ApolloHoax.net
Off Topic => General Discussion => Topic started by: LionKing on May 10, 2016, 02:53:09 PM
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Hi
Do you think according to the news you read that Trump will win?
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The news that I read indicates Clinton will win by 4-5% according to the most recent polls.
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I don't think Trump has a chance. The Republican Party is schisming over it, and a lot of Republicans will probably be voting third party this November.
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Sure hope Trump doesn't win. It would be one more black eye for the country.
Ranb
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I don't know who will win, but I suspect whoever it is, the US will continue to kill more innocent civilians than أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن could have imagined in his wildest dreams. But we will see. Most of us, anyway.
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I don't know who will win, but I suspect whoever it is, the US will continue to kill more innocent civilians than أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن could have imagined in his wildest dreams. But we will see. Most of us, anyway.
Care to translate that since many here can't read it?
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I don't know who will win, but I suspect whoever it is, the US will continue to kill more innocent civilians than أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن could have imagined in his wildest dreams. But we will see. Most of us, anyway.
It is the complete name of osama bin laden
Care to translate that since many here can't read it?
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Hey Luther..I think some people are still better than Trump..the news we read about him are not good..he acts like an impolite street boy..this mentality combined wih power will be so catastrophic
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The news that I read indicates Clinton will win by 4-5% according to the most recent polls.
Good. I am not following up closely but someone told me the numbers were in his favor couple of weeks ago.. he will revive Bushism if he comes which is not good particularly for our side of the world
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Don't understand Trump's anti-immigrant attitude. America needs immigrants to do the unpleasant jobs that the locals wont touch, like marrying Donald Trump.
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I don't know who will win, but I suspect whoever it is, the US will continue to kill more innocent civilians than أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن could have imagined in his wildest dreams. But we will see. Most of us, anyway.
Care to translate that since many here can't read it?
Google Translate gives Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. He can't be behind the killing of anymore innocent civilians anyway, as his fate was SEALed five years ago (sorry, couldn't resist the pun).
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The news that I read indicates Clinton will win by 4-5% according to the most recent polls.
Good. I am not following up closely but someone told me the numbers were in his favor couple of weeks ago.. he will revive Bushism if he comes which is not good particularly for our side of the world
That person was wrong. It is my understanding that any poll that shows Trump as having a chance in the general election is an outlier. He still doesn't even have the support of a majority of the Republican party, much less enough moderate support to actually win.
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Given the horrible consequences of Trump as president, even a tiny probability of it actually happening is cause for very great concern.
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As soon as it is confirmed that it is a Trump / Clinton race, someone will assassinate Trump; either by a cabal or by an individual, from the US or from a foreign government. Perhaps not in the US but elsewhere he is considered to be a dangerous buffoon, one which cannot be allowed the chance to screw things up.
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This sounds like the perfect place to discuss the alternative vote vs first past the post vs additional member system vs single transferable vote.
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Where are the Illuminati when you need them? Hey guys, what do you think happens when a super-egomaniac gets control off the Big Red Button?
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Clinton v. Trump is merely Kang v. Kodos all over again. One is as bad as the other, and either is an impending disaster.
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I hope that Clinton wins. Not because I think that she deserves it...rather I want to hear the sound of a gazillion redneck, gun-totin' Republicans exploding with apoplectic rage as a black President is succeeded by a female President. ;D
The only thing that could top that is a black, lesbian, trans-gender President. If that ever happened then I am sure that enough rednecks would explode to shift the average IQ of the country up significantly.
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Clinton v. Trump is merely Kang v. Kodos all over again. One is as bad as the other, and either is an impending disaster.
I'm not sure Hillary Clinton would be my first choice, but I wouldn't say she's an impending disaster. Trump, on the other hand, would be a disaster, and it amazes me that so many people support him. What kind of magic is he using? He insults former POWs like John McCain, his approval ratings go up. He insults a journalist with a disability, and his ratings go up. He insults women, Mexicans, and Muslims, and his ratings go up. If any other candidate did those things their campaign would be DOA.
If what you want is a Washington outsider with a history of economic success, then there must be a million better candidates than Donald Trump. I really don't get it.
My prediction is that if Trump does become President, someone like Kim Jong-un or Putin will make an insulting comment about Trumps hair and it will start World War III. Trump is a hot head who reacts emotionally without thinking or caring about consequences. That is the impending disaster.
My only concern with Clinton is that if she gets elected there will be another 4 to 8 years of pointless Republican witch hunts and obstructionism. But that would probably happen with Bernie Sanders too because obstructionism is the primary tool of Republicans.
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As soon as it is confirmed that it is a Trump / Clinton race, someone will assassinate Trump; either by a cabal or by an individual, from the US or from a foreign government. Perhaps not in the US but elsewhere he is considered to be a dangerous buffoon, one which cannot be allowed the chance to screw things up.
Which would only make things even worse, no matter how bad Trump may be.
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The people who should be leaders don't want to and the people who want to shouldn't. That's not good.
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The only thing that could top that is a black, lesbian, trans-gender President.
And atheist. That would make a nice change.
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If what you want is a Washington outsider with a history of economic success, then there must be a million better candidates than Donald Trump. I really don't get it.
Ones who haven't bankrupted casinos? I mention this every time, because seriously, running a casino is as close to a license to print money as it gets.
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If what you want is a Washington outsider with a history of economic success, then there must be a million better candidates than Donald Trump. I really don't get it.
Ones who haven't bankrupted casinos? I mention this every time, because seriously, running a casino is as close to a license to print money as it gets.
Exactly. ;D
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The people who should be leaders don't want to and the people who want to shouldn't. That's not good.
That's probably true. I have often wondered how Israel, a country with a small population but very big issues, manages to find people willing to be their leader. That's a job I wouldn't want no matter how much money you offered me. But surely in a country like the US, with a population of over 300 million, you can find someone who is better qualified than Donald Trump and still willing to take on the responsibility. Oh wait... you have... Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders... hell, I'd even pick most of the other Republican candidates over Trump.
I have to admit, I'm a little tiny bit disappointed that Cruz won't be President. It would have been nice to have a Canadian in the White House. ;)
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There was probaby a Canadian in the White House back in 1814.
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There was probaby a Canadian in the White House back in 1814.
And they probably did less damage than Cruz or Trump would.
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While trying to stay out of the firing line that seems to be forming, I believe that Trump is not the hair trigger that many have portrayed. He will no doubt sound better now that the opposition is narrowed.
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I believe that Trump is not the hair trigger that many have portrayed. He will no doubt sound better now that the opposition is narrowed.
Trump once revealed Lindsay Graham's personal phone number at one of his rallies after Graham called him a jackass in an interview. That's the kind of acting without caring about consequences that concerns me.
I don't believe it's an act, and I don't believe his behaviour is going to improve... at least not until it starts hurting him, and then he might pretend to be a mature adult. But right now being a rude jackass has only helped him so why would he do anything different?
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While trying to stay out of the firing line that seems to be forming, I believe that Trump is not the hair trigger that many have portrayed. He will no doubt sound better now that the opposition is narrowed.
Really?
The fact that he is more than happy to be some sort of chameleon and change is even more worrying as it shows that he puts scoring points above being transparent and honest.
The man is a jackal, and not a particularly clever one. As others have said, the fact that he can't keep a bloody casino in cash tells it in spades. Where would he be if he didn't inherit his father's $billions?
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Where would he be if he didn't inherit his father's $billions?
Didn't someone work out that he'd be richer still if he'd just put his inheritance in a nice safe investment account rather than use it to finance his business?
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Given how many of his ventures fail, it's obvious.
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Where would he be if he didn't inherit his father's $billions?
Probably in a bar somewhere, starting fights.
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Where would he be if he didn't inherit his father's $billions?
Probably in a bar somewhere, starting fights.
LOL! Oh, I like, I like!
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Hell, it's possible he might have been a better person if he hadn't been raised to expect so much from the world. He just takes it so personally when things don't go his way, instead of being aware that it'll happen now and again.
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OK, so you Americans out there, please listen up.
On November 8 of this year, y'all will be sitting a very important intelligence test. Please don't fail it... the rest of the free world is counting on you!!!
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I wonder if anyone outside of the US believes Trump would make a good President?
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I wonder if anyone outside of the US believes Trump would make a good President?
I am disgusted but not surprised that anyone within the US believes Trump would make a good president.
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I cant believe anyone thinks EITHER of them would make a good President, party or ideological affiliation bedamned.
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I cant believe anyone thinks EITHER of them would make a good President, party or ideological affiliation bedamned.
True, but there's still a difference. One is bad but the other is far worse. As somebody said, an extinction-level event.
I see politics as something like the second law of thermodynamics. The entropy of the universe can never decrease, but we can control the rate at which it increases.
In fact, humans are so good at increasing entropy that one could argue that our evolution (or the evolution of a species like us) was strongly favored by thermodynamics itself.
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Where would he be if he didn't inherit his father's $billions?
Probably in a bar somewhere, starting fights.
LOL! Oh, I like, I like!
Thank you. I do take credit for that one.
I really do believe there are many, many men just like Donald Trump; how else could he become the nominee? The only thing that put him on a different path in life was his daddy's money. And as others have pointed out, he could have done better by putting it all in an unmanaged index fund. That also would have avoided four big bankruptcies.
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OK, so you Americans out there, please listen up.
On November 8 of this year, y'all will be sitting a very important intelligence test.
I'm not sure what conclusion we draw regarding someone's intelligence based on their choice between Hitler and Stalin.
Please don't fail it... the rest of the free world is counting on you!!!
The "rest" of the free world? Are you implying that the United States is part of the free world?
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I cant believe anyone thinks EITHER of them would make a good President, party or ideological affiliation bedamned.
Well, one of them is supportive of giving money to science, has consistently called for greater access to health care for the poor, and wants to get corporate money out of elections. She's not perfect, but yes, I think she's going to make a fine President.
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OK, so you Americans out there, please listen up.
On November 8 of this year, y'all will be sitting a very important intelligence test.
I'm not sure what conclusion we draw regarding someone's intelligence based on their choice between Hitler and Stalin.
Please don't fail it... the rest of the free world is counting on you!!!
The "rest" of the free world? Are you implying that the United States is part of the free world?
You just had to go and Godwin the thread, didn't you? >:( ;)
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So I'm doing well on the 50 states quiz. It's really hard because the countdown of points is so quick. You really need to have a fast finger and quick recall and/or deduction* to get the 1300 points needed to unlock the next level. On one I got 1776, which I thought was neat.
*By deduction, I mean the flag and seal levels. I didn't know many flags before going in. Texas because of their different identity priorities. Alaska because it has the big dipper to reflect its polar position. Hawaii because it makes it look like a British Overseas Territory. Colorado because it has a big C and I watch lots of South Park. Florida because it is sort of Spanish. California because I remember the video by CGP Grey when he said it was hideous and it has a distinctive bear. So for the others I had to deduce. If it has imagery of coastline, I look for the coastal states. If it has Confederate allusions that narrows it down to the Southern states. Many have a date on them, which helps because I have a general idea of the admission history including knowing 1912 was when Arizona and New Mexico were admitted completing Manifest Destiny. A number of the flags and seals only referencing 1776 are more likely to be one of the original 13.
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I saw this:
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You just had to go and Godwin the thread, didn't you? >:( ;)
Here in the free world, we speak our minds. I understand that not everyone can do that.
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You just had to go and Godwin the thread, didn't you? >:( ;)
Here in the free world, we speak our minds. I understand that not everyone can do that.
Relax, I was kidding, and feigning anger, hence the winking smiley face at the end of my post.
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If it helps, my state's flag has a really big picture of our namesake on it.
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I saw this:
(http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1114.0;attach=429;image)
I endorse that image!
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I cant believe anyone thinks EITHER of them would make a good President, party or ideological affiliation bedamned.
Well, one of them is supportive of giving money to science, has consistently called for greater access to health care for the poor, and wants to get corporate money out of elections. She's not perfect, but yes, I think she's going to make a fine President.
We're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one.
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I saw this:
(http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1114.0;attach=429;image)
I endorse that image!
I'm a teetotaler these days, but I can get behind that, lol!
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If it helps, my state's flag has a really big picture of our namesake on it.
It's one of the lazier designs. Slap the state seal, a fairly dull one at that, on a plain background.
Maryland's is the most interesting. Ohio is good because it doesn't have a rectangular shape.
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Oh, Maryland is definitely my favourite state flag. Not a huge fan of California's flag, which doesn't make sense unless you happen to know a brief and obscure incident in state history. I know it, because I took California history from an outstanding teacher, but few others do.
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Yeah, a whole lot of people who have spent their lives in California have no idea what the flag means. I was never taught about it in school, I learned through my own personal studies.
Then again, it's possible I wasn't paying attention when they did teach it, lol!
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Check out Geography Hub in YouTube. There's a video about state flags.
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Oh, Maryland is definitely my favourite state flag.
My home state. I have always thought it was one of the more distinctive and colorful flags. It certainly stands out in a collection.
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Yeah, a whole lot of people who have spent their lives in California have no idea what the flag means. I was never taught about it in school, I learned through my own personal studies.
Then again, it's possible I wasn't paying attention when they did teach it, lol!
My high school California history teacher wrote her own curriculum, because the textbook we were expected to use (in the 1992-1993 school year) didn't know the results of the Korean War. I'm not sure if the textbook would have told us the origin of the flag or not.
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Yeah, a whole lot of people who have spent their lives in California have no idea what the flag means. I was never taught about it in school, I learned through my own personal studies.
Then again, it's possible I wasn't paying attention when they did teach it, lol!
My high school California history teacher wrote her own curriculum, because the textbook we were expected to use (in the 1992-1993 school year) didn't know the results of the Korean War. I'm not sure if the textbook would have told us the origin of the flag or not.
High school history texts are the worst.
I graduated in '88 in Glenn County, I imagine my texts were (much) earlier editions of the same ones you had. Unfortunately I never had a decent history instructor, but I was a voracious reader and I've always loved history. I did a lot of studying that had nothing to do with school. At least one of those classes I'm still convinced I knew more than my teacher lol!
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Yeah, a whole lot of people who have spent their lives in California have no idea what the flag means. I was never taught about it in school, I learned through my own personal studies.
Then again, it's possible I wasn't paying attention when they did teach it, lol!
My high school California history teacher wrote her own curriculum, because the textbook we were expected to use (in the 1992-1993 school year) didn't know the results of the Korean War. I'm not sure if the textbook would have told us the origin of the flag or not.
Technically we still don't. The state of war still exists.
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In my opinion, that is the result. Just as the result of World War II for decades was the existence of two Germanies. We don't count reunification when we're talking about the end of World War II, after all. But our California history textbook didn't know anything beyond . . . Heartbreak Ridge?
Oh, and DD Brock, seven years is not "much" earlier! Besides, most of LA County's schools were poor even before Deukmejian gutted California's educational system; as I said, the editions of textbook we had for California history were decades old.
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In my opinion, that is the result. Just as the result of World War II for decades was the existence of two Germanies. We don't count reunification when we're talking about the end of World War II, after all. But our California history textbook didn't know anything beyond . . . Heartbreak Ridge?
Oh, and DD Brock, seven years is not "much" earlier! Besides, most of LA County's schools were poor even before Deukmejian gutted California's educational system; as I said, the editions of textbook we had for California history were decades old.
That was an attempt at humor poking fun at my memory of my school district's idea of what education should be. I wasn't attempting to get into a pissing contest over who's textbooks were older or more outdated.
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I was just a little taken aback that you consider seven years to be all that much younger than you. I had a boyfriend your age in college.
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I was just a little taken aback that you consider seven years to be all that much younger than you. I had a boyfriend your age in college.
