireland's common sense approach to politics and media with American optimism and pioneering spirit and you'd have the best of both worlds over there.
:roll:
My response was short hand for saying you can't tell where human nature ends and morality begins. It's a failed enterprise and rests on assumptions nobody needs to accept because they'll be based on persuasive definitions.
Add one more time in which you say the world doesn't need the USA's involvement. Like I have said so many times before: You don't have to ask US twice. Which is one of the main reasons I voted for Trump. So he could say things bluntly that past presidents would only express gently. We SHOULD pack up our troops from around the world and bring them home.
I tell you what : how about Ireland handle the "NEXT" shit storm that happens on the world stage and we Americans pass the popcorn around and play armchair warriors. Sound good? :up:
Like wut? (Direct quotes pls)
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
What's an example of a shit storm on the world's stage in the last 30 years that America solved (that it didn't create).
No other president has had the stances on trade and post-war alliances that Trump does.
As @Maw said you've been mostly creating problems not solving them. So, yes, go home and let the UN which can include troops from all nations handle things. When you try to do it on your own you tend to mess it up, Tiff. That's just a fact, most recently illustrated by Iraq. So, instead of being proud about messing things up as you seem to be, you ought to show a little humility about it. Then maybe we can come together under a common banner and make things work. It won't happen though until you can face up to reality and drop the fantasy that your interventions have been heroic in recent history.
Horrible stuff. You should stick to the grit juice.
The UN was our idea. It didn't really work out. Turns out these things just have to evolve organically. Your great wisdom on the topic will probably have to give way to nature.
The UN was probably the best idea you ever had. It's no great wisdom to recognize the destructiveness of treating it like the enemy as this administration tends to do, and the sense in more multilateralism and less unilateralism.
So wrong. The UN was a mainly Canadian project. It's why it was going to be located in Montreal until New York forced its muscles.
I love Canada.
The UN was FDRs idea as far as I know.
"The UN was FDRs idea as far as I know."
Nah. The UN is "League of Nations" 2.0. It was Wilson's idea.
Well, yes and no, St James Palace was really a multilateral effort. FDR gave it its name, and had the gravitas to put it in motion. But, and this comes from a book I red a terribly long time ago, so sorry if I cant provide quotes and ref, the administrative impetus was provided disproportionnately by Canadians. Thats why for a short time putting its headquarters in Montreal made sense (as also providing an appearance of neutrality).
Which makes sense, really, if you think about how the U.N. are perceived by americans. It is the quintessential Canuck enterprise of patient if somewhat ineffective political deliberation. And I guess that comes of as "weak and meek" to a certain strata of americans.
I had answered. You simply appear to have not liked my answer.
Me; "The second is that it will embolden support for Trump and blow back into the face of London’s mayor"
You; "How And why?"
Me; "By revealing hypocrisy and immaturity of Khan."
It was hardly a nuanced or detailed question. My answer reflected that.
What hidden tax?
As I understand it tariffs imposed were to bring negotiators to the table to possibly eliminate tariffs at both ends.
https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/07/news/economy/ge-jobs-moving-to-canada-paul-ryan/index.html
"President Trump has blasted companies for shipping U.S. jobs to Mexico. But Canada is also aggressively luring factories from across the northern border. The Canadian government gave GE $2 billion in incentives to shut down in Wisconsin and move to a city in Ontario, Canada."
Trump suggested the UK to sue the EU.
May couldn't hide her amusement when telling this.
One among other Trump ideas that fully show what kind of blissfully ignorant idiot he is. Like his proposal to Macron that France should exit the EU to get a trade deal with the US and that Russia and the US should create a joint task force to counter hackers and cybercrime.
Only clueless Trump supporters can think these are great ideas. But they tell clearly just on what kind of level Trump truly operates.
How would you define "honest" here, true to how he feels at that moment? If he feels like this is the right thing to say, whether or not it's true, he'll say it. And this is being honest?
Quoting raza
The hidden tax is the tariffs. When there is tariffs on the raw materials, it rolls into the price of the product. The product is more expensive to the consumer because there is a hidden tax within, the tariff.
Quoting raza
They were already at the table, because the US, with the new president Trump, insisted on renegotiating NAFTA. The Trump administration threatened to impose the tariffs on Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminum if a deal was not reached by a self-determined, and unreasonable deadline. The tariffs were applied June 1. The pretext which allowed the tariffs to be applied under the existing NAFTA convention was "national security is threatened". This was taken as an insult by the Canadians. The US already has extremely high prices for aluminum and steel, and this is a contributing factor to America's loss of auto manufacturing, which is a key issue in the NAFTA renegotiations.
I'm telling you its early stage dementia. I doubt he consults his ideas against any advisers.
I don't expect agreement you tin-foiled shill. I expect arguments and evidence.
My, my. Temer temper.
Ah. Right. I didn't see them as hidden. Thought it was obvious.
I guess we'll just have to see whether a tactic will work or whether there should never been such a tactic.
What kind of tactic is that, to break an agreement with your closest ally on the claim that they are a threat to national security?
The present American economic problems are not caused by foreigners, they are caused by the greed of American money handlers, bankers, brokers, insurance companies and the lot. This became very evident a decade ago. No action has been taken to stem that greed, as an increasing number of Americans slip from the category of "haves" into the category of "have-nots". Trump rhetoric targets those on the border between "haves" and "have-nots", the so-called middle class, as they are vulnerable to the fear of sliding into the "have-nots". The rhetoric falsely directs their attention toward foreigners as the cause of American economic problems, when in reality the problems are caused by greedy Americans.
Along with insulting the allies, the tariffs will only increase the price of consumer goods. And with no policies in place to stem the tide of greed, wages will not increase to match the price increases. The result of that "tactic" which is derived from the false presumption that foreigners are the cause of America's economic problems, will be more Americans sliding into the category of "have-nots".
(Edit: well, now this comment is (even more) nonsensical without the Marcus LB hilarious post about naked Trump. I’ll leave it here for the sake of posterior. What level of literalness the OP was written is unknown to me. But funny is funny.)
American money handlers etc blah blah?
It's a global cabal. There is no "ally of America" when one looks at the current Canadian "leadership".
Trudeau is merely just another global bankers cabal stooge, as Obama was (and is).
America went a long time ago. Some, or many, just want it back.
She is slow because she is old, but be patient she is on her way.
M
The 'wall' is built and old philosophy will not be coming to the party.
M
Just calling it as it is. It's refreshing. Also, learn to spell.
