US politics general thread

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Emjay said:
A one word answer to my post, and you don't even say why. You just want to sound smart, but not actually discuss any of your reasoning. Another time waster. The only person in this thread that is open to or can discuss an opinion in any way worth engaging in is cerebrus. The rest is, again, circle jerking.

Good day everyone. Pointless thread is pointless. Yes, that's indignation. Too bad.
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I view this thread as an inoculation against bad ideas and bad debate, not unlike that Monty Python skit with the argument clinic, in that no matter what I say, someone will disagree with me. I don't even need to pay money for it. :ROFL:

Me practicing on these helpless people is (and I assume them practicing on me) is how fights are prevented at Christmas time when the relatives come over :rolleyes:
 
konfab said:
Mini necro-bump
Did you read further in the article?
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But but party of fiscal responsibility? Party of small government? Lol

Also I wouldn't trust that den of liars:
While Ms. Haley’s curtains were being ordered and installed, Rex W. Tillerson, the administration’s first secretary of state, had frozen hiring, pushed out many of the department’s most senior diplomats and proposed cutting the department’s budget by 31 percent.
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So they were in fact ordered under this administration. Why didn't Trump sign an EO since they're all about cutting government funding? :sneaky:
 
greg0205 said:
^ Jr will get pinged for conspiracy. His father's going away for obstruction and three decades worth of money laundering.
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As expected.

Paul Manafort has struck a plea deal with the special counsel Robert Mueller, according to a new court filing.

Manafort will plead guilty to two counts: conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy against the US.

Manafort has not withdrawn from his joint defense agreement with President Donald Trump, indicating that his plea deal does not include an agreement to cooperate.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-plea-deal-mueller-guilty-2018-9?IR=T
 
Hamish McPanji said:
As expected.



https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-plea-deal-mueller-guilty-2018-9?IR=T
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He’s in court right now. Literally.

Waiting to hear if it’s with or without cooperation. Mueller has options either way... There is a grand jury around the corner, it sits on a Friday and Mueller can compel testimony... Right now, who knows, we wait...

The plea is money laundering, tax fraud and FARA related and he’s forfeiting properties and accounts as part of the deal.

Also, the plea leaves a path open to state charges even after the hearing today, so if 45 pardons him, they’ll get him at the state level.
 
Randhir said:
But but party of fiscal responsibility? Party of small government? Lol

Also I wouldn't trust that den of liars:


So they were in fact ordered under this administration. Why didn't Trump sign an EO since they're all about cutting government funding? :sneaky:
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This is all getting a bit heated, and to little avail. Only US voters have any influence on whether Trump should be President or not. It is their business, and we just have to accept or put up with it.
I said to my wife when he was elected not to worry too much for two reasons. The first is that it is not something we can or should 'correct'. The second is that the US system has so many checks and balances that the President will find it difficult to implement much. The recent anonymous article in the NYST gives you a clue as to how it works.
So please don't fall out among yourselves for nothing.
 
Frequent visitor said:
So please don't fall out among yourselves for nothing.
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Hello, I see you're relatively new.

We tend to fall out with each other because we're twats, not because we think we can actually effect change in the US.

Oh and the checks and balances only work if you have a majority body willing to take the POTUS to task. They don't. And Trump can definitely implement things in a meaningful way, in terms of nominations and EOs, agreements and foreign affairs.
 
Randhir said:
Hello, I see you're relatively new.

We tend to fall out with each other because we're twats, not because we think we can actually effect change in the US.

Oh and the checks and balances only work if you have a majority body willing to take the POTUS to task. They don't. And Trump can definitely implement things in a meaningful way, in terms of nominations and EOs, agreements and foreign affairs.
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Yes, and I am also relatively old!
I do not know if you are 'twats'. I got the impression you were falling out because you disagreed on the matter of Trump. He is not worth falling out about.

Some of his initiatives seem to have been thwarted by a member of his staff taking the papers off his desk, some by staff leaving his employment. As he is not a political insider he is perhaps handicapped. I expected that. He is cunning, I am sure, but if he is highly intelligent he keeps it well hidden.

He claims all sorts of successes, but does not seem to get them through to finality, and quite often changes his mind. I do not always read the papers these days, so miss some of his 'triumphs'. But I think I would have heard if he had had any notable achievements to his credit. There has been plenty of sound, but little performance. I would be surprised if he stood for a second term, as he has a short attention span.

You don't have to take him to task to thwart him. You just agree to his face, and do nothing. He appears not to be organised enough to follow up on things. He tends to score himself a success on a point and then move on. That sort of mentality is just fine for Twitter people, who do not go deeply into things due to the limited characters available. His self claimed successes such as the North Korean business seem to be very shallow in real terms, with little actually happening to show for it. If anything requires detailed application, it is not his cup of tea.

I have met many high flying (and low life too) business men, and found them easy meat in terms of winning arguments. But then I had the law behind me, and did my homework, and had the experience that Trump lacks.

He is a potential danger I am sure, but I do not lose any sleep over him.

Pax, sir, fear not.
 
Oh dear.

In news unrelated to the unexpected outbreak off involuntary sphincter tightening in and around the White House, Brett Kavanuagh and Ronan Farrow are now being spoken about in the same sentence...

I believe this is the scene in Pulp Fiction where Jules says, "You sending the Wolf?"
 