I didn't think that was a comment worthy of causing someone to feel taken aback. Apparently I was mistaken. Perhaps you were attributing meaning to my comment where none existed. My apologies if I offended, it was not my intent. Your age and/or it's relation to mine was not the intended focus, rather the abysmal condition of California's education system. I was, in fact, attempting to agree with your initial comment on it.
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I'm reading some Sherlock Holmes. The actual Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books. A Study in Scarlet went in a direction I didn't expect by breaking away from London for a few chapters to document the trials of some characters in the American West.
Were the Mormons in 1840 really that dodgy in their ways? Forced marriages? East German style enforcement of government authority? Today they're always painted as so friendly.
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No, they were pretty appalling. Look up "blood atonement."
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They still are pretty restrictive and IMHO abusive, especially to women.
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I absolutely agree. I have a friend from high school who's a Mormon, and she's always posting stuff from the leadership. It's really hard not to confront her about it, given that she is also a Bernie Sanders supporter, and much of his platform is kind of the opposite of what the Church wants.
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Hey Luther..I think some people are still better than Trump..the news we read about him are not good..he acts like an impolite street boy..this mentality combined wih power will be so catastrophic
Hi LionKing, American here. It's reassuring to hear that Mr. Trump comes across as being uncouth when seen from outside the country. Don't worry too much about Trump getting in the White House, I think Americans are frustrated with the way things are in our government and have an impulsive reaction to support any candidate out of the ordinary.
This election features two of the most unlikable people in recent memory, but each with their unique spin: Secretary Clinton being the first female nominee, and Donald Trump being...well...everything we would not want in a Chief Executive. Seriously, is Trump on the Clinton payroll, taking the most ridiculous platform to guarantee Secretary Clinton the Presidency? Now that's a conspiracy theory
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The thought of Trump having the keys to the Nuke Locker is a very scary one, perhaps even more frightening than the thought that Sarah Palin might have got her hands on them.
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It really isn't a stretch to say that Donald Trump represents everything that is wrong with the United States. Even prominent members of his own party are comparing him to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, though so far they're mainly doing it behind closed doors.
If (or more likely, when) the polls show just how politically toxic Trump really is, I think you'll see many Republicans distancing themselves from him more publicly. After all, their own political futures always come first.
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Seriously, is Trump on the Clinton payroll, taking the most ridiculous platform to guarantee Secretary Clinton the Presidency? Now that's a conspiracy theory
Can you really picture him keeping that up for more than a year? Because I can't. And anyway, I like Hillary Clinton. She's flawed, but she's still better than Mitt Romney.
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Seriously, is Trump on the Clinton payroll, taking the most ridiculous platform to guarantee Secretary Clinton the Presidency? Now that's a conspiracy theory
Can you really picture him keeping that up for more than a year? Because I can't. And anyway, I like Hillary Clinton. She's flawed, but she's still better than Mitt Romney.
Too flawed foe me.
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Seriously, is Trump on the Clinton payroll, taking the most ridiculous platform to guarantee Secretary Clinton the Presidency? Now that's a conspiracy theory
Can you really picture him keeping that up for more than a year? Because I can't. And anyway, I like Hillary Clinton. She's flawed, but she's still better than Mitt Romney.
Too flawed foe me.
I agree, but she's the lesser of two evils by a megaparsec (or three).
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I wonder how many of Hillary's flaws are real and how many were invented by Fox News.
As an outsider, I really don't think she is half as bad as she's made out to be by Republicans.
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Seriously, is Trump on the Clinton payroll, taking the most ridiculous platform to guarantee Secretary Clinton the Presidency? Now that's a conspiracy theory
Can you really picture him keeping that up for more than a year? Because I can't. And anyway, I like Hillary Clinton. She's flawed, but she's still better than Mitt Romney.
'Twas just tongue in cheek about being on the payroll. But hey, there are some heavy-duty analytical minds here, who would the Board nominate? Someone with Clinton's experience, Senator Sanders' idealism, or someone else?
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I wonder how many of Hillary's flaws are real and how many were invented by Fox News.
As an outsider, I really don't think she is half as bad as she's made out to be by Republicans.
Given how many people are still trying to accuse her of murdering Vince Foster? You can't even blame Fox News for all of them, because they didn't exist when some of this garbage began being spread. But, yes, a lot of the reasons I've seen people giving for not trusting her start with lies and half-truths told by Rush Limbaugh.
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Hey Luther..I think some people are still better than Trump..the news we read about him are not good..he acts like an impolite street boy..this mentality combined wih power will be so catastrophic
Hi LionKing, American here. It's reassuring to hear that Mr. Trump comes across as being uncouth when seen from outside the country. Don't worry too much about Trump getting in the White House, I think Americans are frustrated with the way things are in our government and have an impulsive reaction to support any candidate out of the ordinary.
This election features two of the most unlikable people in recent memory, but each with their unique spin: Secretary Clinton being the first female nominee, and Donald Trump being...well...everything we would not want in a Chief Executive. Seriously, is Trump on the Clinton payroll, taking the most ridiculous platform to guarantee Secretary Clinton the Presidency? Now that's a conspiracy theory
Ohh..also in America they have an issue about a "first female nominee"!!
it is funny to think that way about the conspiracy theory you mention, though politicians can go so much in guaranteeing their share in power :)
Good to hear more reassurance that Trump will not win
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I guess we moved from TRUMP WILL WIN ? (QUESTION) to TRUMP Won..
I hope the voters know what they did not just to America but to the whole world..voting is a huge responsibility..it is not a moody issue or a game that one makes himself/herself and others pay for..perhaps by blood
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The next few months will be.... interesting.
Of note, AUD$32 billion wiped off the Australian stock market with his win.
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First Brexit, now this. The morons just keep on marching.
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First Brexit, now this. The morons just keep on marching.
At least we're off the hook now.
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Of note, AUD$32 billion wiped off the Australian stock market with his win.
U.S. Markets up over 1% on Wednesday. Dow closed just short of its all time high.
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He hasn't taken office yet, Bob. I'd expect the selling to begin once he has.
He's going to force employers to pay higher wages for Americans rather than move to Mexico... sounds great if you're a worker looking for a job, but not so great if you're an investor concerned about profits.
What a disaster this will be... and not just economically. So many societal advances could be wiped out now.
America has chosen stupidity over intelligence, inexperience over experience, and intolerance over tolerance.
Trump is a conspiracy theorist. He is a "birther", climate change denier, and JFK assassination nut. He is everything this forum is supposed to be against, and the fact that so many people voted for him makes me think we have a long way to go.
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Well, I fully admit I came on here expecting this topic to have moved to the Beyond Belief category.
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He hasn't taken office yet, Bob. I'd expect the selling to begin once he has.
He's going to force employers to pay higher wages for Americans rather than move to Mexico... sounds great if you're a worker looking for a job, but not so great if you're an investor concerned about profits.
What a disaster this will be... and not just economically. So many societal advances could be wiped out now.
America has chosen stupidity over intelligence, inexperience over experience, and intolerance over tolerance.
Trump is a conspiracy theorist. He is a "birther", climate change denier, and JFK assassination nut. He is everything this forum is supposed to be against, and the fact that so many people voted for him makes me think we have a long way to go.
That's an emotional overreaction. We're going to be just fine.
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I hope you're right, Bob. But if Trump does the things he promised it might hurt a lot of people.
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By yesterday, eight transgender teens had committed suicide rather than face a world with Pence as VP, especially given that we're pretty sure that he'll be the one actually shaping policy. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people will die if the ACA is repealed. Women's reproductive health is going to be taking out of the hands of women and their doctors. Not everything will be fine.
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By yesterday, eight transgender teens had committed suicide rather than face a world with Pence as VP
If people succumb to their irrational fears, that's their problem.
Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people will die if the ACA is repealed.
Why do you ignore the "and replaced" part?
Women's reproductive health is going to be taking out of the hands of women and their doctors.
I doubt it, but we'll see.
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I actually kind of expect Trump will quit before his 4 years are up. It's not his natural environment and I don't think he fully understands what he has gotten himself into.
I think as soon as they take his phone away and lock down his Twitter account he'll think to himself "oh god, what have I done?"
I don't think our concerns are unfounded, Bob. He has promised to do things that will hurt a lot of people. It's a good thing he's not good at keeping promises.
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While trying to stay out of the firing line that seems to be forming, I believe that Trump is not the hair trigger that many have portrayed. He will no doubt sound better now that the opposition is narrowed.
I will repeat my earlier pose. I believe all of us will see a much more pragmatic and can do type attitude towards the polices.
I rather doubt that the decision for child bearing will be taken from women, but we shall see.
As for the fringe left committing suicide, doesn't this fly in the face of beliefs that diversity is supported? diversity includes those that have a different set of beliefs, again we shall see.
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While trying to stay out of the firing line that seems to be forming, I believe that Trump is not the hair trigger that many have portrayed. He will no doubt sound better now that the opposition is narrowed.
I will repeat my earlier pose. I believe all of us will see a much more pragmatic and can do type attitude towards the polices.
What reason do you have to believe his behaviour during the campaign will change now that he has been elected? What makes you think it was just an act?
It seems like a huge gamble to me to say to yourself "he doesn't really mean these things he's saying, so I will vote for him". What if he DOES mean the things he said? If anything, I believe he was holding back during the campaign because he didn't want to lose support, and now that he has been elected his behaviour will only get worse.
His actions since the election sure point towards him following through with some of his scarier campaign promises. He promised to gut the EPA, and today he appointed Myron Ebell (a climate change denier) to his transition team for the EPA. That is what happens when you elect a billionnaire real estate developer President of the United States... they start dismantling those pesky laws that get in the way of his business. Those laws are intended to prevent disasters like the lead contaminated water in Michigan.
Do you really believe Trump has your best interests in mind? Do you really believe he is motivated by anything other than increasing his own wealth?
I rather doubt that the decision for child bearing will be taken from women, but we shall see.
He has said he plans to nominate a Supreme Court Judge that will overturn Roe v. Wade. He has said he will defund Planned Parenthood. What reason do you have to believe he didn't mean those things? If people voted for him under the belief that his behaviour was all an act then I sure hope they were right... but it was a ridiculously huge gamble to take.
As for the fringe left committing suicide, doesn't this fly in the face of beliefs that diversity is supported? diversity includes those that have a different set of beliefs, again we shall see.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Are you saying that people who object to things like abortion and gay rights have been discriminated against or harmed in some way by laws that permit them?
If you don't approve of abortion, don't have one. If you don't approve of gay marrige, don't marry someone of the same sex. Nothing is being imposed on you. Nothing is taken away from you.
Allowing other people to live their lives the way they want does not affect you in any way. But banning abortion or gay marriage DOES mean imposing laws or taking away rights from other people.
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While trying to stay out of the firing line that seems to be forming, I believe that Trump is not the hair trigger that many have portrayed. He will no doubt sound better now that the opposition is narrowed.
I will repeat my earlier pose. I believe all of us will see a much more pragmatic and can do type attitude towards the polices.
What reason do you have to believe his behaviour during the campaign will change now that he has been elected? What makes you think it was just an act?
It seems like a huge gamble to me to say to yourself "he doesn't really mean these things he's saying, so I will vote for him". What if he DOES mean the things he said? If anything, I believe he was holding back during the campaign because he didn't want to lose support, and now that he has been elected his behaviour will only get worse.
His actions since the election sure point towards him following through with some of his scarier campaign promises. He promised to gut the EPA, and today he appointed Myron Ebell (a climate change denier) to his transition team for the EPA. That is what happens when you elect a billionnaire real estate developer President of the United States... they start dismantling those pesky laws that get in the way of his business. Those laws are intended to prevent disasters like the lead contaminated water in Michigan.
Do you really believe Trump has your best interests in mind? Do you really believe he is motivated by anything other than increasing his own wealth?
I rather doubt that the decision for child bearing will be taken from women, but we shall see.
He has said he plans to nominate a Supreme Court Judge that will overturn Roe v. Wade. He has said he will defund Planned Parenthood. What reason do you have to believe he didn't mean those things? If people voted for him under the belief that his behaviour was all an act then I sure hope they were right... but it was a ridiculously huge gamble to take.
As for the fringe left committing suicide, doesn't this fly in the face of beliefs that diversity is supported? diversity includes those that have a different set of beliefs, again we shall see.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Are you saying that people who object to things like abortion and gay rights have been discriminated against or harmed in some way by laws that permit them?
If you don't approve of abortion, don't have one. If you don't approve of gay marrige, don't marry someone of the same sex. Nothing is being imposed on you. Nothing is taken away from you.
Allowing other people to live their lives the way they want does not affect you in any way. But banning abortion or gay marriage DOES mean imposing laws or taking away rights from other people.
I chose not to continue an inflammatory discussion, all I will say is that it is one thing to oppose laws but quite another to circumvent them, perhaps pass additional laws with the partnership of all of Congress, not just hand a omnibus bill that no one has read for them to pass. Regulatory measures can be reduced that is within the executive privilege. Respond if you prefer, disagree if you will, but expect nothing further from me on this subject.
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I can only hope that he turns out to be as good a President as those who voted for him believe. Let's resume the discussion in 12 months time and do a review in preparation for the mid-terms that will follow.
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My question is would his advisers let him do everything he wants to do? wouldn't they inform about the consequences and tell him it is not the best interest of america to act that way?
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At least he won't be able to all the things he said he would do.
I can only hope that he turns out to be as good a President as those who voted for him believe.
I have the distinct impression that a lot of people who voted for him did not do so because they want or expect a good president.
They want somebody to burn down the system.
My question is would his advisers let him do everything he wants to do? wouldn't they inform about the consequences and tell him it is not the best interest of america to act that way?
Listening to people who tell him what he doesn't want to hear is not a Trump thing.
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Well, I'm another who's more than a little disconcerted by the result. The interesting thing for me is the way the Clinton camp seem to have been as blindsided by the result as the Romney camp were in 2012.
My main hope for optimism is the assumption that Trump's a deal-maker, and may solve problems by a willingness to make deals with leaders of other countries that Obama and Bush turned their noses up at. My main concern for pessimism is the perception that he has a glass jaw and is liable to lash out at insults.
Anyway, I found something I posted back in 2012 which I think makes for interesting reading the context of the 2016 election: http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=147.msg5397#msg5397
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If people succumb to their irrational fears, that's their problem.
"Irrational"? Hardly. It doesn't take much doing to look into the records of those in power to see that they will be devastating to LBGT people.
Why do you ignore the "and replaced" part?
Because I'm waiting to hear what they'll replace it with other than "something better." Those dozens of attempts to repeal it during Obama's administration never actually came with a plan for how to replace it. Mostly, the answer was "the free market." Well, we know what happens with "the free market" runs health care--poor people die.
I doubt it, but we'll see.
If you doubt it, you aren't paying attention. Ever heard of TRAP laws? Ever heard of Pence's own fetus funeral plan? For simply decades, the Republicans have been doing what they can to deny women not only the right to an abortion but the right to birth control. Do you know how many people told me they were voting for Trump because he didn't believe in killing babies? Right now is the first time in my life I've ever been certain that I wouldn't have an abortion at some point, because I know that the pregnancy I'm currently carrying doesn't have any defects incompatible with life. At that, it's still possible that she could die in utero and remain in my body, requiring an abortion to save my life after hers is already lost, as we know that there are Republicans who don't think I should be allowed an abortion in that case. And they are in power.
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If people succumb to their irrational fears, that's their problem.
"Irrational"? Hardly. It doesn't take much doing to look into the records of those in power to see that they will be devastating to LBGT people.
Why do you ignore the "and replaced" part?
Because I'm waiting to hear what they'll replace it with other than "something better." Those dozens of attempts to repeal it during Obama's administration never actually came with a plan for how to replace it. Mostly, the answer was "the free market." Well, we know what happens with "the free market" runs health care--poor people die.
I doubt it, but we'll see.