A little while ago I asked about Trump supporters. Let's see, he is a "clueless idiot" voted in and supported by "clueless supporters". I have an answer now.
"Clueless" means that they are simply uninformed, not unintelligent. That being the case, I wonder which news network they went to to become "uninformed". FOX, CNN, The Real News Network or maybe INFORWARS.???
— ArguingWAristotleTiff
Quoting Maw
“It’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia,” -President Trump
"If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!" - President Trump
Quoting Maw
Like most shit storms, there was more than one cause and more than one solution.
The USA has lead the charge for world health crisis (Eboli and HIV), the USA set to arrive to help in world disasters such as Tsunamis and Earth Quakes. The USA is not only involved in military theaters despite your suggestions.
If that is true Maw, then why such an uproar to everything Trump suggests? :chin:
Baden, I am not sure why you continue to bash my faith in my country, which is a collective of it's citizens, when I have told you that the USA should NOT step in to help anymore. Not only is it not appreciated but we as the USA are resented as a result of it. :angry:
Your attitude towards the American government is a perfect example of the quote: :100:
No good deed goes unpunished.
Irelands up! :up: You might want to use the batters cage to warm up for the "NEXT" catastrophe because, IF and when America is called, we have been told from the world over, not to answer. :zip:
You ask a very interesting question about honesty. I do define him being honest, as being true to how he feels at that moment and I have no doubt that he will speak it and that is being as honest with ones self as one can be. Do I think he would knowingly say something that he knows is not true? Nah, I don't think it is his style and for what purpose would he lie?
Trump aggressively confronted Putin about election interference. Just kidding! :lol:
We should shut up and learn to defend ourselves. If congressional Republicans don't want to do that, then we should just shut up.
? It's not about bashing your faith. You can flag wave all you want if it makes you happy. But I'm interested in a fact-based conversation. So tell me, what mess have you cleaned up, what catastrophe have you dealt with in a positive way in recent history, in the last fifty years let's say, when you've gone it alone (without UN authorization)? In other words what are you talking about, what good deeds are you referring to?
There is a difference between 'Telling It Like It Is' as saying something true albeit blunt, and 'Telling It Like It Is' as saying something false and blunt. Obviously the uproar stems from the fact that Trump is mostly in the latter category.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
This is an example of Trump taking a complicated geo-political subject and transforming it into a coarse accusation that merely alienates allies. Trump is atrocious at diplomacy. Outside of the United States, Russia is the largest exporter of natural gases, and from a geographical/financial pov it makes sense that importing Russian gas to Germany and Europe is cheaper than importing it from the US. Obama also told the EU it needed to reduce dependence on Russian gas and there were talks of a trade agreement. What solutions do you think Trump will propose that the EU? Do you think Germany should simply drop Russia as a source for energy, effectively dropping its energy usage by ~18%? You think the EU will happily accept Trump's proposals now that he's alienated Germany saying that they are "totally controlled by Russia", which is a blunt lie, not to mention that fact that he is objectively more coarse with our allies than with Russia. There are more things in heaven and earth, Tiff, than are dreamt of in Trump's philosophy. He's one dimensional.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
Sure, but these are only examples of natural crises (not all of which occur on the "world's stage"). Funny you should mention Ebola because the United States' response was highly criticized, and the United States very arguable worsened the initial response to AIDS thanks to the insouciance of the Reagan administration. I'm not suggesting that the US shouldn't provide aid to foreign countries, but this idea that the world would be far less better off without the United States sounds like jingoism, because in many areas around the world our interference has been detrimental, so it's no surprise that many countries are skeptical of US involvement.
In the first meeting, Trump winks at Putin. Then during the press conference he takes Putin's side over his own country on election meddling. Traitor or buffoon? As usual, who knows?
"Among those lambasting Trump was former CIA Director John Brennan, who said the performance from the United States president was “nothing short of treasonous.”
Meanwhile, Abby Huntsman, a Fox News host and daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Huntsman said that “no negotiation is worth throwing your own people and country under the bus.”
When even Fox News are getting on the treason train...
More:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/16/republican-lawmakers-call-trump-putin-meeting-shameful/788752002/
After the news broadcast from Finland, former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh tweeted that Trump "speaks more favorably of Putin. TRUMP WON'T STAND WITH HIS OWN COUNTRY. That's it. That should be the final straw. It is for me."
In a subsequent tweet, Walsh said: "Trump was a traitor today. I cannot & will not support a traitor. No decent American should."
Hard to unite Fox News, CNN, Dems and Republicans but that that press conference was an embarrassment and possibly treasonous seems to have done the trick.
What?
You wont stop me from being lazy? :blush:
I've actually got a busy day today. This is fun time.
What did I say?
This.
Yes, this.
Could Russia have had a hand in the Brexit outcome?
Putin actually sets up protest rallies in the US. Black Lives Matter discovered it. They took over the Russian inspired rally to keep people from getting hurt.
Could Russia or China (or the US) do that to your country?
Would whining be the best strategy here? Especially regarding what you dont even know about?
He would probably skirt it anyway. I would if I were him. He has nothing to gain by either answering yes or no, and everything by keeping the mystery alive. Although I am more likely to think he does now as Trump was servile (to the degree that members of his own party are calling him a traitor, which is unprecedented) and maybe that was partly out of fear. I don't know though, it's also possible he sees himself as a pragmatist with regard to Russia and is just going about it all wrong. You never know with Trump. I don't think he's aware of how weak the whole thing has made him look. He lives in a bit of a bubble.
Apologist trash.
Presumably to have it filled instead by wife beaters like Rob Porter, thieves like Scott Puritt, and sexual assault defenders like Bill Shine.
-
And on a different but related note, Trump is officially the best friend dictators and tyrants have ever had in the West, bar none. The EU of course, being the enemy instead. Because the president of the United States being a powerful defender and apologist of bloodletters and an antagonist to his closest allies is totally how things should be.
(On reflection, given things like Regan's illegal efforts to arm tortuers and murderers like the Contras, Trump is perhaps just abiding by American precedent. And this to say nothing of the Saudis).
"At a time when our democracy faces grave threats, it is deeply troubling that the president would side with the very country who attacked us."
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/16/putin-eats-trumps-lunch-in-helsinki-this-is-no-way-to-win-against-russia.html
Fox News and Republicans at last are getting it right.
He's finished. I'm calling it now. No second term for Putin's poodle. He probably won't even run.