Frequent visitor said:
He is a potential danger I am sure, but I do not lose any sleep over him.

Pax, sir, fear not.
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Thing is, you aren't wrong about Trump's capabilities, but he has been a tremendous boon to the competent establishment Repubs, and he has already pushed through some significant long-lasting changes. He's busy stacking the Supreme Court with right wing judges like Korsuch and Kavanaugh. He got through a deficit exploding corporatist tax cut, and he's gutting federal agencies like the Consumer Protection Agency and the EPA. He's got white supremacists like Stephen Miller running a vicious campaign against immigration, and Jeff Sessions is hellbent on starting the drug war again. Don't underestimate the damage Trump can do just because he's a moron.
 
cerebus said:
Thing is, you aren't wrong about Trump's capabilities, but he has been a tremendous boon to the competent establishment Repubs, and he has already pushed through some significant long-lasting changes. He's busy stacking the Supreme Court with right wing judges like Korsuch and Kavanaugh. He got through a deficit exploding corporatist tax cut, and he's gutting federal agencies like the Consumer Protection Agency and the EPA. He's got white supremacists like Stephen Miller running a vicious campaign against immigration, and Jeff Sessions is hellbent on starting the drug war again. Don't underestimate the damage Trump can do just because he's a moron.
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A lot of what you describe as potential damage is only damage if you hold to a particular opinion or set of opinions. If you hold different opinions you might well describe these examples as overdue reforms. So long as you put some effort into thinking things through and try your best to come to sound judgements (note that I move away in saying this from the oft mentioned view that 'everyone is entitled to his opinion') then it is not wrong to disagree with someone else's point of view. We all have to live with that and accommodate other people's points of view. These fori help in that process quite often, although I would agree that there are some closed minds about. There are plenty of open minds too, it has to be said, and that is to the good.
I do think that your catalogue is a bit one sided, and that some of the potentially good things are not included, so perhaps it would not be unfair to say you were not giving a balanced view, if not actually demonising the POTUS.
Just to be straight with you, I have little time for Trump, and I dislike him. But the baying of the people who are so stridently trying to put him down also gets up my nose. He undeniably has his weaknesses, but they are offset to some extent by his strengths. By just how much is a matter of opinion or judgement.
Incidentally, why is it wrong to stack the Supreme Court with right wing (in your view: I think that to talk in such two dimensional terms is an oversimplification) when others did the same thing but in a left wing direction? Does it not reflect the will of the majority? Is that not what democracy is supposed to be all about? (I do not wish to imply that democracy is the only feasible solution to governance problems.)
Thank you for your trouble in replying civilly to my points: it is much appreciated.
 
Unhappy438 said:
I think most of us are here for the entertainment rather than because of a deep sense of fear or an idea we can personally effect change. Mostly i like to have a cup of coffee and read Trumpets (at home and abroad) trying to spin whatever ridiculousness that comes out of his orifice.
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Do you think that everything that 'comes out of his orifice' is ridiculous? If so, are you not being a bit one sided?
 
OrbitalDawn said:
When the grift is good.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/politics/nikki-haley-curtains.html
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Did you see that the article was changed?

An earlier version of this article and headline created an unfair impression about who was responsible for the purchase in question. While Nikki R. Haley is the current ambassador to the United Nations, the decision on leasing the ambassador’s residence and purchasing the curtains was made during the Obama administration, according to current and former officials. The article should not have focused on Ms. Haley, nor should a picture of her have been used. The article and headline have now been edited to reflect those concerns, and the picture has been removed.
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How about that grift? And bad reporting from the NYT? :ROFL:
 
Frequent visitor said:
By just how much is a matter of opinion or judgement.
Incidentally, why is it wrong to stack the Supreme Court with right wing (in your view: I think that to talk in such two dimensional terms is an oversimplification) when others did the same thing but in a left wing direction? Does it not reflect the will of the majority? Is that not what democracy is supposed to be all about?.
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There's a lot of complex questions, but initially your point was that Trump is too ineffectual to do much, and I'm stating that his own incompetence is a feature, not a glitch, to many of the idealogues and grifters in the party.

If you want to ask whether his accomplishments are deleterious, it does depend where you sit on the political fence. However when it comes to gutting and thwarting the objectives of federal agencies that exist to protect the US public, the sciences, consumer and reproductive rights, education, healthcare, pensions, the environment and so on, it's hard for me to see it as anything other than damage.

As far as stacking the Supreme Court, it's actually a very undemocratic process. The Republicans blockaded Obama's initial choice Merrick Garland, then steamrolled Neil Gorsuch into the bench without nearly adequate supervision - and are bent on doing the same for Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh has been caught out lying on multiple occasions under the questioning, and it's being routinely ignored. Something like 100,000 emails were concealed under the flimsiest of pretenses.

As for its being the will of the people - in fact it's exactly the opposite. The Trump administration is historically unpopular and pushing a minority agenda that's largely unrelated to the platform promises Trump was elected on.

https://amp.slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/democracy-threat-from-minority-rule-not-people.html
 
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Frequent visitor said:
Do you think that everything that 'comes out of his orifice' is ridiculous? If so, are you not being a bit one sided?
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Of course not, besides a seriously mentally deficient adult, i don't think such a person exists on this planet.
 
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