If you doubt it, you aren't paying attention. Ever heard of TRAP laws? Ever heard of Pence's own fetus funeral plan? For simply decades, the Republicans have been doing what they can to deny women not only the right to an abortion but the right to birth control. Do you know how many people told me they were voting for Trump because he didn't believe in killing babies? Right now is the first time in my life I've ever been certain that I wouldn't have an abortion at some point, because I know that the pregnancy I'm currently carrying doesn't have any defects incompatible with life. At that, it's still possible that she could die in utero and remain in my body, requiring an abortion to save my life after hers is already lost, as we know that there are Republicans who don't think I should be allowed an abortion in that case. And they are in power.
I don't really care about any of that. You have your priorities and I have mine. You vote for candidates that promote polices that matter to you and I vote for candidates that promote policies that are important to me. That is why we have elections.
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I don't really care about any of that. You have your priorities and I have mine. You vote for candidates that promote polices that matter to you and I vote for candidates that promote policies that are important to me. That is why we have elections.
Which doesn't come with a reasonable expectation of freedom from criticism.
Candidates are a package deal.
If you vote for a candidate who advocates bigotry for other reasons than their bigotry you are still endorsing the bigotry.
You didn't find the bigotry objectionable enough to not vote for it, you are fine with people who don't happen to be middle class white heterosexual males being discriminated against as long as you get yours.
Which makes you part of the problem.
Certainly something that deserves to be criticized.
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And speaking as a poor woman, it sure makes me happy to know that someone I respect doesn't think my needs are worth considering in a Presidential candidate, that the fact that it could theoretically kill me is irrelevant.
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I have never agreed 100% with any politician I have ever voted for, and I doubt you have either. It's a pretty simple formula, which candidate most closely aligns to what I believe is the correct course of action on issues that are most important to me. I have never voted on social issues. I always look at things like economy, jobs, taxes, regulation, deficit, security, etc. as the most pressing issues facing this country in a presidential election. If the two candidates where the same on these issues, which they never are, then I'd start looking at a candidate's position on secondary issues like abortion, gay marriage, etc.
A candidate's character is also a factor, but in this case I thought they were both pretty much slim. It was the worst choice of candidates I've ever seen in my lifetime. I couldn't stand either one, so that pretty much canceled out and I was left again to make a choice based simply on the issues. On the economic issues and so on that I believe are most important, I was clearly more closely aligned with Donald Trump. There was no way I could bring myself to vote for a candidate (Hillary Clinton) with which I disagreed on almost every issue that I found most important for the future success are prosperity of the American people.
As far as the other stuff goes, I put my faith in the American system of government. Don Trump is a president (or will be), not a dictator. We have coequal branches of government and it is Congress that passes laws. The president can't act unilaterally (though Obama certainly did everything he could to bypass congress with executive action). That is why I think all this sky is falling rhetoric from the left is nothing but overblown hysteria. Don't forget also that Trump has received much resistance from within his own party, which makes the likelihood of anything damaging of controversial getting through Congress even more remote. Our government was founded to provide checks and balances for good reason.
I also believe that, when all is said and down, Trump's pro-growth agenda will do more for minorities then the polices of Hillary Clinton. What minorities and the middle class needs more of than anything else is good paying jobs. I don't see that happening under the policies of a Clinton presidency.
Let's say that Hillary Clinton had won the presidency and she continue the same punishing economic policies of Presidency Obama (I actually think she proposed to make them worse with higher taxes). We'll never know for sure, but my belief is that we would have continued with four more years of stagnant economic growth, an underemployed populace, low labor participation, exploding health care costs that are killing small business and the middle class, continued government dependency for the lower class, unbridled government spending, rising debt, and probably a bunch of other bad stuff I can't think of right now.
If that is the America that you voted for, then that makes you part of the problem. Certainly something that deserves to be criticized.
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And speaking as a poor woman, it sure makes me happy to know that someone I respect doesn't think my needs are worth considering in a Presidential candidate, that the fact that it could theoretically kill me is irrelevant.
Worth considering, just not at the top of my list of the things I find most important. I believe that everything else will take care of itself if we can get the economy revved up again, which why I made pro-growth policies one of my highest priorities in this election. Ignoring the state of the economy to focus on other issues I think is shortsighted.
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Candidates are a package deal.
If you vote for a candidate who advocates bigotry for other reasons than their bigotry you are still endorsing the bigotry.
You didn't find the bigotry objectionable enough to not vote for it, you are fine with people who don't happen to be middle class white heterosexual males being discriminated against as long as you get yours.
Exactly.
If Trump's first words after announcing his candidacy were to promise to boost NASA's budget by 200% and send people back to the Moon and to Mars he'd have had my attention. But no matter how important that goal is to me, the moment he started spouting his racist, misogynistic, anti-science, self-serving, greed motivated garbage he would lose my support. The fact that he supported that one goal that is inline with what I want would not be enough to make me overlook all of his other really atrocious ideas and behaviour.
Improving the economy is a good thing if it is done right. Doing it by gutting the EPA and allowing polluters to do whatever they want is only going to create big problems in the future. It is counter productive because, sure, you might create jobs and benefit the economy now, but the damage it does will have serious economic consequences later. And all of the economic hardship that we've already endured in the name of cleaning up the environment in the past will be for nothing if Trump undoes it all with just a signature on a document. You can see the benefits of the EPA, and it's worth a little bit of hardship.
There are other ways to boost the economy without throwing away the future. If any of Trump's plans are beneficial, it's only in the very short term. And I'm not at all convinced that Trump's plans are good for the economy any way. Promising to bring jobs back to America from Mexico and China sounds great, but how is it even achievable? How is he going to make it possible for companies to employ more expensive Americans? Will he change laws to allow employers to pay their employees lower wages? Will he make forming unions and having strikes illegal? Will he strip all employees of benefits like health insurance and paid holidays? Is he going to throw out child labour laws? Because that is the only way you will make America competitive with countries like China.
It's a mystery to me how anyone could see Trump as the ideal candidate. Let's say you're fully committed to the Republican party by default. You had 7 or 8 people running for the Republican nomination who all had fixing the economy as their top goal. Why the hell would anyone choose the one candidate that is a blatant racist/sexist pig?
And yes, I'm sure abortion rights are not a top priority for many male voters because those rights also don't really affect us (men) one way or the other. Allowing women the freedom to choose what is right for them is no one's business but theirs. And making abortions illegal won't stop them from happening, it will just stop them from happening in safe hospital-like conditions.
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Ignoring the state of the economy to focus on other issues I think is shortsighted.
No, what is shortsighted is focusing solely on short term economic benefits while ignoring the long term consequences of Trump's presidency.
And frankly, I'm tired of hearing republicans whine about how terrible the economy has been under Obama. Take a look at the numbers. At it's peak, the Dow Jones was I think just over 14,000 during George W. Bush's presidency (it was under 10,000 for most of that time though). Under Obama, it recovered from a major recession that started before he took office, and is now over 18,000. Unemployment is lower now than it ever was during Bush's two terms.
But because Fox News and other right wing media sources have been lying to people for the last 8 years, there is a myth that the economy has been destroyed by Obama. That kind of dishonesty in the media should be illegal.
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Oh no. We're becoming the Internet.
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It's a mystery to me how anyone could see Trump as the ideal candidate. Let's say you're fully committed to the Republican party by default. You had 7 or 8 people running for the Republican nomination who all had fixing the economy as their top goal. Why the hell would anyone choose the one candidate that is a blatant racist/sexist pig?
That's why I was "anybody but Trump" during the primary. In the Ohio primary I voted for John Kasich because I thought that was the best way to deny Trump Ohio's delegates.
No, what is shortsighted is focusing solely on short term economic benefits while ignoring the long term consequences of Trump's presidency.
I think the long term negative consequences of a Trump presidency are nil. Citing all the things that Trump could do I think is just fear mongering because I don't think any of it is going to happen. Our system of government has checks and balances just for that purpose.
And frankly, I'm tired of hearing republicans whine about how terrible the economy has been under Obama. Take a look at the numbers. At it's peak, the Dow Jones was I think just over 14,000 during George W. Bush's presidency (it was under 10,000 for most of that time though). Under Obama, it recovered from a major recession that started before he took office, and is now over 18,000. Unemployment is lower now than it ever was during Bush's two terms.
The stock market is not the economy. GDP growth has been dismal. The labor force participation rate is lower now than it was when Obama took office. Mean household income is also down.
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I think they are all valid comments. He won the election fairly. He said outrageous things but let's see how he acts during his term; we can't deny him the chance to be a good President.... or to validate concerns about him.
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The President-Elect had already started to moderate his rhetoric. We'll see how this plays out.
From my perspective as a Briton who has just started in the defence industry, I see these things.
American liberals can no longer look down their noses at us over Brexit.
The UK is now the preeminent force for defence on our fair continent if the President-Elect proves as isolationist as he has implied, which strengthens our hand in Brexit negotiations.
With Europe needing to be more responsible for its own defence, it is better for my employer.
This means that America has just let us off the hook. God bless the USA with its Louisiana Purchase and Mexican Cession.
Anyway, I hope this doesn't affect us at Apollohoax. Bob is our number 2 debunker after Jay. LunarOrbit is our genial host. It's nice that we can discuss things unlike at CosmoBAUT, but lets not let our political differences destroy our little club here.
Btw, I've been singing "With glowing hearts we see thee rise the true North strong and free" since the summer. This has been an eventful year.
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...I also believe that, when all is said and done, Trump's pro-growth agenda will do more for minorities than the polices of Hillary Clinton. What minorities and the middle class needs more of than anything else is good paying jobs... {sorry, editing pedant}
I hope you're right.
On the one hand I've heard him talk about lots of spending on infrastructure as a way of kick-starting the economy.
On the other hand I'd like to see how his economic measures do something other than encourage company directors to spend the tax cuts on increased dividends to shareholders and bonuses to themselves.
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That's why I was "anybody but Trump" during the primary. In the Ohio primary I voted for John Kasich because I thought that was the best way to deny Trump Ohio's delegates.
John Kasich would have been my choice as well. He seems to be honest, and has more integrity than the other Republican candidates. He didn't act like Trump was Satan during the primaries and then his best friend during the election campaign like Ted Cruz and Chris Christie did.
I think the long term negative consequences of a Trump presidency are nil.
I hope you're right, Bob, but I find that extremely difficult to believe. As I've said, he has already started making moves that indicate that he will follow through with some of the promises that scare me most, like tapping a climate change denier to head his transition team for the EPA, or an oil tycoon for the Secretary of the Interior.
Citing all the things that Trump could do I think is just fear mongering because I don't think any of it is going to happen.
This why I don't understand your point of view, or the one expressed by bknight. If a politician promises to do something great I'm skeptical (but hopeful) that they will actually do it. If they promise to do something terrible I assume they will find a way to make it happen. I'm not going to vote for someone that promises to do terrible things and assume that it's all just an act or that the checks and balances will prevent it.
Why would I vote for someone who puts on an act during the campaign anyway? Especially if the character he is portraying is rude and beligerant. I'm selecting a President, not an actor to play the villain in a movie.
Republicans and right wing media fear mongered for 8 years. I'm still waiting for Obama to take away everyone's guns and declare himself "President for Life". He still hasn't forced everyone to convert to Islam either.
Our system of government has checks and balances just for that purpose.
But why would you take that chance? Why let it get to the point where you have to rely on those checks and balances to save the day? It's like knowingly hiring a pyromaniac and saying "don't worry, our building has a good fire supression system". It's safer to just not hire him in the first place. The first line of defence are the voters.
If the "checks and balances" (the House, Senate, and Supreme Court) are all on Trump's side, what happens then? Besides, from what I understand, some of the things he is promising to do can be done unilaterally. The EPA was created with an executive order and can be shutdown with one. He doesn't need the approval of the House or Senate.
The stock market is not the economy.
It's a very important part though. People depend on it for their retirement. And I think it's a pretty good indicator of investor confidence in the leadership of the country.
GDP growth has been dismal. The labor force participation rate is lower now than it was when Obama took office. Mean household income is also down.
I think the President has less impact on those things. He can't force other countries to import more of your products, especially if their economy is doing worse than yours. He can't force people to work, and he can't control the wages that companies pay. He can't force companies to hire more full time employees than part time.
Many of the economic problems are the result of decisions made by CEOs, not the President. The President's influence on those kinds of decisions is limited. And since Trump is a CEO himself, I would expect him to side with other CEOs, not with their employees.
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I think they are all valid comments. He won the election fairly. He said outrageous things but let's see how he acts during his term; we can't deny him the chance to be a good President.... or to validate concerns about him.
Believe me, I've never wanted to be wrong about something more than I do right now. I sincerely hope that Donald Trump is a good President, and that everyone benefits not just his rich white male friends.
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Anyway, I hope this doesn't affect us at Apollohoax. Bob is our number 2 debunker after Jay. LunarOrbit is our genial host. It's nice that we can discuss things unlike at CosmoBAUT, but lets not let our political differences destroy our little club here.
I just want to be clear that I'm not angry at Bob or anyone else here that voted for Trump, and I would certainly never punish anyone for having differing political views than mine. My anger is with Trump and his inner circle.
Btw, I've been singing "With glowing hearts we see thee rise the true North strong and free" since the summer. This has been an eventful year.
If you're interested in emmigrating here you might want to hurry to avoid the long lines. I'm not sure if our immigration website is working again yet.
I'm sure we will be opening more refugee camps for scared American expats soon. Maybe they can get a "Welcome to Canada" briefing from some of the Syrian refugees we've taken in.
Some of my own ancestors fled to Canada as "United Empire Loyalists" during the war for independence. lol
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If the "checks and balances" (the House, Senate, and Supreme Court) are all on Trump's side, what happens then?
If the republican house and senate are on board with it, then it is probably something I'm on board with as well. Although I think Trump is a jackass, I actually agree with much of what he has said. I just think he went over the top with some of his campaign rhetoric. For instance, I don't agree with "gutting" the EPA, but I don't have a problem with rolling back regulations if they are found to be excessively burdensome. And I certainly don't agree with banning all Muslims from entering the country, but I do believe we should be extremely rigorous in our vetting (I'd prefer to err on the side of the safety of our own citizens). I also don't agree with rounding up and deporting 10 million illegal aliens (or whatever the number is), but I do believe that illegals who have committed crimes in this country should be deported. And I don't know if we need a wall or not, but I do feel strongly that we need to secure our southern border. So although I don't necessarily agree with Trump's exact words, I agree with many of the basic principals. From what I've heard, Trump has already started to soften his initial stance on many of these items. I think he has shown an ability to adapt and change. With good advisers around him and a house and senate to get through, I'm really not worried about it. (Of course my idea of a good adviser is probably much different than a liberal democrat's.) And if he does something questionable by executive order, it can be undone by the next president (just like Trump is going to undo some of the things that Obama did with which I disagree).
The bottom line is that I'm a moderately conservative republican. A liberal democrat and I will never see eye to eye on what the right policies are because we have different political views. What you find disturbing I might welcome with open arms.
Republicans and right wing media fear mongered for 8 years. I'm still waiting for Obama to take away everyone's guns and declare himself "President for Life". He still hasn't forced everyone to convert to Islam either.
You're actually helping to make my case about Trump. Many of those fears about Obama didn't come true, so why do you now think all the left wing hysteria about Trump is going to come true? It's the same damn over reaction on both sides. One thing is for sure though, republicans weren't marching in the streets protesting and starting riots when we lost in 2008 and 2012.
I think the President has less impact on those things.
Tell that to the Obama administration and the democrats who are still trying to blame George W. Bush for everything bad in the world. My God, it's about time they man up and take responsibility. If I have to hear the phrase "we inherited the worst economy since the great depression" as an excuse one more time I think I'm going to vomit. The recession has been over for seven years for crying out load, yet I still hear democrats reciting that worn out talking point.
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Yeah, but Obama never said he was going to take away people's guns. Trump is saying he's going to take away people's health care. And marriage rights. And ability to enter the country. The two are not comparable.