That is a joke, right? Kavanaugh was the most "swampy" pick ever. President under federal investigation nominate the one person who has at some point said that he thought Presidents should be exempt from federal investgations while in office... Yeah, thats some draining, alright.
Also, its insulting to swamps everywhere, which are wonderful and vibrant ecosystems.
In pretty sure they heard that on CNN.
And that it's partly true.
His last chance for a clean break was bringing back at least some of the 12 russian hackers to face prosecution by Mueller. Instead he blamed Obama and did nothing about the fact that we already know Russia is setting up to do it again in 2018.
Rosenstein has no reason anymore to hold back against Trump. He can now fully cast the 27th october "russia, could you find the missing emails" as collusion, since thats the exact date of the first DNC hack attempt.
Cohen will be arrested for bank fraud by the end of august. If Trump isnt in prison by 2020, then truly there will be no future for America.
Definitely more plausible now, although I'm still not sure on that one. What I am sure about is that Trump is politically dead, so sit back and enjoy his demise. Whether he intended it or not, he took the side of an American enemy over his own defense forces and metaphorically urinated over the graves of every soldier who sacrificed their lives for America (and this is a guy who thinks the NFL is unpatriotic :s ) Even Breitbart are highlighting his treachery on their front page (although he still has his nutty supporters behind him. In the comments section on an article highlighting John McCain's criticism of Trump, a not untypical response from a Trump supporter reads: "I hope cancer wins its battle with John McCain". :sad: )
There are enough Americans who care about their country on both sides to bury this narcissist.
- someone who clearly doesnt know what GDP is, and happens to be the leader of the free world (god I hate this expression)
He might limp through until 2020. Republicans won't impeach him over this. But he's a dead clown walking now. Americans do have some self-respect.
We'll see. I guess I just have more faith in America than you and Benkei.
Very MLK-Jr of you. We'll see.
It will be up to millennials.
How does it work with state laws? We know Cohen committed bank fraud at the California state level, and that Trump cant pardon those, and that Trump could als be charged of the same. Is impeachment an absolute prerequisite in such a case?
Of course. I'm no oracle. I'm just saying I personally am convinced he's gone and am just going to sit back and enjoy it.
I really don't know, mate. Better to ask @Hanover or @Ciceronianus the White about the legal stuff.
Trump vacated that oath today, and Republicans can no longer run and hide from that fact. Every single Republican lawmaker will be — and should be — asked on the election trail: Are you with Trump and Putin or are you with the C.I.A., F.B.I. and N.S.A.?’ ~ Thomas Friedman, NYTimes.
As before, mass immigration to Canada didn't happen either. People will complain but they'll rarely act on it.
This is a completely different level. I dont remember Fox News and Republicans calling Bush "disgusting" and a "traitor". When even your own supposed partisans start turning on you, it's special.
Even if the economy soars he would still need another miracle in my estimation (Hillary stealing the Democrat nomination again for instance). Trump was somewhat a "fuck you" vote - a spanner in the works - and as a literal and figurative pejorative he has excelled stupendously. I reckon there will be less such incentive to slam the big orange button on the next go round.
I've been predicting resignation or impeachment since before he was president though (when Hillary cinched the democratic nomination I knew he had a serious shot). It's just too rough of a circus to carry on for the full four years; whether it's us or him, something has got to give. I did think that trump would have resigned by now amidst the endless controversy, but I underestimated how much silliness we the people and the system in general can tolerate.
I confess, I desired this outcome from the very beginning. It's the best possible outcome: a shakeup of the system brought about by america's own hubris, which will (or should) beget reform.
Trump will be remembered as the loud and long honk of a (hopefully) near miss when America fell asleep at the wheel. When it's all over I reckon America will take a good long look at itself and swear off a few of it's more retarded habits.
At the very least, the generations who are around to remember this disaster will be forever inoculated against it.
No it's not a joke! Removing evil people and replacing them with dubious knaves might be a great improvement, relatively speaking. That is all it may take to save the world, for the time being. Where can I find a LoveTrump site?
Yes, but relatively speaking, they are only knaves compared to the truly dark people that have occupied the White House down through the years...
Another prediction, this time a short term one. Based on the fact that Trump is a coward as he showed when he had to faceTheresa May and reversed his Sun interview criticisms, it'll be the same here. As soon as he's safely out of Putin's gaze he'll change his tune and try to clean up the mess. This time he went to far with his toadying though and it won't work.
Nobody needs to be convinced. Many conservatives are already attacking him and there's enough that he's finished imho.
I agree, but there's no necessary rational basis to this. Americans will forgive that but treason not so much.
How high the Mueller investigation has been played is greatly in favour of Trump as well. If he isn't found guilty of something, he'll leverage it as proof he's not a traitor, quite the opposite: the Democrats will be painted as such.
This has already started with Trump tweeting he has GREAT confidence in his intelligence agencies. The same ones that are carrying out a "witch hunt" against him and he just said he believed Putin over... :chin:
I just want to point out the melody and rhythm of this sentence. It's magic.
Agreed.
Maybe we're talking at cross-purposes. I'm not necessarily claiming the Republicans will do something about it. But the images of Trump betraying his country in front of Putin will be played on a loop by the Dems in any future election campaign he participates in. And the Republicans are outflanked. They are the traditional patriots. And now any of them who continue to support Trump can be plausibly painted as enablers of a traitor. So, my interpretation just differs from yours. I think you're being too negative about the American public's ability to recognize finally what Trump is and reject him. Not all of them but enough to make his running again futile. Remember, he already lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, who was hated by the left and the right, and he squeaked through on the electoral college. You tell me who he could now possibly not lose to in 2020?
Give me names and deeds, not talking points.
Who was evil and removed by Trump? Who and what was worse than beating your spouse, as SLX spotted? How can a deceiving, multiple-times-bankrupt wife-cheating-with-pornstars shyster possibly improve on the moral fabric of the DC establishment?
You tell me who could he possibly not lose to in 2020?
Well, many dems have shown a willingness to adopt the "abolish ICE" stance, and while I may support 100% that decision, I'm not sure how well that might play with the american public.
Perhaps if the Dems could produce their own version of an hawk, they could garantee a win.
Those numbers are surreal, but not in a good way, like reading The Colour Out of Space while on acid surreal.
Damn, did he say really that..?
Oh...
https://people.com/politics/donald-trump-sex-princess-diana-hiv-test-howard-stern-interview/
Grown man meets the love child of Judas Iscariot and Homer Simpson.