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Trump is saying he's going to take away people's health care.
No he's not.
And marriage rights.
I don't know about that, it's not one of the things that I considered a priority.
And ability to enter the country.
What's wrong with that?
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Republicans and right wing media fear mongered for 8 years. I'm still waiting for Obama to take away everyone's guns and declare himself "President for Life". He still hasn't forced everyone to convert to Islam either.
You're actually helping to make my case about Trump. Many of those fears about Obama didn't come true, so why do you now think all the left wing hysteria about Trump is going to come true? It's the same damn over reaction on both sides.
It's not the same thing at all. Obama never promised to take your guns away, declare himself "President for Life", or convert everyone to Islam. Those were lies coming from the right. Trump's fear mongering is coming directly out of his mouth.
One thing is for sure though, republicans weren't marching in the streets protesting and starting riots when we lost in 2008 and 2012.
That should tell you something about how terible Trump's ideas are. You didn't see riots when Obama was elected because he was promising to end two horrible wars, stop torturing people, and give people affordable healthcare. Trump is promising to take away people's rights and undo a lot of good done by previous administrations (not just Obama's).
I think the President has less impact on those things.
Tell that to the Obama administration and the democrats who are still trying to blame George W. Bush for everything bad in the world.
It is perfectly reasonable to put the blame on the Bush administration for the state of the economy. It's a lot easier to destroy an economy than it is to rebuild it. If it was easy then no one would ever be concerned about recessions in the first place.
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And ability to enter the country.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing if you can justify it with more than the colour of their skin or religion they follow.
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That should tell you something about how terible Trump's ideas are.
Most of his ideas are only terrible to an extreme leftist. I doubt many of those people marching in the streets are independents.
The left has this belief that if they think something is a bad idea that it is a universal truth that it is a bad idea. The rest of the world is under no obligation to agree with you.
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Most of his ideas are only terrible to an extreme leftist.
I don't think you need to be an extreme leftist to value clean air and drinking water, or to believe shifting all of the wealth to 1% of the population is unfair and that all people should be treated equally. But right wing people live in little empathy-free bubbles where those things aren't problems until it affects them personally. You've expressed that yourself when Gillianren explained her concerns about how Trump could negatively affect 55% of the population and your response was "I don't care about that". Maybe you should.
I doubt many of those people marching in the streets are independents.
Trump seems to have a lot of dissenters in his own party... or at least he did when they thought he might cost them the election. Now that he has won, who knows? Maybe they're okay with him sexually assaulting women now?
The left has this belief that if they think something is a bad idea that it is a universal truth that it is a bad idea.
How is the right any different? They think all of their ideas are gold... until they aren't, and then it's the other guy's fault. "We're going to invade Iraq and they will greet us as liberators." Yeah... how'd that turn out?
The rest of the world is under no obligation to agree with you.
I'm pretty sure you'd find most of the world (outside of Russia) thinks the US is crazy for voting for Trump.
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I'm pretty sure you'd find most of the world (outside of Russia) thinks the US is crazy for voting for Trump.
I'll go along with that. We think y'all just sat the most important exam of your liftetimes, and failed.
There are three things that are really concerning about Trump to those living outside of the US
1. The environment: He thinks man-made climate change is not a reality, and he will act accordingly, undoing years of work towards agreements to reduce Greenhouse gases. While wind turbine manufacturers like Vestas Wind Systems have fallen 13 percent since the election, US Coal companies have risen 60 tp 75%. In his only policy speech on energy, Trump said he would rescind what he called “job-destroying” environmental regulations within 100 days of taking office and he would revive U.S. coal. This would be a disaster for efforts to combat climate change
2. Trump is used to getting is own way, and when he doesn't, he uses power and money to destroy people who piss him off. He won't be able to do that with the rest of the world. Geopolitics is not like running a business. I find the idea of Trump with the nuclear codes and keys even more terrifying than the idea that Sarah Palin might have ended up with them. Trump could end up being humanity's Great Filter!
3. Trump's election to the US Presidency has made Vladimir Putin (who IMO, is a criminal) the most powerful geo-politician in the world, and that is a very, very worrying thing. I would not want to be a resident of the Ukraine right now, they must be crapping themselves.
Also think he will cut spending on the US Space Programs, so thank heavens for innovative companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. Without them, the push to Mars cold be set back 50 years.
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The left has this belief that if they think something is a bad idea that it is a universal truth that it is a bad idea.
...right wing people live in little empathy-free bubbles where those things aren't problems until it affects them personally.
Come on, people, the left-right stereotyping doesn't help anyone.
Something interesting that's happening in Australia is the growing support for independent candidates in our Senate. Thanks to the sort-of proportional representation voting system, and six seats up for grabs in each state at normal elections, there's lots of room for people to be elected who hold views different to the major parties.
In our current Senate (76 seats) there are 30 from the Liberals and Nationals (conservative), 26 from the Labor Party (progressive), 9 Greens (well, green!), 4 Pauline Hanson (anti-immigration arch-conservative), 3 Nick Xenophon (centrist), 1 Liberal Democrat (libertarian) and three other independents of variable political views. If the government wants to pass contentious legislation it's got to do a lot of negotiating and horse-trading to find the 9 extra votes it needs: crossbench support changes for virtually every vote. And for all that the Coalition and Labor hurl invective at each other across the floor of Parliament, sometimes even they vote together to pass some legislation.
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I'm pretty sure you'd find most of the world (outside of Russia) thinks the US is crazy for voting for Trump.
Quite. Just as most of the world (Putin apart) think that we in the UK are crazy for voting for Brexit and would think the French crazy if they go for Le Pen. These campaigns seem to resonate with people in one country only, perhaps you need a bit of distance to see the drawbacks.
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You know, it says something about Trumpism that some people on a board dedicated to defeating the Moon Hoax could support a man who:
- Believes climate change is a hoax
- Believes that one of his political opponent's family helped assassinate Kennedy
- Believes vaccines are dangerous
- And most of all, believes that President Obama was hiding his birth certificate and other records because there was something that would invalidate his presidency.
The man's a walking crank magnet. If Breitbart tells him the Moon landings were a hoax, he'll try to close down NASA. And yet he has defenders here, apparently.
As for the argument that "he really won't be as extreme as his position statements indicate, he's just playing to his lunatic fringe base," at the risk of introducing a Godwin, this was exactly what many hopeful people said about Hitler. He wasn't really going to do anything to the Jews. His rants about them were just to get votes from people who felt the Jews were responsible for Germany's loss in the War. (See Snopes http://www.snopes.com/1922-new-york-times-hitler/ for more.)
Trump may well find that he's unable to do everything he plans. But I think he'll try. His first step was putting a climate-change denier in a science post.
Next step, since he has the House and Congress, is to put in judges who will do the bidding of the loony right*. There's absolutely nothing to stop him, and that can affect the path of the U.S. for a generation. He's chosen a Vice President, after all, who stated "I also believe that some day, scientists will come to see that only the theory of intelligent design provides [the only] even remotely rational explanation for the known universe." Why not a few Supreme Court judges who believe states have the right to ban teaching of evolution except as a flawed "theory"?
How anyone who hopes for the advancement of science sees Trump's election as anything but a disaster is a mystery to me.
*Note: This is not to call all conservatives loony. Many sane, intelligent people have conservative fiscal and/or social views. But let's face it, the right's lunatic fringe is longer, louder and stronger these days than the left's.
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I don't know if anyone else watches The Daily Show, but one of their correspondents is Muslim. He was born in Davis, California. His mom is currently in India, where the family is originally from, dealing with some family business. It's going to delay her until February. She's a naturalized citizen. She has been for thirty years. But our President Elect said he would ban all Muslims from entering the US (which, side note, is sooooooo unconstitutional!), and she's afraid, and not without reason, that it would include her. Because when asked to clarify, he wouldn't say "of course that doesn't include US citizens!"
Not that it would have been right either way, because more terrorism in the US is committed by white males, and I think we can all agree that it would be wrong to stereotype all white males as terrorists, too.
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I don't think you need to be an extreme leftist to value clean air and drinking water, or ...
You were nonspecific about what you considered "terrible ideas". To suggest that I want dirty air and water, etc. is putting words in my mouth.
Trump could negatively affect 55% of the population and your response was "I don't care about that". Maybe you should.
I voted for what I think means more jobs and prosperity for 100%. I wasn't going to throw that vote away on something that could (and in my opinion very unlike to) affect 55%.
I respect your right to feel strongly about the issues that are most important to you. It seems rather intolerant on your part not to recognized that there are other important issues facing this nation that I might think are more important at this time.
How is the right any different?
They're not really. The difference I see though among the everyday people I actually know is that conservatives just want to be left alone to live our lives without people meddling. Liberals on the other hand mostly react with self-righteous condemnation of those with whom they disagree.
This thread is a prime example. I've never called anyone a moron for voting for Hillary Clinton, I never said that anyone who voted for her did so unwisely, and I never looked down on anyone for having different voting priorities than I. I simply explained in a rational way what my priorities are and why that lead me to vote the way that I did. In response we get nothing but post after post by liberals who just want to demonize.
If you want to know why Trump won, just look in the mirror. Although I've never been a Trump fan, and I voted for him only very reluctantly, his biggest supporters did so in large part to give a big middle finger to the left.
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Can you explain why you believe a man who consistently runs his own businesses into the ground would lead to prosperity? Because if I recall correctly Mr. Clinton didn't exactly cause the Great Depression. Neither, for that matter, did Mr. Obama. The Bushes were much worse for the economy.
If I had to vote between the two candidates on a strictly economic basis, I would not have chosen Trump. He is a dilettante whose solution for a failing business is to skip town and blame everyone else.
Furthermore, when you say "The difference I see though among the everyday people I actually know is that conservatives just want to be left alone to live our lives without people meddling," do you not think that perhaps gays, women and immigrants want the same thing?
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This thread is a prime example. I've never called anyone a moron for voting for Hillary Clinton, I never said that anyone who voted for her did so unwisely, and I never looked down on anyone for having different voting priorities than I. I simply explained in a rational way what my priorities are and why that lead me to vote the way that I did. In response we get nothing but post after post by liberals who just want to demonize.
I am ex-military and have never voted for any left of centre politician in my life. I despise Social Engineering and social interference in my life, and I think SJWs are busybodies and a blight on the face of the planet. I believe man-made climate change is damaging the planet and risking the future of humanity and I am a financial supporter of both Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Society. I recycle as much as possible. I believe evolution is real and I do not believe god or any other magical deities. I believe Intelligent Design is a load of unmitigated claptrap,
I am what you might call a "Conservative with a conscience", there are more of us out there that you might imagine, and I hope there are a few in the GOP - the future of humanity might be depending on them.
Not all people who demonize or dislike Trump are "Loony Liberals".
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Bob B., the problem is that you appear to be saying that as long as there's more money in your pocket at the end of the day:
- You don't care if the U.S. rejects working towards stopping climate change, possibly dooming our future existence on this planet.
- You don't care if the rights of gay Americans are rescinded.
- You don't care if women lose the right to an abortion, even under circumstances such as rape or serious health risk.
- You don't care if the millions of undocumented workers are deported
- You don't care if Muslims' are denied entry to the U.S. (maybe even if they're citizens) simply because of their religion.
- You don't care how many refugees are turned away.
- You don't care if funding for real science is cut, and the voices of scientists are silenced.
- You don't care if America is led by a man who brags about sexual assault, and whose advice for his own daughter if she were sexually harassed is "find another job ... or maybe a new career."
- You don't care if your country is led by the man endorsed by the Klu Klux Klan, and who encourages his supporters to beat dissidents at his rallies.
You don't sound like a moron, but it sends of vibe of "I got mine, sucks if you don't have yours."
To say "I don't think Trump will actually do any of these vile things he's promised" is an odd approach. Most people get upset when their winning candidate doesn't do what they promised. Trump supporters are the only ones I've encountered who claim that they would actually be upset if he did what he promised - except for the issue (lower taxes, stopping abortion, building his wall) that they favour. That one thing, whatever it is, makes them forget all the rest.
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Furthermore, when you say "The difference I see though among the everyday people I actually know is that conservatives just want to be left alone to live our lives without people meddling," do you not think that perhaps gays, women and immigrants want the same thing?
Of course, which is why I'm pro-choice and, although I'm not real enthusiastic about it, pro gay marriage. I'm also all for legal immigration.
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Regarding the environment...
I attending the University of Cincinnati's college of Civil and Environmental Engineering. I spend my entire career building water and wastewater treatment plants. In fact, the slogan of the company from which I retired was "Building a Better Environment." I have done more in my life to protect the environment and provide clean safe drinking water than probably all of you put together. So please don't lecture me on protecting the environment because I was out there actually doing it for over 30 years.
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Bob B., the problem is that you appear to be saying that as long as there's more money in your pocket at the end of the day:
- You don't care if the U.S. rejects working towards stopping climate change, possibly dooming our future existence on this planet.
- You don't care if the rights of gay Americans are rescinded.
- You don't care if women lose the right to an abortion, even under circumstances such as rape or serious health risk.
- You don't care if the millions of undocumented workers are deported
- You don't care if Muslims' are denied entry to the U.S. (maybe even if they're citizens) simply because of their religion.
- You don't care how many refugees are turned away.
- You don't care if funding for real science is cut, and the voices of scientists are silenced.
- You don't care if America is led by a man who brags about sexual assault, and whose advice for his own daughter if she were sexually harassed is "find another job ... or maybe a new career."
- You don't care if your country is led by the man endorsed by the Klu Klux Klan, and who encourages his supporters to beat dissidents at his rallies.
You don't sound like a moron, but it sends of vibe of "I got mine, sucks if you don't have yours."
To say "I don't think Trump will actually do any of these vile things he's promised" is an odd approach. Most people get upset when their winning candidate doesn't do what they promised. Trump supporters are the only ones I've encountered who claim that they would actually be upset if he did what he promised - except for the issue (lower taxes, stopping abortion, building his wall) that they favour. That one thing, whatever it is, makes them forget all the rest.
The self-righteous condemnation is strong in this one.
By the way, I'm retired and no longer earning an income. So my desire for more jobs and higher incomes comes from my concern for struggling working families. I don't have much of a personal stake in it at all.
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Not all people who demonize or dislike Trump are "Loony Liberals".
I don't like him either. Unfortunately I found the alternative candidate reprehensible as well, only in different ways. Although I'm a centrist on most social issues, I'm a strong fiscal conservative first. On that basis I reluctantly went with the republican candidate with whom I at least shared a few core principals. Had I not voted for Trump I would have abstained from casting a presidential vote. I was actually quite dismayed over Trump's nomination and really struggled for a long time with what I was going to do. In the past I have always voted for the republican candidate without hesitation, but this was much tougher.
By the way, my position and choice in this election was pretty common. Obviously Clinton had her supporters and Trump had his. But, according to the exit polls, those who said they disliked both candidates, the overwhelming majority voted for Trump.
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In response we get nothing but post after post by liberals who just want to demonize.
This is something I am struggling to understand. I have seen variations on this several times from various people, regarding both Trump's victory and the success of the 'Vote Leave' campaign here in the UK. Crticism of the politicians involved is dismissed as 'demonising'.
What I don't understand is why the criticisms are invalid. We are talking, on both sides of the pond, about individuals who have threatened violence to those who disagree with them; tarred vast swathes of 'unlike' populations as terrorists, rapists or the like; have bragged or joked about sexually assaulting women; support the idea of denying a woman the right to control her own body (most notably, after a man has done something to alter it); are anti-gay; and have shown a history of failing to take resposibility for the consequences of their actions. This is all demonstrably true. This is all based on stuff that came out of their own mouths. And yet calling this out is seen as 'demonising' the candidate somehow. We should all look past this vile behaviour to the plans and policies, apparently (something especially difficult with the guys who campaigned to leave the EU as it has become apparent they don't even have a plan!).
Well no, I won't. These men are privileged white males who are bigoted, homophobic and misogynistic. I don't give a damn what their policies are, I won't vote for that person for any reason. All that does (and has done) is legitimise their bigotry, homophobia and misogyny.
This is not demonising. This is calling out the fact that people have voted for vile individuals. Whatever their reasons and reluctance and so on, people have voted for them. Saying 'oh it's OK because they're part of a government system that will keep them in check' doesn't alter that fact. It has nothing to do with left or right politics, but with simple human decency.
So maybe I'm just deluding myself, but are we really at a point where politics, economics and decency are utterly incompatible, so we must choose between one or the other? If so I don't want to live on this planet any more. Since I have no choice, however, I shall not be shy about voicing my views on the results of the elections.
Bob, none of this is personal. I respect you as an individual and I respect your right to vote however you decide. That doesn't stop me thinking it was a mistake, and that you had to turn a blind eye to some pretty appalling stuff in order to do it, and I wish you hadn't, however.
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I respect your right to feel strongly about the issues that are most important to you. It seems rather intolerant on your part not to recognized that there are other important issues facing this nation that I might think are more important at this time.
I think the boosting the economy and job creation are very important issues. I disagree with you that the only way to achieve those goals is to vote for Republicans. And I certainly don't believe that Trump is the best person to do it.
How is the right any different?
They're not really. The difference I see though among the everyday people I actually know is that conservatives just want to be left alone to live our lives without people meddling.
Liberals don't want people meddling with their lives either, Bob. We don't want the government telling us who we're allowed to marry, or whether it's okay for a college student to get an abortion after she was drugged and raped in her dorm. We don't want the right imposing their religious beliefs on us, telling us what books we're allowed to read, or what scientific advances we're allowed to pursue.
Liberals on the other hand mostly react with self-righteous condemnation of those with whom they disagree.
Once again, you might as well be describing a conservative. But we're not the ones telling people they can't marry just because we don't want to make them a cake. We're not the ones refusing to issue people a drivers licence because we don't approve of their lifestyle.
I've never called anyone a moron for voting for Hillary Clinton
I'm certain no one is calling you a moron. I've known you for darn near 20 years now, and you've proven time after time how intelligent you are. But there are a lot of uneducated people who voted for Trump because they thought he would make it okay to start discriminating against minorities again.
I think you're a one issue voter, just like a lot of people on both sides. You're probably also someone who votes for the party, not the person chosen to lead it. You've likely been voting the same way for your whole adult life, and in any other election I would have had no problem with that. But this has not been a normal election, and I just wish you had widened your view a bit beyond the economic issues that matter to you.
If you want to know why Trump won, just look in the mirror. Although I've never been a Trump fan, and I voted for him only very reluctantly, his biggest supporters did so in large part to give a big middle finger to the left.
I think there are a lot of reasons why he won, and yes, that's probably one of them. The left has been demonized by the right wing media for as long as I can remember, so it's not surprising that they hate us. But that doesn't mean it's not irrational.
The right wing media has convinced people that going to war and killing people is good, but giving people affordable healthcare in order to save lives is the work of Satan. That is how twisted your country has become.
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Regarding the environment...
I attending the University of Cincinnati's college of Civil and Environmental Engineering. I spend my entire career building water and wastewater treatment plants. In fact, the slogan of the company from which I retired was "Building a Better Environment." I have done more in my life to protect the environment and provide clean safe drinking water than probably all of you put together. So please don't lecture me on protecting the environment because I was out there actually doing it for over 30 years.
And if Trump was nominating you to head the EPA I would applaud that choice and cheer you on 100%. You are far more qualified for that job than the climate change denying idiot that is most likely going to get it.
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And yet calling this out is seen as 'demonising' the candidate somehow.
I'm not talking about demonizing the candidate. Donald Trump is fair game. I'm talking about demonizing the people that voted for him. I have no problem with you thinking that a person who voted for Trump made a mistake, that's your right. But to insinuate that a person who voted for him must be a misogynistic racist homophobe that doesn't care about the environment is inappropriate. Neither you nor anyone else knows what's it in a person's heart and how they went about making their decision. Republicans were put in a very difficult position when their party was forced to nominate a candidate that many of us didn't want (even hated). You may also not realize just how despised Hillary Clinton is by those on the right and how strongly we oppose her policies. So we were put in the unenviable, perhaps even gut-wrenching, position of having to choose between a devil on the left or the devil in our own party. It was no-win situation. In the end I reluctantly decided to support my party's candidate. It wasn't easy and it didn't come without a lot of anxiety and second guessing. So what do I get for my trouble, the scorn of everybody on the left.
Earlier we were talking about differences between those on the right and those on the left and how everybody thinks their way is the right way. Both sides are equally guilty. But from my observations I think the real difference between the right and left is this: People on the right think they are right and the left is wrong. People on the left think they are moral and the right is immoral. At least that's the way it looks from my perspective. I'm not blind to the fact that the demonizing goes both ways, but when it gets ugly on the right it is usually calling into question someone's intelligence, rarely does it devolve to questioning one's morality. But you can see from some of the posts in this thread that questioning one's morality seems to be the first line of attack for many of those arguing from the left.
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I don't know if anyone else watches The Daily Show
I stopped watching it right when Jon Stewart left... not because I didn't think Trevor Noah was a good choice though, it just happened at the same time that I changed my cable TV package and gave up the comedy channel. I think the Daily Show is still on CTV, just at an unreasonable hour. I might start recording it though.
But our President Elect said he would ban all Muslims from entering the US (which, side note, is sooooooo unconstitutional!), and she's afraid, and not without reason, that it would include her.
Hopefully it doesn't come to that. :-\
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And if Trump was nominating you to head the EPA I would applaud that choice and cheer you on 100%. You are far more qualified for that job than the climate change denying idiot that is most likely going to get it.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. ;)
Just to be clear about something, I'm not angry with you in any way. We're just having a disagreement. I've know you long enough to know you are a good person and I have respect for you. I would be more than happy to put the politics aside and sit down have a couple of beers with you.
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I'm talking about demonizing the people that voted for him. I have no problem with you thinking that a person who voted for Trump made a mistake, that's your right. But to insinuate that a person who voted for him must be a misogynistic racist homophobe that doesn't care about the environment is inappropriate.
I'm sure you (and everyone you know personally) had good intentions, but all you have to do is turn on a TV or read social media to see that a lot of people voted for Trump because they think it means it's open season on minorities now. Trump didn't help matters when he initially played dumb when he was asked to disavow the endorsement from the KKK.
You may also not realize just how despised Hillary Clinton is by those on the right
I think I have a pretty good idea how despised she is, but I also understand that she's despised mostly because Americans have been fed unhealthy doses of lies about her from the right wing media for probably close to 30 years. She has been investigated thoroughly for years and the worst thing the right could come up with to pin on her was her private email server. But they couldn't proven anything bad actually resulted from it. And they didn't seem to mind that Colin Powell also had a private email server.
Would Trump come out as clean if we looked through he emails (or browser history... ick).
People on the left think they are moral and the right is immoral. At least that's the way it looks from my perspective.
Try changing your perspective for a minute. During the 1990s the right went after Bill Clinton over his extra-marital affairs. They claimed to be morally opposed to a President that would treat women that way (and I don't really blame them). But now they have voted for a disgusting man who brags about sexually assaulting women. A man who has 5 children from 3 different women.
The right has also criticized Michelle Obama on moral grounds over her wearing clothes that exposed her upper arms, and now you have a First Lady who has posed nude. Any kid looking up Melania Trump for a school report is in danger of a big surprise. Note that I'm not actually criticizing Melania Trump... just pointing out the hypocrisy of the "moral" right and how quickly their morality can change depending on who is the President at the time.
But you can see from some of the posts in this thread that questioning one's morality seems to be the first line of attack for those arguing from the left.
That's certainly a new argument for me. It's the right who have criticized the morality of left-wing gays, women seeking abortions, scientists, atheists, Hollywood, and Mexicans (who are all "rapists" if you believe Trump).
I'm not saying all Republicans are immoral, and I'm definitely not saying you are. But a lot of people on the right have no problem with discriminating against minorities... that is immoral.
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Just to be clear about something, I'm not angry with you in any way. We're just having a disagreement.
Yep, agreed. I have nothing but respect for you, Bob, and always will. It certainly takes courage to stand up for what you believe when it isn't exactly popular at the moment. And like I've said, I would love to be wrong about Trump. It's too soon to say how he will do, but I see a lot of red flags that concern me.
I've know you long enough to know you are a good person and I have respect for you. I would be more than happy to put the politics aside and sit down have a couple of beers with you.
Thanks, Bob. If I'm ever down that way I'll let you know. I know you've got that really nice aviation museum that I want to see some day. I've actually looked at the map a few times to see if I'm up to the drive. I was also considering driving down to Washington DC this summer, but decided against it.
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I think the boosting the economy and job creation are very important issues. I disagree with you that the only way to achieve those goals is to vote for Republicans. And I certainly don't believe that Trump is the best person to do it.
I don't think Republicans have all the answers either, but I more closely identify with their fiscal policies than I do the Democrats. I'm not 100% in love with Trump's economic plan, but I had some really grave concerns with Hillary's. I'd much rather give Trump's plan a try than Hillary's.
Liberals don't want people meddling with their lives either, Bob. We don't want the government telling us who we're allowed to marry, or whether it's okay for a college student to get an abortion after she was drugged and raped in her dorm. We don't want the right imposing their religious beliefs on us, telling us what books we're allowed to read, or what scientific advances we're allowed to pursue.
I agree with all that. I described myself earlier as a moderate conservative. I added the word moderate because I'm split on many of my views. Fiscally I'm a far right conservative, however on most social issues I'm more of a centrist (even left on some issues). For instance, I'm pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. I'm also agnostic, but I sympathize with the concerns of religious people. And it should go without saying that I'm pro-science. On the other hand, I'm pro-second amendment (I have a conceal carry license) and I'm against marijuana legalization. Since I'm all over the place on these issues, I'm never going to find a presidential candidate that I 100% agree with. That's one of the reasons I put more emphasis on the fiscal policies because that's usually a place where I can find more agreement.
Once again, you might as well be describing a conservative. But we're not the ones telling people they can't marry just because we don't want to make them a cake. We're not the ones refusing to issue people a drivers licence because we don't approve of their lifestyle.
But you are the ones penalizing people and causing them to lose their business because they don't want to bake somebody a cake. While I agree with the right of a gay couple to marry, this is where I have sympathy for the religious right. Someone shouldn't be forced to compromise their religious beliefs. Just go to a different bakery.
I think you're a one issue voter, just like a lot of people on both sides. You're probably also someone who votes for the party, not the person chosen to lead it. You've likely been voting the same way for your whole adult life, and in any other election I would have had no problem with that. But this has not been a normal election, and I just wish you had widened your view a bit beyond the economic issues that matter to you.
That's mostly correct, but I wouldn't say I'm a one issue voter. It depends on what's going on in the nation and world at the time. This time around I thought getting the economy revved up was most important. I see economic growth as the key to achieving many other things, so it's just not about people enriching themselves. For instance, creating job opportunities would go a long way toward improving the terrible conditions in our inner cities. When I talked about voting for the economy a lot of people responded with comments like, "you just want the rich to get richer." That's not it at all. There are still a lot of people who don't have jobs, or are underemployed, and are really struggling to get by. Those are the people I'm thinking about. I'm not the heartless son of a bitch that some people have tried to portray me.
Also being both left and right on some issues, it's impossible for me to find a one-size-fits-all candidate. I'm always forced to make compromises. That's the hell I must live with. It's unfortunate that if you're a Republican candidate you must be for A, B and C, and if you're a Democrat you must be for X, Y and Z.
...but giving people affordable healthcare in order to save lives is the work of Satan.
That's where I have to take exception. Nobody on the right wants to take away affordable healthcare, they just have different ideas on how to do it. If you were to say that the Republican ideas are flawed and won't work, then I could accept that as a defensible position. But to say they want to take away healthcare and have people dying in the streets, that is patently false. That's exactly the kind or morality argument that I talked about early that really pisses conservatives off. Let's keep it about the facts and leave the "Republicans want poor people and grandma to die" arguments out of it.
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People on the left think they are moral and the right is immoral. At least that's the way it looks from my perspective.
Try changing your perspective for a minute. During the 1990s the right went after Bill Clinton over his extra-marital affairs. They claimed to be morally opposed to a President that would treat women that way (and I don't really blame them). But now they have voted for a disgusting man who brags about sexually assaulting women. A man who has 5 children from 3 different women.
The right has also criticized Michelle Obama on moral grounds over her wearing clothes that exposed her upper arms, and now you have a First Lady who has posed nude. Any kid looking up Melania Trump for a school report is in danger of a big surprise. Note that I'm not actually criticizing Melania Trump... just pointing out the hypocrisy of the "moral" right and how quickly their morality can change depending on who is the President at the time.
But you can see from some of the posts in this thread that questioning one's morality seems to be the first line of attack for those arguing from the left.
That's certainly a new argument for me. It's the right who have criticized the morality of left-wing gays, women seeking abortions, scientists, atheists, Hollywood, and Mexicans (who are all "rapists" if you believe Trump).
I'm not saying all Republicans are immoral, and I'm definitely not saying you are. But a lot of people on the right have no problem with discriminating against minorities... that is immoral.
Ok, you make some good points.
When I brought up the morality thing, what I was referring to is the almost instinctive reaction by some on the left to very unfairly label their opponents. You don't like Obama, therefore you're a racist. You don't like Hillary, therefore you're a sexist. You want to secure the southern border, therefore you're anti-immigrant. You don't like Obamacare, therefore you want poor people and grandma to die. I'm not saying you've done that, but it's very common. It seems that many liberals just can't fathom how someone can disagree with them without it being rooted in racism, sexism, or some other ism. It is very unproductive and only helps to further the divide. It's also like crying wolf, people are less likely to pay attention when real bigotry is occurring.
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I'm sure you (and everyone you know personally) had good intentions, but all you have to do is turn on a TV or read social media to see that a lot of people voted for Trump because they think it means it's open season on minorities now. Trump didn't help matters when he initially played dumb when he was asked to disavow the endorsement from the KKK.
There are always going to be some bigots in any group. I'm sure there are Trump supporters that are racist, homophobic, etc., but I really think it is a minority.
Most Trump supporters are people that are just pissed off with government. They don't like the policies of the left, but they are also dissatisfied with the Republicans. They sent politicians to Washington to defund Obamacare, to stop out of control spending, etc. Yet Obama was still able to get his budget through with almost no resistance. They feel they've been lie to and betrayed by their leaders. They see politicians as corrupt and interesting only in holding onto power and enriching themselves (some of which is very warranted). They feel no one is looking out for them and their concerns. They feel abandoned.
Trump saw what was going on and tapped into the anger. Although Trump said some really stupid and bigoted things along the way, his main message was that he was going to Washington to blow up the system and 'drain the swamp' of all the corruption. It is that message that resonated with his followers. I think the bigotry element of it is really over exaggerated by the Trump haters.
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I'm not talking about demonizing the candidate. Donald Trump is fair game. I'm talking about demonizing the people that voted for him.
Ah, in that case I apologise for the misunderstanding. I certainly had no desire to demonise you or to assume all the millions of people who voted for Trump were as bad as him. I do appreciate the greater depth of understanding of why someone would vote for such a rotten apple.
But to insinuate that a person who voted for him must be a misogynistic racist homophobe that doesn't care about the environment is inappropriate.
I have no wish to insinuate any such thing. The fact remains, however, that you and millions of others, however reluctantly, have endorsed one. Maybe his fiscal policies or whatever else swung you in his favour were the better ones on offer, but a candidate comes as a package. It's disappointing that the system (which I do not profess to be any kind of expert on) doesn't have a way to get out of that. Ultimately, the vote was for Trump, not each policy and not each aspect of his personality.