No way, he is [I]not[/I] always honest. Is [i]any[/I] politician? No. And Trump is no different. Lies, evasion, deception, and other tricks are part of the trade. And trump lies like there's no tomorrow. Trump stands out for saying things, not out of integrity, but for their effect. He says things to act tough, says things to get a cheap laugh, says things to undermine, says things to appeal to people's prejudice, says things to cause a stir, says things to big himself up.
Thanks! :heart:
Trump can take away our security, our confidence, and our dignity, but I'll be damned if he taints the elegance of the english language! :lol:
Best we learn to saver those cheap and traditional pleasures which are above the cranial and legislative reach of that sad and tremendous orange tempest we all so know and love to hate >:)
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Trump hasn't levied war against the U.S. What little I know is to the effect that in order to qualify as an "enemy" of the U.S. for purposes of this clause you must be in a state of war with it, or them as the Constitution likes to say. So I don't think Trump has much to fear in this respect. There may be other laws which apply. I don't know, and am not inclined to research that right now, having quite enough legal work for which I'm being paid (though not enough).
It's nice to think the shills that make up the Congress will do more than mewl piteously about this, and perhaps they will if they think there's money for them in it. Dum spiro, spero as Cicero is said to have written.
Aye, man the pumps, plug the holes, the orange tide shall not sink us, but be the buoy of our rhetorical rafts!
Aye aye Cap'n!
*Begins swabbing feverishly*
The crime they seem to pursuing in this regard -- in addition to the possibility of various financial crimes, wire-fraud, conspiracy to commit cyber crimes. etc. -- is: Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States. This would certainly qualify as "treason" in any reasonable colloquial, moral or political discourse, though of course not in the legal sense.
Oh no, don't you see a problem with this sort of "honesty"? If the person prioritizes self-interest, wants to take advantage of others, and is deceitful, and says what that individual feels like saying, how can this be honesty? The person is acting deceitfully because that's what the person feels is the best tactic, yet you call it "honesty" because the person is "true to how he feels". I don't think so.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
How well do you think you know president Trump? I have seen evidence which demonstrates that he does lie. Most people lie now and then, for one reason or another. I don't know him well enough to say with any conviction for what purpose he would lie. However, he seems to me like the type of person whom if he wants something he will do what he thinks is necessary to make that desire come true, and that might include lying.
Do you know any of the facts concerning the economic crisis of 2008? Here's some info from Wikipedia:
Millions of homes were lost to foreclosure. It seems it's as they say, Trump supporters are simply uneducated. Get your shit together raza.
Amongst Rep he is still at 87%.
About 9 republicans out of 10 still support him, after this weeks revelations.
Look at Raza's, En Passant's, Tiff's and Augustino's degree of doublethinking when they accuse Stzrok of dubious character because of his affair and yet paint Trump as an honest person full of integrity despite being guilty of the same multiple times over.
I fear there are no ways to penetrate those cognitive defenses. Americans now have to face that a large part of their electorate are willing to defend a racist, sexist, criminal idiot because of party lines.
Whatever current polls state generally reflect what occurred a week or two ago. Polling isn't instantaneous. That said, there will always be those, as you mentioned, who lap up the Trump punch.
Trump has been laid to rest a dozen or so times already. You guys know nothing.
I never referred to Strzok’s affair and nor do I care who he was sextually humping.
After all, even if an US presidential candidate would have colluded with the Russians to get himself elected and the Russians would have something on him, it still wouldn't mean that the president would have to be such a slavish lackey as Trump. They (the Russians) would totally understand if the US president still would have some harsh words at them from time to time. They wouldn't "kill their gold laying goose" by making a scandal because of some minor issue. They would be happy for far less. This just shows Trump's utter incompetence.
It's still very fascinating when you think of it.
And that economic problem was caused by foreigners or American greed?
Also relevant:
Ex Parte Bollman and Ex Parte Swartwout, 8 U.S. 75 (1807):
[quote=Chief Justice Marshall]The term 'enemies', as used in the second clause, according to its settled meaning, at the time the Constitution was adopted, applies only to the subjects of a foreign power in a state of open hostility with us.[/quote]
Also:
[quote=Chief Justice Marshall][levying war] is a technical term. It is used in a very old statute of that country whose language is our language, and whose laws form the substratum of our laws. It is scarcely conceivable that the term was not employed by the framers of our constitution in the sense which had been affixed to it by those from whom we borrowed it. So far as the meaning of any terms, particularly terms of art, is completely ascertained, those by whom they are employed must be considered as employing them in that ascertained meaning, unless the contrary be proved by the context. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose, unless it be incompatible with other expressions of the constitution, that the term "levying war" is used in that instrument in the same sense in which it was understood, in England and in this country, to have been used in statute 25 of Edward III., from which it is borrowed.[/quote]
Regarding that statute (the Treason Act 1351), Sir Michael Foster (an English judge) said in Discourse on High Treason in 1762:
This latter quote explicitly states both that there can be open hostility without a declaration of war and that a nation can be an enemy even without a declaration of war.
EDIT: also, check out the comments section on Breitbart: Breitbart
It's the same type of insanity raza is peddling here.
Are the Rothschilds regarded as American?
Irrelevant, the Rothschilds were not the cause of the 2008 economic crisis.
Are you comfortable demonstrating the status "uneducated"?
It's an ongoing system. Do you think "economic crisis 2008" randomly sprang up in 2008?
Very good article but that was almost a year ago. Republicans above all appreciate strength. Now that Trump has shown himself twice, first with May but more spectacularly with Putin to be at the very least weak and a coward, and debateably a traitor too, his goose is well and truly cooked, and I for one will be enjoying seeing him get eaten all the way up to 2020.
I did and it's all about wishing McCain gets cancer and fuck everyone and fake news and the usual ignorant stupidities of his base, but there is also in and around there some discomfort at his weakness, which is somewhat new. But sure he'll keep the 20-25% hardcore xenophobic base that read Breitbart. He will lose enough overall though, doesn't have to be much, to be unelectable.
I don't agree with you in that when someone is acting honestly and true to their self, that they are can also be actively being deceitful and taking advantage of others. If a person is being honest and true with their words AND it turns out that they were incorrect does not make them deceitful, it just makes them wrong.