One question I do have: I know the US election basically boils down to Republican vs. Democrat, but there are independents, are there not? Wouldn't a better way to give the system the finger be to vote for someone other than the two main parties? It likely won't get the independent to victory but surely a decreasing number of votes for the main parties vs. an increase in votes for alternatives to both bloody awful options over progressive elections would send a message?
If this shows anything it's that democracy, while a very simple system in principle, is executed pretty badly in most countries, with different regions having different weightings, basically any system other than purely the number of votes cast (except in the EU referendum, bizarrely). I have had similar soul-searching during elections here. Most notably some years ago when, because of the way our electoral system works, I had to try and find some way to vote that reflected the fact that our best local candidate MP was a member of the party I absolutely did not want to see governing the whole country.
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There are always going to be some bigots in any group. I'm sure there are Trump supporters that are racist, homophobic, etc., but I really think it is a minority.
There are bigots in any group. The problem is that when their candidate is one too, it legitimises the bigotry of those who now see their interests as being served. It's happened here in the wake of the EU vote, and it's happening now in the US. Minority or not, it is not acceptable, and should not be minimised or overlooked. The most disappointing thing about the EU vote here was that in the wake of news reports about racist assaults increasing and people shouting about having voted leave to kick out the foreigners, not one of the politicians leading the Vote Leave group came forward and said this was absolutely not the view that was being fought for at the top. Not one. We got some wishy-washy stuff about assaults and racism being 'obviously unacceptable', but not one member of the group called out to the nation and said 'look guys, this wasn't what we were fighting for'.
They see politicians as corrupt and interesting only in holding onto power and enriching themselves (some of which is very warranted).[/quote]
And they see Trump as different? Really?!
Although Trump said some really stupid and bigoted things along the way, his main message was that he was going to Washington to blow up the system and 'drain the swamp' of all the corruption. It is that message that resonated with his followers.
The same followers who are now saying it's OK because the system he said he was going to smash is the one that's going to keep him in check and prevent him enacting his worst policy plans? Does that not seem contradictory?
I think the bigotry element of it is really over exaggerated by the Trump haters.
You make it sound like it was some small thing people found while looking for a reason to hate him. I think it's a pretty big reason to hate him. I also think it's minimised by his supporters, and that's worse. Bigotry, misogyny and homophobia should have no place whatsoever in a government or in a society full stop.
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Since I'm all over the place on these issues, I'm never going to find a presidential candidate that I 100% agree with.
That's the real problem with the whole system, and I sympathise entirely. I've never found a political candidate I agree with 100%. My votes usually end up, sadly enough, boiling down to the ones I disagree with least, to be honest. For my part, though, the kind of attitudes espoused by people like Donald Trump in the US and Nigel Farage here would put me off voting for them whatever their policies were.
But you are the ones penalizing people and causing them to lose their business because they don't want to bake somebody a cake. While I agree with the right of a gay couple to marry, this is where I have sympathy for the religious right. Someone shouldn't be forced to compromise their religious beliefs. Just go to a different bakery.
Penalising people from the majority group for being bigoted is not oppression or persecution. How is refusing to offer services to a gay couple any different than refusing to serve black people or muslims? How is it different from decades ago when black people just had to 'sit in another seat'? After all, they were still able to get on the bus, they just didn't have the freedom to choose where to sit. I doubt you'd say that was OK, so why should it be OK now to persecute homosexuals in that way? I am sure that the business in question had served many gay people before, and many others whose lifestyle didn't agree with their core principles, they just didn't worry about it because they didn't bother asking first. Only the fact that this one couple advertised the fact made them targets for persecution. That is not acceptable. The business in question was asked to provide the same service to a minority as they do to everyone else, and it would have hurt them not a jot to do it.
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The biggest problem with this result? It has unleashed a new wave of insufferability from the quantum lichen. Farage now thinks he's the government's diplomat-in-chief. He's only ever won election to one thing and has spent his entire career decrying the very existence of that office.
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And speaking as a poor woman, it sure makes me happy to know that someone I respect doesn't think my needs are worth considering in a Presidential candidate, that the fact that it could theoretically kill me is irrelevant.
You should try being a "foreigner" sometime, particularly the wrong kind of foreigner. You might then find it disturbing how many Americans of all political stripes do not care in the slightest if their officials blast you (and a few thousand of your neighbours) straight to the ninth circle of hell for no reason at all - as long as they get their healthcare/guns/gay marriage/tax cuts/<put your issue here>. Some of them will laugh cheerfully at the thought and make jokes about your guts being splattered over the nearest quarter acre.
A lot of them are not worrying about things that could theoretically kill their families and neighbours - they're worried about things that are actually killing them. You know who sent those things.
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But you are the ones penalizing people and causing them to lose their business because they don't want to bake somebody a cake. While I agree with the right of a gay couple to marry, this is where I have sympathy for the religious right. Someone shouldn't be forced to compromise their religious beliefs. Just go to a different bakery.
I could be wrong, but the impression I got with the cake story wasn't so much that the bakers objected to baking the cake for a gay couple. Rather, they got into trouble because they told their story to the Internet and included the couple's address, so the couple started getting harassed in their home.
Although Trump said some really stupid and bigoted things along the way, his main message was that he was going to Washington to blow up the system and 'drain the swamp' of all the corruption. It is that message that resonated with his followers.
But now he's appointed a denizen of said swamp as his Chief of Staff, and seems to be backtracking on a lot of the statements he made which were so popular with those rural white voters during the election campaign.
How's it going to look to those rural white voters if he turns into just another Washington insider?
In any case, the articles I'm reading are suggesting that he'll have a tough time making good on his economic plans and delivering jobs to those people.
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You know what? I'm not even freaking left-wing!
I'm tired - very tired - of being told that because I want to be respected even though I miss that crucial Y chromosome, because I despise the alt-right, because I think gay people should be given the same rights and protections as those who aren't gay, that I'm some sort of Che Guevera-worshipping, commune-living hippy dippy who wants the government to spend money that they don't have.
Mrs Clinton herself isn't exactly Marxist. Remember the economic suffering under her husband? Oh, wait, those were the years that the Onion satirized as "Our long nightmare of national peace and prosperity". I'm not sure why you'd expect anything different with her.
You want to talk about demonization? Listen to your alt-right compatriots, Bob B. Really listen to what they call anyone who doesn't worship at Trump's golden calf.
I don't know enough about Trump's economic plans to support or oppose them, because one of the things I dislike about him is that he is the consummate bull artist, and can do a 180 at any point. But I know that he says he can grab women by the pussy, and get away with it. I know he called his wife and his own daughter "pieces of ass". I know that he tried to smear John Stewart as a Jew, as if that was something Stewart was ashamed of. I know he retweets a lot of stuff from white supremacists. I know his manager Bannon is hooked up with the white supremacist movement. I'm terrified when I see him encourage his supporters to attack protesters, like a certain Signor Mussolini used to do.
There is no possible economic plan that would make me want to vote for such a person. When this person doesn't really *have* a plan (Hey, let's build a wall, and make Mexico pay for it! Why would they? Don't sweat the details. I'll make them do it somehow. Trust me.), it strikes me as a horribly short-sighted move. If that's "demonization" or "self-righteousness" so be it.
My prediction for Trump's economic plan will be to go deeply protectionist against imports (except from Russia! Free trade with our Russian brethren! Down with the foul NATO alliance!), tax cuts to the very rich (because they're the ones suffering in this economy, the poor souls) that he claims will have a trickle-down effect, and a complete dismantling of economic regulations (Hey banks! Lend to anyone you want again! That's the way to prosperity!), as well as safety and environmental regulations. Yes, we'll build our economy up by taking away workers' rights to a safe workplace, and any semblance of control of what can be dumped into the environment.
Then, when anyone tries to call him on the mess, he'll pout "Did not!" like the liar he is.
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I'm so sorry if you're upset that voting for a racist, homophobic, incompetent misogynist gets you smeared as a bigot. I can't imagine why that would happen.
And, yes, I can document every single part of that. Using his own words and actions. I guess you don't worry about the racist, homophobic, misogynist part (a guy I know just goes with "omnibigoted," because it's faster), but I'm confused as to why you'd support the "incompetent" part. The man has bankrupted a casino. How do you even do that? And once you'd done that, why would anyone with any sense believe you have the competence to run a country? We're a working class family, and his help, we don't need.
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I'm so sorry if you're upset that voting for a racist, homophobic, incompetent misogynist gets you smeared as a bigot. I can't imagine why that would happen.
And, yes, I can document every single part of that. Using his own words and actions. I guess you don't worry about the racist, homophobic, misogynist part (a guy I know just goes with "omnibigoted," because it's faster), but I'm confused as to why you'd support the "incompetent" part. The man has bankrupted a casino. How do you even do that? And once you'd done that, why would anyone with any sense believe you have the competence to run a country? We're a working class family, and his help, we don't need.
Gillianren, that's the part that confuses me about Trump supporters like Bob B. who I truly believe are intelligent people of general good will. It's one thing to say "this man is odious, but damn, he's such a skilled economist that he can save our economy." That's a moral quandary, I suppose.
But in this case, what I truly see is someone who is a dilettante at business, has no intellectual rigor, and a tendency to lie like a rug about anything that threatens his vision of himself as a "winner". This isn't a man I'd trust my economy to. Just hanging a shingle up saying "fiscal conservatism sold fresh here!" doesn't mean he's fit to be trusted with the biggest economy in the world. His personal economic success has come from a starting loan from Daddy, and a habit of getting other people to pony up for his losses as he sails off with the cash.
If Clinton and Trump had exactly the same social programs, I'd vote for Clinton, because her husband did a pretty good job, and she seems cut from the same cloth. Trump has only a record of bankruptcies and failure to pay taxes.
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This is bit off topic but wasn't Bill Clinton the president who approved dismantling of "outdated" banking regulations? You know, those which were instituted after the Great Depression to prevent it happening again. And only a decade after that we are in the Great Recession. Which is caused by excessive risk taking by banks. You know, those risks that pre-Clinton regulation forbade them to take. I don't think Mr Clinton deserves any commendations for his economic prowess.
Lurky
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I think the bigotry element of it is really over exaggerated by the Trump haters.
You make it sound like it was some small thing people found while looking for a reason to hate him. I think it's a pretty big reason to hate him. I also think it's minimised by his supporters, and that's worse. Bigotry, misogyny and homophobia should have no place whatsoever in a government or in a society full stop.
Let's me clarify what I meant by my statement. Some people seem to want to classify Trump supporters as a mob of racist bigots and white supremacists. They say this is confirmed by the cheers of the crowd when Trump say some outrageous thing like let's ban all Muslims. I think the cheers are less about the people being racist and more about them being sick and tired of political correctness. I think there are fewer people who actually agree with what he said and more who just like the fact that he actually said something controversial to piss off the PC police. At least that's my interpretation. That doesn't make it right, but I really don't think the bigotry runs as deep in the hearts of Trump supporters as the Trump haters think. It's there, but I don't think it is rampant through the crowd.
One question I do have: I know the US election basically boils down to Republican vs. Democrat, but there are independents, are there not? Wouldn't a better way to give the system the finger be to vote for someone other than the two main parties? It likely won't get the independent to victory but surely a decreasing number of votes for the main parties vs. an increase in votes for alternatives to both bloody awful options over progressive elections would send a message?
Some people did that, in fact my best friend who is also a Republican voted for one of the other candidates. Collectively though, the other candidates only got about 5% of the vote. The problem is that most Republicans think that if I don't vote for the Republican candidate, that's just going to hand the election over to the Democrat. And Democrats think that if they don't vote for the Democrat candidate, that's just going to hand the election over to the Republican. So although people often talk about voting independent or third-party, in the end they using come home to their own party.
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This is bit off topic but wasn't Bill Clinton the president who approved dismantling of "outdated" banking regulations? You know, those which were instituted after the Great Depression to prevent it happening again. And only a decade after that we are in the Great Recession. Which is caused by excessive risk taking by banks. You know, those risks that pre-Clinton regulation forbade them to take. I don't think Mr Clinton deserves any commendations for his economic prowess.
Lurky
I think you're probably referring to the Glass-Steagall Act. If so, then yes, Bill Clinton signed the law that repealed this act in 1999. At that time, both houses of the US legislature had a Republican majority. Joseph Stiglitz says the repeal did cause the recent financial crisis; Paul Krugman says it did not. Canada repealed its comparable legislation in the 1980s, and sailed through the financial crisis quite nicely. So given the lack of any real clear evidence one way or the other, the flaming self-righteous political hacks who make up a sizeable proportion of the board's membership should have no problem picking and choosing whichever facts are supportive of their preferred flaming self-righteous viewpoints.
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Gillianren, that's the part that confuses me about Trump supporters like Bob B. who I truly believe are intelligent people of general good will. It's one thing to say "this man is odious, but damn, he's such a skilled economist that he can save our economy." That's a moral quandary, I suppose.
The thing that confuses me is how people who seem to support a candidate with a long track record of supporting terrorism are foaming at the mouth with outrage at the thought of someone who somewhat ambivalently voted for a racist homophobic misogynist. No agonising over moral quandaries for them!
But in this case, what I truly see is someone who is a dilettante at business, has no intellectual rigor, and a tendency to lie like a rug about anything that threatens his vision of himself as a "winner". This isn't a man I'd trust my economy to. Just hanging a shingle up saying "fiscal conservatism sold fresh here!" doesn't mean he's fit to be trusted with the biggest economy in the world. His personal economic success has come from a starting loan from Daddy, and a habit of getting other people to pony up for his losses as he sails off with the cash.
I can't vote in US elections, but if someone like that ran for office in my country, the time it would take me to conclude I wouldn't be voting for him would be measured in milliseconds.
If Clinton and Trump had exactly the same social programs, I'd vote for Clinton, because her husband did a pretty good job, and she seems cut from the same cloth. Trump has only a record of bankruptcies and failure to pay taxes.
I wouldn't vote for the racist misogynist homophobe or the terrorist. It's not even clear to me that the former (who has no track record of terrorism, having never had a government job before) would end up being any less terroristic than his competitor, once he had the opportunity. But I guess we'll find out now whether I'm right about that, won't we.
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If you really believe the Clintons supported terrorism, I cannot talk to you further.
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If the government does it it is a war crime, not terrorism.
Presidents who haven't violated international law are few and far between.
The electorate never seemed to care.
But Clinton never was president, the president makes the decisions and bares the moral responsibility.
Glad we never made the horrible mistake of abolishing the monarchy. ;D
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If you really believe the Clintons supported terrorism, I cannot talk to you further.
Maybe he's referring to the IRA. Though I didn't think the Clintons did. The Kennedys did.
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There is no possible economic plan that would make me want to vote for such a person.
It was as much about voting against Clinton’s plan as it was voting for Trump’s. Clinton’s economic plan: raise taxes. Her jobs plan: use those taxes to rebuild infrastructure. While I agree we need to upgrade our infrastructure, as an economic/jobs plan, it sounds completely lamebrained to me. It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. While some sectors might benefit from the infrastructure spending (engineering and construction firms for instance), all sectors are impacted by the tax hikes. I think it would be devastating to jobs and the economy.
Let’s say you own a business that makes breakfast cereal. Too bad, you’re not going to see a dime of that infrastructure money. But your taxes are sure going up. Your cost of doing business has just taken a big climb. You’re either going to have to increase sales (which, if you could do that, you would have already done so), raise your prices, or cut operating costs. Raising prices will either hurt your consumers, who may already be struggling to make ends meet, or force them to use less product or switch to a less expensive brand. If either of the latter happens, you lose sales. Your business is starting to fall into a death spiral. In order to save the business you have to find a way to cut operating costs. That’s never a good thing for the employees.
If your employees are lucky, maybe they’ll only see their wages frozen and their bonuses suspended. More likely, some will lose their jobs or have their hours reduced. Perhaps you’ll even cut back the labor force enough that you fall below the employee threshold so you can now stop providing health insurance coverage. This might make your business profitable again, but you’re stuck at your current size and can’t afford to expand. At least you saved the company. Had you already been teetering on the edge of viability, the tax hikes might have forced you out of business altogether and thrown everybody onto the street.
For those lucky enough to keep their jobs, their incomes have been reduced and they’ve lost their health insurance. I just hope they can afford to pay their mortgages and stay in their homes. For those out of work, guess what, nobody else is hiring either because they’re all in the same predicament. If you’re one of those out of work, there is one ray of hope – you can put on a hardhat and go see if you can get one of those infrastructure jobs. Of course, having no experience in construction is going to work against you. Perhaps somebody will give you a break and take you on as a common laborer, putting you to work running a jackhammer all day. At least it puts food on the table. I just hope the job doesn’t go to an illegal immigrant first. One more thing, you’ll probably be forced to join the laborer’s union because the democrats are sure to put something in the bill to enrich Hillary’s union buddies.
But hey, you voted for it, right.
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You know, we went through that where I lived. Had a provincial government come in, cut government spending to the bone, dropped taxes. I saw about $500 dollars extra at the end of the year. Nice, but I wasn't travelling to Fiji on it.
Strangely, the economy didn't start springing along like a newborn lamb, nor do people remember it as a golden age. Funny thing how the economy seems to buffer these changes. All the businesses who sold to the government were hurting badly.
If I were a determined trickle-downer, I would have voted Trump into the dust, and hoped to wait out four years until the Republicans could get their act together and run a candidate who didn't give me nausea. Anti-tax is a valid economic argument, but I don't think it's worth voting in a modern Mussolini for. You know, he also fixed his country's economy. For a while.
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I think the cheers are less about the people being racist and more about them being sick and tired of political correctness.
Well I'm sorry but if they can't understand how cheering at racist, bigoted or misogynistic statements might just give people the impression they're supporting racism, bigotry or misogyny they really don't get to complain at being misunderstood. I applaud lack of PC myself from officials at times, but I will not cheer any and all non-PC comments. There are levels.
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"I hate political correctness" is the call of the bigot who mourns his or her opportunity to insult people to their faces because they're different.
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Well I'm sorry but if they can't understand how cheering at racist, bigoted or misogynistic statements might just give people the impression they're supporting racism, bigotry or misogyny they really don't get to complain at being misunderstood. I applaud lack of PC myself from officials at times, but I will not cheer any and all non-PC comments. There are levels.
I completely understand that, the bad image they've created for themselves is their own doing.
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If I were a determined trickle-downer...
Hillary Clinton promotes trickle-down poverty.
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I'm so sorry if you're upset that voting for a racist, homophobic, incompetent misogynist gets you smeared as a bigot. I can't imagine why that would happen.
Did you vote for Bill Clinton? An adulterous scumbag and a man accused of sexual assault and rape.
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Once again, you might as well be describing a conservative. But we're not the ones telling people they can't marry just because we don't want to make them a cake.
But you are the ones penalizing people and causing them to lose their business because they don't want to bake somebody a cake. While I agree with the right of a gay couple to marry, this is where I have sympathy for the religious right. Someone shouldn't be forced to compromise their religious beliefs. Just go to a different bakery.
But that is a very slippery slope. If you ignore that one bakery that is refusing to sell a cake to a gay couple other businesses might decide it's okay to discriminate too. Before you know it you'll have all restaurants refusing to serve gay people, automobile mechanics refusing to repair cars belonging to gay people, hotels refusing to provide rooms to gay travellers, and landlords refusing to rent apartments to gay people. Where does it end? Who decides which businesses are allowed to discriminate and which aren't? It's easier to just say no to discimination across the board.
And really, those businesses owners just need to grow up. If they're really that concerned they can just go re-read that part of the Bible that says "love thy neighbour". I'm not religious, but I do believe that IF there is a god, he is testing us on how we treat each other. People who would spoil a happy event like a wedding are failing the test.
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I'm so sorry if you're upset that voting for a racist, homophobic, incompetent misogynist gets you smeared as a bigot. I can't imagine why that would happen.
Did you vote for Bill Clinton? An adulterous scumbag and a man accused of sexual assault and rape.
It was a long time ago so I don't remember the details... did we know of those accusations before the election or did it come out after he was elected?
We know what kind of man Trump is, and have for a long time. That is why we didn't take his running for President seriously.
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There are always going to be some bigots in any group. I'm sure there are Trump supporters that are racist, homophobic, etc., but I really think it is a minority.
I disagree. I think the Republican party has been hijacked by a lot of angry racists who had probably never even taken an interest in politics until Donald Trump came along and started saying things that appealed to them. The "classic" Republicans, people like you, have become the minority in your own party.
I think there are different types of Republican voters now. There are the ones like you that have been voting for them for years and base their decisions on the usual issues like the economy. Then there are the ones who voted for him simply because he's a celebrity from a reality TV show that they like. But I think a significant portion of this election's votes came from angry racists. It's going to be a cancer that destroys the Republican party from the inside.
You can see it in the behaviour of other Republican leaders. They know Trump is bad for the party, but they scramble to find words to defend his behaviour because they know if they go against him they will be left out in the cold.
Trump saw what was going on and tapped into the anger.
Which I think is a very dangerous game to play. Let's say Trump isn't really racist and he was just saying those things to fan the flames and win the votes from actual racists. What does he do now? If he changes his tone to one more tollerable to non-racist citizens, won't he just upset all of those angry racists that got him where he is? Like you said, those people are already angry at politicians who say one thing but do another... and now he is going to be one of those two-faced politicians.
Although Trump said some really stupid and bigoted things along the way, his main message was that he was going to Washington to blow up the system and 'drain the swamp' of all the corruption.
And yet Trump is the only high profile new face in the Republican government. There is still a lot of corruption in the Republican swamp. The only reason Obama couldn't get things done was due to Republican obstructionism.
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Let’s say you own a business that makes breakfast cereal. Too bad, you’re not going to see a dime of that infrastructure money.
Maybe not directly, but the people working on the infrastructure projects need to eat. It's like saying "NASA is a waste of money because we need that money down here on Earth!". But NASA creates jobs, and those employed people buy houses, cars, clothing, computers and smart phones, and groceries. And they pay taxes. That is the REAL trickle down economics, not "give all the money to 1% of the population so that they can maybe employ a few maids while keeping most of their wealth horded away in banks".
But your taxes are sure going up. Your cost of doing business has just taken a big climb. You’re either going to have to increase sales (which, if you could do that, you would have already done so), raise your prices, or cut operating costs. Raising prices will either hurt your consumers, who may already be struggling to make ends meet, or force them to use less product or switch to a less expensive brand. If either of the latter happens, you lose sales. Your business is starting to fall into a death spiral. In order to save the business you have to find a way to cut operating costs. That’s never a good thing for the employees.
If your employees are lucky, maybe they’ll only see their wages frozen and their bonuses suspended. More likely, some will lose their jobs or have their hours reduced. Perhaps you’ll even cut back the labor force enough that you fall below the employee threshold so you can now stop providing health insurance coverage. This might make your business profitable again, but you’re stuck at your current size and can’t afford to expand. At least you saved the company. Had you already been teetering on the edge of viability, the tax hikes might have forced you out of business altogether and thrown everybody onto the street.
For those lucky enough to keep their jobs, their incomes have been reduced and they’ve lost their health insurance. I just hope they can afford to pay their mortgages and stay in their homes. For those out of work, guess what, nobody else is hiring either because they’re all in the same predicament. If you’re one of those out of work, there is one ray of hope – you can put on a hardhat and go see if you can get one of those infrastructure jobs. Of course, having no experience in construction is going to work against you. Perhaps somebody will give you a break and take you on as a common laborer, putting you to work running a jackhammer all day. At least it puts food on the table. I just hope the job doesn’t go to an illegal immigrant first. One more thing, you’ll probably be forced to join the laborer’s union because the democrats are sure to put something in the bill to enrich Hillary’s union buddies.
But hey, you voted for it, right.
Who is the one fear mongering now?
Trump's plan to bring jobs back from Mexico and China is a just an empty promise. It's like a high school president promising free pizza in the cafeteria every Friday. He can't do it.
The only way he can make the United States attractive enough to employers to bring back the outsourced jobs is to make it more affordable for them to employ Americans. That would mean reducing the cost of wages, outlawing unions and strikes, stripping away benefits like paid holidays and maternity leave, and even allowing child labour. But hey, if anyone can do it it's Trump.
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But that is a very slippery slope.
I agree with that. I definitely see valid arguments on both sides.
It was a long time ago so I don't remember the details... did we know of those accusations before the election or did it come out after he was elected?
Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton was filed in 1994 during his first term, so that was known prior to his reelection in 1996. There were also rumors about the alleged rape of Juanita Broaddrick, but she didn't come out tell the whole story until Bill's second term. The alleged Kathleen Willey sexual assault and the Monica Lewinsky affair both occurred during the first term, but didn't become known until the second term. So really only the Paula Jones incident and rumors of the Juanita Broaddrick incident were known prior to the 1996 election. I don't recall any dirt on him at the time of his first election in 1992.
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Maybe not directly, but the people working on the infrastructure projects need to eat. It's like saying "NASA is a waste of money because we need that money down here on Earth!". But NASA creates jobs, and those employed people buy houses, cars, clothing, computers and smart phones, and groceries. And they pay taxes. That is the REAL trickle down economics, not "give all the money to 1% of the population so that they can maybe employ a few maids while keeping most of their wealth horded away in banks".
But Hillary Clinton's plan was to simply take money out of one pocket and put it in another. I don't see how that was going to stimulate growth one tiny bit. If the money is just left with people who originally had it (before it was ceased by taxation), they would have spent it too.
Furthermore, a small business owner bringing in $250,000 a year is hardly the 1%. Yet they would have seen their taxes go up under Clinton's plan. They'll see a tax decrease under Trump's plan. That could make the difference between laying off one employee or hiring one.
Also, what's wrong with a few more maids finding work. No one every got a job from a poor person.
Who is the one fear mongering now?
How can I fear monger about a candidate who lost? There is nothing to fear, she lost. The story is meant only to illustrate what I think were the flaws in her plan.
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The only reason Obama couldn't get things done was due to Republican obstructionism.
That's the common narrative, but the truth is more complicated. Immediately after President Obama's election, the Republicans said they would try to block Obama's agenda. But why should they support policy that they were being completely excluded from having any part in crafting? Obama said early on that the Republicans had to either get on board with the Democrat agenda or they needed to go sit in the back of the bus (his words). The Democrats had the House, a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and the Presidency. So how much obstruction could the Republicans really do? The Democrats pushed ahead and really didn't even try to craft anything with bipartisan support (Obamacare being the prime example).
During the 2010 mid-term elections the Republicans won back control of the House of Representatives. With split government, the two sides should have tried to work together and compromise. Unfortunately things had gotten so polarized that almost nothing could get done. Republican House wouldn't pass Obama's agenda, but don't forget that the voters had spoken and given the Republicans the House for a reason. Are you really obstructing when the voters put you there? The Republicans in the House would pass legislation and send it on to the Senate, but when it got there it got swallowed up by a black hole named Harry Reid (Democrat majority leader in the Senate). Reid wouldn't even allow the legislation to make it to the floor for debate, much less take a vote on it. So the Democrats were obstructing the Republicans just as much as the Republicans the Democrats.
Although Obama won reelection in 2012, the Republicans won control of the Senate in 2014. So the voters were sending mixed signals. Obama as president felt he still controlled the agenda, but the Republicans having been given control of both Houses of Congress felt they were put there to stop Obama's agenda. Both sides are probably right. The real problem isn't obstructionism, it's that the parties are so far apart and inflexible on many issues that they just can't work together to find compromise. The fault lies equally with both Republicans and Democrats.
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There are always going to be some bigots in any group. I'm sure there are Trump supporters that are racist, homophobic, etc., but I really think it is a minority.
I disagree. I think the Republican party has been hijacked by a lot of angry racists who had probably never even taken an interest in politics until Donald Trump came along and started saying things that appealed to them. The "classic" Republicans, people like you, have become the minority in your own party.
I think that there's remarkable similarities between what America has done and the madness that the UK has inflicted on itself in the recent Brexit vote. There seems to be parallels with the reaction post-result and with the accusations thrown by both sides, with the majority of the vitriol coming from the leave side.
Many people have branded the leave voters as racist, homophobic and xenophobic. I think that's wrong. I don't think that all leave voters (and Republicans0 are racist, homophobic and xenophobic- that's tarring everyone with the same brush. However I am sure that all racist, homophobes and xenophobes DID vote leave (and for Trump). Look at the news this morning about Mayor Beverley Whaling resignations after agreeing that Michelle Obama was an "ape in heels". This is the most distressing thing, for me, about both the Brexit vote and Trump- it's allowed this sort of hatred to be normalised. I see people vocalising things that 12 months ago would have drawn gasps
http://www.wsaz.com/content/news/Non-profit-director-and-mayor-under-fire-after-Facebook-post-cal-401049855.html
It's all very depressing.
On a side note, although I am a peaceful man, I did find it very hard not to wish bad things on these pair of clowns when I saw this picture:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/11/14/113646754-farage-trump-news-large_trans++EDjTm7JpzhSGR1_8ApEWQA1vLvhkMtVb21dMmpQBfEs.jpg
If anyone wants beating to death with their own shoes, then it has to be Farage.
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Many people have branded the leave voters as racist, homophobic and xenophobic. I think that's wrong. I don't think that all leave voters (and Republicans0 are racist, homophobic and xenophobic- that's tarring everyone with the same brush. However I am sure that all racist, homophobes and xenophobes DID vote leave (and for Trump).
I'm also sure this is true, and a very good reason for not joining their camps.
For what it's worth, here's my worldview:
Unfettered capitalism is very good at growing the economy, an area where socialist regimes fail, but it is also very good at making society more divided - "The rich get richer and the poor get nothing". This creates all sorts of social problems, recent events a good example.
What I'd prefer is the sort of government allows business to thrive, but takes measures to redistribute the resulting wealth a bit more evenly, eg Sweden. In particular, the government needs to stem the tide of wealth going into tax havens where it doesn't do any good for anyone.
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This is the most distressing thing, for me, about both the Brexit vote and Trump- it's allowed this sort of hatred to be normalised.
^^^^^^^ This, a million times over. I will not stop calling out the bigotry, because those defending Trump and his supporters need to understand that, while bigotry will always be with us, when bigoted people get into power it normalises and legitimises the bigots in the population.
Godwin's law be damned, I am going to say it. The Nazis were not converted to being bigots and carrying out atrocities by Hitler, they were always bigots, and his rise to power made them feel that their actions were now justified. Hitler didn't order experiments to be carried out on disabled and other minorities. Hitler didn't order euthanasia of disabled children. Hitler didn't order Kristallnacht. All those things were carried out by people who believed that thanks to his attitudes and position of power they were now authorised to treat sections of the population as sub-human, and that he'd approve. They were right. I have seen NOTHING to indicate that Trump actually gives a damn about that possible consequence of his actions. Neither here nor in the US have any politicians responded to increased bigoted attacks by outright denouncing them and saying they do not and have never supported such attitudes. It's all over the news, and we have silence from them. SILENCE! So people will continue. How far will they have to go before someone in a position of power actually puts the brakes on?