Do I think he would knowingly say something that he knows is not true? Nah, I don't think it is his style and for what purpose would he lie? — ArguingWAristotleTiff
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I would imagine I know Trump as well as the rest of America does.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Please post the evidence you have that Trump has out and out lied and not merged or changed his beliefs and expressed them after that change. One is a lie when being said and the other can honestly be how they feel at the time before an evolution on their perspective.
@Hanover is a playa. Who knows what dark maneuverings he's up to? ;)
Could you please quote my opinion of Strzok's affair? :brow:
He's being compared to Lincoln in The Donald, so...
Informative and surreal.
Contextualized, Trump is really only reiterating what he's been saying all along, which is that he is the legitimate President of these United States, having won fair and square, without meaningful interference from anyone. He sees the whole Russian inquiry as an attempt by the Democrats (which began on the eve of his election) to delegitimize and weaken his presidency. His response is fairly simple: delegitimize me, and I'll delegitimize you. He does not see the inquiry into Russian involvement as a true effort to protect the American democratic process from foreign influence. He sees it as a direct attack against him alone, and this concern about Russia is only being motivated by his detractors to damage him. I do think it's doubtful that if Clinton had won, we'd be seeing this same inquiry into Russian interference, which does suggest that the inquiry is against Trump and not just a sudden desire to clean up our process. And there is no evidence that the Russian shenanigans, whatever they might have been, did anything to actually impact the outcome.
None of this is really defensive of Trump as much as it's just an acceptance of politics being politics. Trump really is going to be President for his full term and every event that pisses off his opponents can't end with the statement "therefore we must impeach" and be taken seriously. The buffoon won, so we get buffoonery. We ordered the clown and he showed up. It's democracy in action. It's a matter of perspective whether you see this as a tragedy or as a comedy.
Well, sure, we know how he thinks, which is to put himself before everything including his country. Not so good in a President and especially not so good in a commander-in-chief, but I agree it's still unlikely he'll be impeached, which some of us opponents do not particularly want if it means Pence as a replacement.
Quoting Hanover
As I said before, as long as he doesn't start a war, I'll vote comedy.
Are you suggesting that the Russian inquiry really was motivated by anyone who wanted to put their country first?
I am.
Non-sequitur and I don't know or care for sure. But I suppose it is plausible that starting an enquiry into interference by a foreign power into your elections that has bipartisan support could in part be motivated by concern for your country seeing as sitting back and allowing such interference to happen would damage your country. Isn't that obvious to you?
Except it started in July 2016 at the FBI, with Mueller, a Republican, later being appointment by a Trump-appointed Republican in response to Trump firing the until-recently Republican (now Independent) FBI Director.
"Explain to me...why we [protected the US]? So the President can say I don't trust American intelligence but I do trust the adversary that fomented revolution overseas in favour of communism and that murdered people in the UK? That's why we did [our] service? ...it's not only political, there's personal aspects to this...it's painful."
The video also shows Chris Wallace, who's one of the better Fox News commentators (along with Shep Smith), taking on Putin in a way Trump was afraid to.
July 2017, not 2016, right? Trump was elected November 2016.
Anyway, Clinton was making allegations about Russian involvement before Mueller's appointment.
July 2016. The investigation started before the election.
Quoting Hanover
And the investigation started before Clinton's allegations.
By now you'd think it would've passed all this partisanship given the available evidence.
If you really don't care then why are you arguing it and calling it fact?
The USA has been meddling in any other country we can break into on a cyber level. I know this for a fact as I am watching the NEXT generation learn how to act and react on cyber attacks on our country of all natures. The USA is just as talented at cyber attacks as any other country and to suggest that we can't or that we don't is an absurd concept.
supporters many of whom will stick their hands over their ears and pretend they can't hear.
So much of this is absurd.
No one doubts that he is the legitimate President of the Unites States. He won the electoral college based on a choice that voters made, even if they were influenced by Russian propaganda and agitprop. However, considering that leading members of the inquiry, Mueller, Chris Wray, Rosenstein are Republicans, not to mention that the IG report showed no partisan bias, and that the inquiry itself has been defended by top Republican politicians, it is simply wrong to conclude that this is an attempt by Democrats to legitimize him. That Russia interfered with our election is the accepted conclusion by seven different federal and congressional intelligence groups, including the FBI, CIA, the NSA, and the House and Senate Intelligence Committee, who have warned that we are susceptible to attacks in the future. To think that this inquiry is "against Trump" instead of the broader "protecting the democratic process", is to assume some type of Deep State conspiracy. That several people close to Trump have been indicted is also true.
The proof of this is in the pudding, but Trump would rather slurp on the borscht, and that's deeply concerning.
Quoting Hanover
You do realize you've reifiied a hypothetical, right?
It's not as important because they did the right thing (wouldn't any country want to find out if their election was interfered with?) but my love for Hanover compels me to answer even his more pointless questions.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
I can't access the video so maybe you can explain and justify the equivalency you are trying to draw here. (Bear in mind though this discussion is not about Obama and I'm not an Obama fan, so I'm not a partisan with regard to him and Trump. I don't like either).
"None of this is really defensive of Trump as much as it's just an acceptance of politics being politics. "
I don't disagree with much of what you said, but keep in mind that "politics being politics" includes the negative political impact to Trump, both domestically and internationally. This has hurt his ability to do his job (it's astounding how much time and effort he expends with his crazy tweets degrading the investigation and about the intelligence agencies that are under him), it may impact Republicans chances in the midterms, and it may hurt his chances for reelection. All these are also "politics being politics." Had he simply acted like an adult and accepted that an investigation was under way, then with his full knowledge of being innocent, he could have simply ignored it and concentrated on the job of being President.
Insert evidence here >…………………<
Unfortunately, Putin doesn't have to be a master to outfox Trump, he only has to be... conscious. A ten-year old child could learn the beat-Trump-on-foreign-policy strategy: flatter his ego and then sit back and watch as he does everything you want him to do.
I suggest that what Putin wants Trump to do is to not want war.
That should serve everybody. Well, everybody that matters.
"I suggest that what Putin wants Trump to do is to not want war."
Putin does not want war, but he wants to gain advantages (economic and influence) with other countries. Putin got his money's worth these last couple weeks by Trump's treatment of allies.
More disappointment on the way. I don’t say that as some Trump supporter. It is just how things are going.
Trump’s opposition is weak. Now when one takes into account all the negative press on Trump, and then he still wins, it really shows just how weak his opposition is.
So the question should be, why is his opposition so weak?
Well, because they have nothing real to offer.
But a war between Russia and the US was never on the cards for the simple reason it's in neither's interest to the most dramatic degree possible, i.e. mutual annihilation. So, sure none of us want that but it wasn't going to happen no matter who was President. And it certainly wasn't going to be caused by Trump pointing out to Putin that he wasn't happy with Russia's cyber attacks on the US. It was a low bar which he managed to slide under for no apparent reason.
On foreign policy, he's simply a buffoon. There's nothing much else to it. He knows almost nothing and just goes with his gut. So, I don't think it's possible to significantly underestimate him. On domestic, he's good at relating to his base and relies more on his advisers to sort out the details. The Republicans won't dump him because they're afraid of his base, and the Dems don't have the power to. So, it seems you're stuck with him until 2020. As I said earlier Pence is equally if not more slimey, and has none of the entertainment value so...
That’s right. No war means prosperity for most.
Whereas warmongers see war as prosperity for a tiny few.
It appears to me that US and UN opposition to Trump would like conflicts to break out to try to paint Trump as a failure.
Also, conflicts are on the cards to detract from the actual evidence of actual treason and collusions of the Clinton cabal.
Evidence?
Quoting raza
Evidence?
http://charlesortel.com/
Where's the bit about them committing treason?
And he's doing that now with a press conference reading from a prepared statement saying he meant the opposite of what he actually said. Makes him look very weak and incompetent but marginally better than doubling down.
Or do they? We'll have to wait and see. And remember, that they made him president in the first place is telling. This whole affair has made me doubt anew - and to a greater degree - where the American electorate is willing to draw the line, which is quite concerning. It was concerning under Bush - especially with his reelection - and it's concerning now.
It's an interesting thought. I predict that if he makes it that far, there will either be celebrations or protests on an unprecedented scale, corresponding to whether he wins or loses. If he loses, I think that it should be made a public holiday and celebrated each year. Hopefully, lessons would be learnt, and they wouldn't make the same mistake again, at least for a period, but what's concerning is that now there's a precedent for it. Imagine a future Trump 2.0. It doesn't have to be Trump himself, but someone like him. Maybe someone determined to out do him. Scary thought. Kanye 2020? :grimace:
No, you see, either he said what he said at the conference just to troll the media, or he's saying what he's saying now to show that he'll be attacked by the media for saying the very thing they've been saying he should have said at the conference.
The main thing is that 95% of Breitbart readers will find a way to simultaneously interpret this as a win for the President and wish cancer good luck in defeating John McCain.
True to yourself means adhering to your principles whether they are selfish and deceitful principles or not. So it is quite often that a person who is being true to oneself is lying and deceitful to others. If a person believes that lying to others is beneficial, then staying true to that belief means lying to others.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Such fun.
The would/wouldn't thing is particularly funny because his advisers came up with that idea after he had doubled down on Twitter and elsewhere on his Putin love. And the context when changed to "wouldn't" doesn't actually make any sense compared to the original which fit with everything he was saying... As Maw said though he'll just blow all this out of the water later anyway.
But there's nothing left here except to laugh. What a fucking mess.
He knowingly lied about raising additional billion of dollars from NATO members. It's impossible for a reasonable person to conclude that from the joint statement. Joint statement
Either Trump is a poorly informed moron or he is a liar, either way he fails. Personally, I think it is both.
How would you determine if you were being deceitful with yourself? :confused:
Brings up an interesting point to me anyway. Can anyone be inherently selfish and deceitful? Or is that selfishness and deceitfulness a free choice made against some inter conflict to not be selfish and deceitful? And if there is internal conflict than are they being true to themselves, or merely justifying there act of will ?
Sanders denies Trump said Russia no longer targeting US
"The White House on Wednesday said President Trump did not say that Russia is no longer targeting the United States, seeking to clean up Trump's earlier comments that further fueled outrage about his handling of Moscow.
During a Cabinet meeting, Trump said "no" when asked by a reporter if he believes Russia is still seeking to meddle in U.S. political affairs.
But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she spoke with Trump who said he was "saying 'no' to answering questions" and not to the reporter's question itself.."
If you are dealing with someone who is capable of saying anything, does if even matter anymore what he says ? He is self contradictory often in the same sentence - quite a feat actually. He is willing to say absolutely anything that he believes will win the moment, irregardless of the truth, or other repercussions. He is playing checkers, one move at a time.
What I find amazing is the divide in America - for so many it seems so apparent that we have an incredible narcissist, with only a mild acquaintance with the truth, and a complete absence of character as President of the US. And to so many others he is so much the opposite. How can so many of us look at the same reality and have such radically different views of it.
It reminds me of the OJ verdict where so many white Americans were outraged that the jury could be so wrong and so many black Americans felt just the opposite.
Basically people live in parallel news environments with totally different "facts". Social media just enforces that.
But note that this isn't anything new, especially in early 20th Century political newspapers could invent whatever was suitable for them. Journalistic ethics is a new thing.
That's basically what I am saying. There is an objective reality, Trump did stand at that podium and he did say what he said. He did read that i meant " wouldn't " correction. How can there be such extreme and dichotomous views of this reality. How can Fox and MSNBC both garner so many followers exposing such polar views of the same actual events? Do we just chose sides now, like a sports team, and stay loyal to our brand no matter what ?
That's a lie. And by a 'lie' I mean a 'banana', obviously.
:rofl:
"What, precisely, did President Trump say about the diametrically opposed statements by U.S. intelligence agencies (and the Senate Intelligence Committee) and by Putin concerning Russia and the 2016 U.S. elections? Precision is not part of Trump’s repertoire: He speaks English as though it is a second language that he learned from someone who learned English last week. So, it is usually difficult to sift meanings from Trump’s word salads. But in Helsinki he was, for him, crystal clear about feeling no allegiance to the intelligence institutions that work at his direction and under leaders he chose.
...
The explanation is in doubt; what needs to be explained — his compliance — is not. Granted, Trump has a weak man’s banal fascination with strong men whose disdain for him is evidently unimaginable to him. And, yes, he only perfunctorily pretends to have priorities beyond personal aggrandizement. But just as astronomers inferred, from anomalies in the orbits of the planet Uranus, the existence of Neptune before actually seeing it, Mueller might infer, and then find, still-hidden sources of the behavior of this sad, embarrassing wreck of a man."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-sad-embarrassing-wreck-of-a-man/2018/07/17/d06de8ea-89e8-11e8-a345-a1bf7847b375_story.html?utm_term=.e985d7892512
(To get past the paywall and read the full article on mobile, disable javascript, and on a PC press stop loading as quickly as possible).
Or open in an Incognito/Private window.
Oh, didn't know about that one.
Oh... we're talking about Trump. That's not going to happen.
My guess is that a lot of people hate politicians, because they all lie to the people. And Trump is a poor politician, so that maybe makes him better then the rest in their eyes?
Or put in another way, Trump is a whimsical, petty liar, to save his ass, to conquer the room, to boost his ego etc... while other more cunning politicans are in it for the long haul, they'll make sure they are not caught on little lies.
I remember a while back some press were counting all the factual lies Trump had made during a particular speech, as a kind of proof to show how evil he really was. But do these really matter all that much. Isn't the apparent stand-up politican who gets all the facts right and says all the right things, but then makes shady deals with whomever is pulling the strings behind the scenes, a lot worse?
Trump may very well be a narcissist only out for himself, but at least it is only himself. He isn't looking to preserve a whole ruling class, he's very much the odd man out.
The words you delivered to me above are rich for so many reasons, dear friend.
My tongue with you is bloody from my biting it, when you offer the USA advice that we should follow but it is not one that you have been able to abide by any better yourself.
Do as I say, not as I do eh?
Well, more of less yes... this is an important point in regards to reasoning about ethics. Just because someone does something terrible, it doesn't mean other people should be let of the hook for terrible behaviour.
If someone is behaving poorly, pointing out the behaviour other shouldn't be used to excuse it. Someone else's wrong doesn't make another's right.
Thrasymachus smiles.
Oh yeah, this is a classical example of the logic of Trump rhetoric. Politicians are liars. I'm not a politician. Therefore I'm not a liar. Here's another one. If you have a problem, you can always find someone else to blame your problem on. Therefore if America has any economic problems, they are caused by foreigners. But blaming your own problems on someone else only fosters hate, and such rhetoric ought to be seen for what it is, hate speech.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
I won't go into that here, because that's a complicated issue (check Moliere's thread on lying to oneself), and it's not the issue here. The issue is being deceitful toward someone else, lying. And the point is that you can be true to yourself and still be lying to others. This stems from a selfish disposition.
Quoting Rank Amateur
I think some people are inherently selfish and deceitful, it is a disposition they have grown into. It doesn't in itself necessitate inner turmoil, as some people are quite comfortable in this position. The problem though is that a lie, to successfully deceive someone, sometimes requires a cover-up to hide any evidence which would expose the lie. The cover-up may need to become more and more elaborate as evidence of the cover-up also need to be covered up, so the whole thing can snowball. Internal conflict involves doubt about the capacity to make a successful cover-up.
He hasn’t blamed Putin for the dnc “hack”.
He is trying, possibly failing, to get his adversaries to back off.
What is important is this supposed evidence about a dnc hack of emails by who to WikiLeaks.
Evidence proposed doesn’t stack up and the servers involved were not inspected by the FBI. In fact the FBI were denied access to the dnc “hacked” sever BY the dnc.
I’m not seeing your point.
It is the right thing for the president to engage with another leader regarded as adversary.
It is what he tried with North Korea and it is even more important with Russia given their greater nuclear capability.
This doesn’t strike you as peculiar?
What other country does NOT want to do this?
Is that an order?
I have information to the contrary.
Whatever tin-foiled shill. I might be replying to you but it's obviously for the benefit for other intelligent readers. You don't need to reply to me, I'll just continue to correct all your inane comments as I see fit.
Do your best, although on the scale of things is a pretty low bar.
Here is a little investigative exercise for you, because it would be unfair of me to assume you already have this information.
How large are the Guccifer 2 files, megabytes, and what rate of transfer would be required to send such sized files to “the cloud” and therefore also to “hack” from the “cloud”?
Data’s transference consists within it ‘timestamps’ which determines time of download or hack.
1,976MB.
Quoting raza
181.6Mbps (22.7MBps), apparently.
And FYI, given that Virgin were offering 300Mbps (45MBps) internet for £80 a month in January 2016, I think the Russian intelligence would easily have had an internet connection fast enough to copy the files at that speed, so this conspiracy theory you're alluding to that it must have been copied locally and leaked (by Seth Rich, I suppose?) is nonsense.
And let's not get into the ease with which metadata can be falisified or the fact they are changed by copying them. But yes, let's let raza trust Forencicator (an unknown person) above CrowdStrike, Secureworks, FireEye, FBI, CIA, NSA, intelligence committees, GCHQ and the AIVD (Dutch intelligence agency). It's not just a deep state conspiracy but they even co-opted their international allies. What a muppet.
FYI, on your FYI, a leased line:
T1 (1.544 Mbit/s)
T2 (6.312 Mbit/s)
T3 (44.736 Mbit/s)
Didn't you hear? It's Trump against the entire world. He's the God-Emperor, the saviour of mankind, destined to bring about the Golden Path, and the corrupt New World Order of the Illuminati is out to stop him.
original Guccifer Romanian hacker
When WikiLeaks were getting ready to publish emails Guccifer 2 appeared
Guccifer 1 regards gucc 2 as a fabrication
Guccifer 2 claimed gucc 1 hacked dnc for the Russians
Guccifer 2 put data for supposed hack on web
Data shows amount of bytes, or bits, + timestamp at end of the file
- timestamp after timestamp. You can take between any 2 timestamps and calculate the number of bytes involved and also, then, the rate of transfer of the data. With every file this can be done.
The rate of transfer to make web transfer of these files possible was 49.1 megabytes per second.
It is known that this rate cannot go across the network
Some claimed it could, so tests were done of this.
Tests were to send this size data from the US to places such as Belgrade, Netherlands, Albania, UK.
The fastest rate achieved was between a data center in New Jersey and a data center in the UK.
This rate, of 12 megabytes per second, is less than a 4th the speed required as listed by gucc 2.
So, an impossible transfer at that rate (the highest rate possible, 12 megabytes per second).
But it is the perfect download rate for a thumb drive.
This makes it technically and scientifically provable that it cannot have been a hack from an overseas location, thereby including Russia.
The transfer of this data had to be local from computer to another physical device.
Gucc 2 put out 2 sets of data, on the 5th July 2016 and the 1st September 2016.
When analysing Guccifer 2’s data and ignoring the hour and the date and instead concentrating on minutes, seconds and milliseconds these two data sets merge.
This means Guccifer 2 manipulated the data - by taking one file down (the complete download into a physical device), splitting it into two parts, then issuing one for the 5th of July and one for the 1st of September.
So the upshot is that intelligence officials are using data to make a decision that has been tampered with.
and this
Quoting raza
When you copy a file, the access and create timestamp change. When you move a file, it changes the create timestamp only. So, to avoid a traceable path online the dangers of which a hacker is very aware, you download all the shit you got through your hack over the net (a hack that took weeks, not 87 seconds) on a thumbdrive and taadaa, there's your explanation for all this.
It is also quite easy and possible to bulk edit timestamps, which would be useful as ahacker as well to make it more difficult for agencies to piece together when and where the files were obtained. See: how to change timestamps
And that's not taking into account that it even would be possible to do this with a leased line (you can wiki this shit). People saying it isn't possible don't know what they're talking about. I also know from experience since I've negotiated quite a few co-location and fibre-optics agreements for financial companies and am quite aware of the available speeds in the market for enterprises.
As usual, the idea some unknown internet troll is more trustworthy than various intelligence agencies across the world is only revealing of bias and demonstrates a serious lack of critical thinking.
Here are three of these "unknown internet trolls".
1. Former National Security Agency official, William Binney.
2. Former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern.
3. Former CIA officer and current executive director of the Council for the National Interest, Philip Giraldi.
Whistleblower William Binney, a former National Security Agency official, is speaking out against the Central Intelligence Agency’s claims that Russia hacked the Democratic Party
Binney, a cryptanalyst-mathematician and a Russia specialist at one point during his 30 years with the NSA, is a signatory of an open letter released Monday from six retired intelligence officials, calling themselves the “Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,” who assert that the allegations that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are baseless.
Binney details points clarifying that the WikiLeaks email releases are not hacks at all, but actually insider leaks.
“In order to get to the servers, they [hackers] would have to come across the network and go into the servers, penetrate them, and then extract data out of the servers and bring it back across the network,” Binney explained. “If it were the Russians, it would then go to Russia, and it would have to go from there across the network again to get to WikiLeaks.”
Binney explained that “anything doing that would be picked up by the NSA’s vast surveillance system, both in terms of collecting the data as it transits the fiber optics inside the US, as well as internationally.”
The retired intelligence analyst also noted that traceroute packets are embedded in hundreds of switchers around the world, and that email messages are easily traced.
“With all the billions of dollars we spend on this collection access system that the NSA has, there’s no way that could have missed all the packets being transferred from those servers to the Russians,” Binney said. “I mean, they should know exactly how and when those packets left those servers and went to the Russians, and where specifically in Russia it went. There’s no excuse for not knowing that.”
If it was a hack, Binney reveals, the NSA would know who the sender and recipients of the data are, thanks to mass internet surveillance programs. The intelligence apparatus does not depend on “circumstantial evidence,” as has been reported.
“My point is really pretty simple. There should be no guessing here at all, they should be able to show the traceroutes of all the packets, or some of them anyways, going to the Russians and then from the Russians to WikiLeaks,” Binney explained. “There is no excuse for not being able to do that — and that would be the basic evidence to prove it. Otherwise, it could be any hacker in the world, or any other government in the world, who knows.”
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern also signed the letter, and has been outspoken about his disbelief that the information came from a Russian hack — or that the breach was, indeed, a hack.
“Today they are talking about having ‘overwhelming circumstantial evidence.’ Now we have overwhelming technical evidence. We have the former technical director of the National Security Agency that tells us that this is really just drivel.”
“This is really just an operation to blacken the Russians and to blame the defeat of Hillary Clinton on the Russians.”
Former CIA officer and current executive director of the Council for the National Interest, Philip Giraldi, has come to the same conclusion as Binney and McGovern.
“If the intelligence community is nevertheless claiming that they know enough to conclude that it was directed from the top levels of the Russian government, then they should be able to produce documentary or other evidence of officials’ ordering the operation to take place,” Giraldi wrote. “Do they have that kind of information? It is clear that they do not, in spite of their assertion of ‘high confidence,’ and there is a suggestion by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, a persistent critic of Russian spying who is on the House Intelligence Committee, that the information they do have consists of innuendo and is largely circumstantial.
How trustworthy were these agencies over "weapons of mass destruction" conclusions about Saddam Hussein?
Should Bush had, as he did, put all his faith in the conclusions of these intelligence agencies?
Should Bush had, as he did, put all his faith in the conclusions of these intelligence agencies?
Who is the Commander-in-chief?
Is it various intelligence agency officials or is it the United States President?
Are any of these Forensicator? Let me help you with that: no they aren't. So it's irrelevant.
Here's what happened:
How Russian hackers stole information
Quoting raza
Bush already made the decision to go to war and Colin Powell had to defend it in the UN based on material they and Congress believed to be true but which wasn't supported by the intelligence community. It was the CIA who debunked the WMD story in the first place.
Who is the "Forensicator"? Does this person or persons have a name or are they in a category you mentioned earlier, that of "unknown"?
Quoting Benkei
So you do not think that Trump's opposition had also "already made the decision to go into war" against his bid for presidency before he won election?
He's the unknown person who started this whole theory about the download times, which apparently is being uncritically copied by all sorts of "experts" like Binney and McGovern. Who, by the way, are fucking dinosaurs that don't seem to understand how the internetz works.
Quoting raza
They might have. However, since Republicans control Congress and the Senate and are uncritical of Trump and that the intelligence agencies acted independently from Bush in the past (disproving the WMD story even), so the assumption is they would do so now again, that is neither here nor there. Not to mention, for the umpteenth time, that even if YOUR intelligence agencies would be part of some deep state conspiracy, the European ones aren't and they corroborate the facts independently as well. As I said, we pretty much have live footage of break ins by the Russians.
You can throw this in google translate: https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/hackers-aivd-leverden-cruciaal-bewijs-over-russische-inmenging-in-amerikaanse-verkiezingen~b32c6077/
I just discovered there's actually a special English version for this:
https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~b4f8111b/
This is a belief of yours.
Conspiracy theorists do not see independence. And it is evident that the supposed conspirators collaborated with British intelligence agencies. The Steele "dossier" is merely one example of non-independence of US agencies.
Quoting Benkei
Ah, no. Only particular Republican congress-persons back Trump on this one. There is quite an array of never-trumpers in the Repub party.
Don't be fooled by the dog and pony show that Washington theatrically demonstrates.
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/01/dutch-cozy-bear-farce-does-not-show-dnc-emails-were-hacked-by-russians/