Now don't tell me it's a minority of bigots, so that's OK. Terrorists are a minority, but Trump still got elected on the back of fear-mongering about them. So we're supposed to look at that little group of terrorists and say they're a problem that needs to be stamped out, but that minority of bigots who are attacking their own countrymen are OK because they're just a minority of the population? Don't tell me I have to live in fear of one small group who are threatening my life and livelihood but not that of another group who are threatening the lives and livelihoods of my friends and family. I am a heterosexual, married, white male, which in many ways makes me pretty damn bulletproof. That means I, and others like me, need to damn well stand up to this bigotry, not stand by and minimise it as just a little problem. I don't care if it's a minority of the population, IT. IS. NOT. ACCEPTABLE! I have friends who are potential or actual victims of racism, homophobia and misogyny whose persecutors now feel they are actually ALLOWED to abuse them because of what has happened in the last few months here and in the US. How can ANYONE think that's OK? How can anyone turn a blind eye to that and show such little empathy with people who have lived with this kind of crap all their lives but now feel they have been officially made targets by those now in power?
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If Clinton and Trump had exactly the same social programs, I'd vote for Clinton, because her husband did a pretty good job, and she seems cut from the same cloth. Trump has only a record of bankruptcies and failure to pay taxes.
Can he get away with it in America without being jailed?
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Can he get away with it in America without being jailed?
He's very rich, he can afford the best accountants and the best lawyers, so yes he can get away with it.
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There are always going to be some bigots in any group. I'm sure there are Trump supporters that are racist, homophobic, etc., but I really think it is a minority.
I disagree. I think the Republican party has been hijacked by a lot of angry racists who had probably never even taken an interest in politics until Donald Trump came along and started saying things that appealed to them. The "classic" Republicans, people like you, have become the minority in your own party.
I think that there's remarkable similarities between what America has done and the madness that the UK has inflicted on itself in the recent Brexit vote. There seems to be parallels with the reaction post-result and with the accusations thrown by both sides, with the majority of the vitriol coming from the leave side.
Many people have branded the leave voters as racist, homophobic and xenophobic. I think that's wrong. I don't think that all leave voters (and Republicans0 are racist, homophobic and xenophobic- that's tarring everyone with the same brush. However I am sure that all racist, homophobes and xenophobes DID vote leave (and for Trump). Look at the news this morning about Mayor Beverley Whaling resignations after agreeing that Michelle Obama was an "ape in heels". This is the most distressing thing, for me, about both the Brexit vote and Trump- it's allowed this sort of hatred to be normalised. I see people vocalising things that 12 months ago would have drawn gasps
http://www.wsaz.com/content/news/Non-profit-director-and-mayor-under-fire-after-Facebook-post-cal-401049855.html
It's all very depressing.
On a side note, although I am a peaceful man, I did find it very hard not to wish bad things on these pair of clowns when I saw this picture:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2016/11/14/113646754-farage-trump-news-large_trans++EDjTm7JpzhSGR1_8ApEWQA1vLvhkMtVb21dMmpQBfEs.jpg
If anyone wants beating to death with their own shoes, then it has to be Farage.
Let's give Trump this. He was more magnanimous in victory than Farage was, who took the opportunity to be a contemptible as possible in Hemicycle immediately afterwards.
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Let's give Trump this. He was more magnanimous in victory than Farage was, who took the opportunity to be a contemptible as possible in Hemicycle immediately afterwards.
True. But if that's the best that we can say then it's really damning with faint praise.
Farage is repulsive- he's made himself a small fortune by taking a wage for the very organisation that he professes to despise. He now realises that the gravy train is over so he's casting about for a gig in America. The man is an odious toad....and that's insulting amphibians.
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The man is an odious toad....and that's insulting amphibians.
"I think he's a psychotic low-life."
"And I think calling him that is an insult to the psychotic low-life community."
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If Clinton and Trump had exactly the same social programs, I'd vote for Clinton, because her husband did a pretty good job, and she seems cut from the same cloth. Trump has only a record of bankruptcies and failure to pay taxes.
Can he get away with it in America without being jailed?
Trump didn't do anything illegal. Businesses are allowed to go bankrupt, we have bankruptcy laws for that. As for the taxes, he's managed to avoid paying them because of a large loss that he wrote off years ago. Again that is completely legal. I've written off losses as well and I'm sure a lot of other people here have too. Only a fool wouldn't take a legal write off or deduction.
Hillary Clinton is in more legal peril than Donald Trump. She's still under investigation. Of course her power, influence and wealth might get her off.
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The Republicans have been courting racists since Nixon. That's a simple fact. It was at the time called the Southern Strategy, and it was used, successfully, to woo Southern Democrats, who were still opposed to the policies of Abraham Lincoln--and, yes, they existed, and, no, I don't deny that--to the Republican Party. The Democrats knew it would happen; LBJ knew that signing civil rights legislation was losing the South for a generation. Turns out he underestimated the power of Southern racist whites.
No, I didn't vote for Bill Clinton. In 1992, I was just shy of my sixteenth birthday. In 1996, California lost my absentee ballot application, and I didn't get to vote for anyone. But even if I had, here's the thing about Bill Clinton as opposed to Donald Trump. Bill Clinton's words didn't make me fear for people I loved. I didn't fear that all women would lose rights under Bill Clinton. I didn't fear that all disabled people would lose rights under Bill Clinton. (Trump wants to gut the ADA.) I didn't fear that all gay people--and, yes, I already cared in 1992--would lose rights under Bill Clinton. I didn't fear that all people of a specific religion would lose rights under Bill Clinton. I didn't fear that Bill Clinton would pack his transition team and White House staff with white supremacists. Which Trump, of course, is already doing. If you voted for Trump, it was either with the awareness that these things would happen or with a complete lack of awareness of Trump's own words. Neither one of them speaks well for your concern for your fellow people.
And you know, those Southern Democrats who were wooed over to the Republican Party in the '60s? Were opposed to laws that would force them to serve black people. We as a society have agreed that you don't get to decide things like that based on your own prejudices. We're just extending that to more groups. And so for "go somewhere else," well, that's charming for people who have that option. But if you live in a rural area, you probably don't. And that's one of the reasons gay people leave those areas, because they're so discriminated against that it's basically impossible to stay and live a normal life. Is that really something we think people deserve to have to do?
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Hillary Clinton is in more legal peril than Donald Trump. She's still under investigation. Of course her power, influence and wealth might get her off.
So . . . you don't know about his fraud hearing. Or, it seems, the fact that the FBI has consistently said that no court would convict her.
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So . . . you don't know about his fraud hearing. Or, it seems, the fact that the FBI has consistently said that no court would convict her.
I do know about the fraud hearing, but question was asked about bankruptcies and taxes. The FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation is still ongoing.
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Demonizing Republicans as racists has been going on for a very long time. It’s part of the Democratic Party grand strategy. Many good and decent Republicans have been branded as racist in order to perpetuate the narrative.
The Democrats have built their platform around big government handouts. They’re the party of welfare, food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, and, if they could get their way, free education and universal healthcare. They’ve conditioned the poor and minorities to expect and rely on big government to take care of them. If you want the handouts to continue, you must vote Democrat.
The Republican position has always been that we don’t want people to have to rely on government handouts. We want to improve the economic conditions so that the poor can get good jobs, begin to provide for themselves, get off the cycle of dependency, and rise out of poverty. As soon as a Republican starts to talk about this, they’re branded as racist because, the narrative goes, they want to take the free stuff away from poor minorities. (Never mind the fact that there are more whites living in poverty in America than any other group.) As soon as a Republican talks about trying to improve economic conditions for the poor, it’s “you just want your rich buddies to get richer.” It is a strategy of class warfare aimed at trying to keep the poor a Democratic voting bloc.
Trump was a gift from God for the Democrats because they now had someone running as a Republican who actually said some racist and bigoted things. They could hold him and his supporters up as an example to say the narrative is confirmed. During the campaign its must have been nirvana because they had Trump to demonize, but he wasn’t going to actually win. Now it’s sheer panic because they’ve spent the last year or more convincing themselves that Donald Trump is the devil incarnate.
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I didn't fear that all women would lose rights under Bill Clinton. I didn't fear that all disabled people would lose rights under Bill Clinton. (Trump wants to gut the ADA.) I didn't fear that all gay people--and, yes, I already cared in 1992--would lose rights under Bill Clinton. I didn't fear that all people of a specific religion would lose rights under Bill Clinton.
What rights are you talking about specifically? As far as the women's rights go, I assume you're talking about abortion. For gay people, are you referring to gay marriage?
Trump says the issue of gay marriage is settled law and that he accepts the Supreme Court's ruling.
On the issue of abortion, Trump believes the Supreme Court got it wrong on the case of Roe v. Wade, but he believes it is up to the Court to decide. Of course he also says he'll appoint pro-life justices, so it's pretty clear he wants to push the court in that direction.
The majority of the current eight justices support Roe v. Wade, so one Trump appointment will just return the balance to what is was with Antonin Scalia on the Court. If one of the pro-choice judges retires and Trump gets to appoint a replacement, then there is cause for concern. Of course Trump also says he wants to appoint strict constitutionalists to the Court. So it's really not a matter of whether a justice is pro-choice or pro-life, it's a matter of whether they think Roe v. Wade is constitutional or unconstitutional. Those are not the same thing and I'm not sure Trump has been clear about what kind of litmus test, if any, he will apply. There is also the matter of over 40 years of precedence. It may be very difficult for even a pro-life justice to overturn something that has been engrained in our society for that long. It's clearly something that is going to have to play out in the Court, it may take years, and I don't think any of us can know what the eventual outcome will be.
And if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it doesn't make abortion illegal. It just means that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. It returns to the states the power to decide for themselves what the abortion laws will be within their borders. And the U.S. Congress can always take up the matter and pass a law that makes abortion legal nationwide. I don't know if such a law would require a simple majority, or if it would require the 2/3 vote needed to amend the constitution. Obviously the latter would be far less likely to pass.
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You know what I like? That people here can have a passionate, heated discussion and still not resort to name-calling, insults, threats of banning, crossing off of the Xmas card list, etc.
That's why I like you all.
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Clinton’s economic plan: raise taxes. Her jobs plan: use those taxes to rebuild infrastructure. While I agree we need to upgrade our infrastructure, as an economic/jobs plan, it sounds completely lamebrained to me. It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. While some sectors might benefit from the infrastructure spending (engineering and construction firms for instance), all sectors are impacted by the tax hikes. I think it would be devastating to jobs and the economy.
Let’s say you own a business that makes breakfast cereal. Too bad, you’re not going to see a dime of that infrastructure money. But your taxes are sure going up. Your cost of doing business has just taken a big climb. You’re either going to have to increase sales (which, if you could do that, you would have already done so), raise your prices, or cut operating costs. Raising prices will either hurt your consumers, who may already be struggling to make ends meet, or force them to use less product or switch to a less expensive brand. If either of the latter happens, you lose sales. Your business is starting to fall into a death spiral. In order to save the business you have to find a way to cut operating costs. That’s never a good thing for the employees.
If your employees are lucky, maybe they’ll only see their wages frozen and their bonuses suspended. More likely, some will lose their jobs or have their hours reduced. Perhaps you’ll even cut back the labor force enough that you fall below the employee threshold so you can now stop providing health insurance coverage. This might make your business profitable again, but you’re stuck at your current size and can’t afford to expand. At least you saved the company. Had you already been teetering on the edge of viability, the tax hikes might have forced you out of business altogether and thrown everybody onto the street.
For those lucky enough to keep their jobs, their incomes have been reduced and they’ve lost their health insurance. I just hope they can afford to pay their mortgages and stay in their homes. For those out of work, guess what, nobody else is hiring either because they’re all in the same predicament. If you’re one of those out of work, there is one ray of hope – you can put on a hardhat and go see if you can get one of those infrastructure jobs. Of course, having no experience in construction is going to work against you. Perhaps somebody will give you a break and take you on as a common laborer, putting you to work running a jackhammer all day. At least it puts food on the table. I just hope the job doesn’t go to an illegal immigrant first. One more thing, you’ll probably be forced to join the laborer’s union because the democrats are sure to put something in the bill to enrich Hillary’s union buddies.
But hey, you voted for it, right.
And here's an alternative narrative regarding using taxes to rebuild infrastructure.
Sure, it's only going to be engineering and construction firms which get contracts here, and that's going to completely dry up the labour market of skilled construction workers. So there's going to be competition among companies to poach those employees from each other. Presumably, then, there's going to be a market in training up partially skilled people (say, carpenters, plumbers and other people with a background in housing construction).
Then, as the infrastructure improves, traffic bottlenecks disappear and transport companies can deliver goods faster between cities and with lower fuel costs due to being able to maintain steady speeds for greater distances. As a result transport costs go down.
Due to savings in distribution costs, your cereal company can afford to drop the wholesale price of its products, making them more attractive to various supermarket chains. Sales go up and the company goes from two to three production shifts, hiring a few extra staff.
= = = =
As an example here in Australia is the highway between Canberra and Sydney, a distance of about 300 kilometres.
About 40 years ago the highway was one lane each way, passing through about four towns of various sizes and maybe half a dozen villages. There was one major hill about 60km south of Sydney (the Razorback for those who remember back that far) which broke the radiators of many cars and trucks. There were lots of passing lanes on hills, but in general the speed limit was at best 100 km/h, down to 60 km/h in the towns, and with several sets of traffic lights in the towns. A trip from Canberra to Sydney could easily exceed four hours, and be much worse in school holidays or bad weather.
Then, over the 1980s and 1990s dual carriageway bypasses were built (including avoiding the Razorback), along with freeway sections which gradually expanded and linked up. Since about 2000 we've had dual carriageway at 110 km/h with no traffic lights all the way from Canberra's edge to Sydney, and in the last few years we've had that continued through Canberra to link up with the highway going south to the snowfields. A trip from Canberra to Sydney is now usually done in under three hours in all conditions, even though the amount of traffic on the road has pretty much tripled.
This was all paid for by governments, state and federal, and the economic benefits to this part of the country are noticeable. Even the bypassed towns haven't suffered: those nearest Canberra and Sydney are now viable places for commuters to live, which they weren't before; many people work in the service centres along the highway; and the towns and villages along the way are tourist attractions in their own right, now that the highway traffic has been removed. On top of that there's the reduced medical and other costs from fewer vehicular accidents, injuries and deaths.
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Roads to Prosperity was a green paper issued by the Conservative government the 1990s. Infrastructure is a goto for a bit of Keynesian stimulation because it actually achieves something at the end of it.
I wouldn't mind a bit of stimulus to build the M31.
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But Hillary Clinton's plan was to simply take money out of one pocket and put it in another. I don't see how that was going to stimulate growth one tiny bit. If the money is just left with people who originally had it (before it was ceased by taxation), they would have spent it too.
Not necessarily, and not in the same way.
Poor people spend every dollar they earn because they're literally living from one pay to the next. Give them another $10 a week and they're going to spend it that week. Straight away it's into the local economy - the local supermarket or gas station or wherever - and those people are generally going to be spending it pretty quickly too. Within the course of a year that extra $10 will have passed through several hands.
By contrast the same $10 going to rich people is more likely to go into savings (sitting in a bank or superannuation account doing very little), or get spent overseas - wherever they take their holiday this year. If it gets spent in the USA, it's quite possibly going to be spent on a luxury item, which in turn is more likely to have been built by a large corporation (possibly an overseas one), meaning it goes into the pockets of other rich people.
Furthermore, a small business owner bringing in $250,000 a year is hardly the 1%. Yet they would have seen their taxes go up under Clinton's plan.
Do you have a source for that please. My understanding was that Clinton's tax increases kicked in at a higher level.
They'll see a tax decrease under Trump's plan. That could make the difference between laying off one employee or hiring one.
And yes, at that level of turnover a tax cut could make a difference. The problem lies with the much larger companies where executives are paid massively more than employees (according to this article, sometimes more than 300 times more than workers: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-04/verrender-the-warning-signs-were-there,-we-just-ignored-them/7566122)
Also, what's wrong with a few more maids finding work.
The problem is the opportunity cost - whether the money spent on tax breaks for the ultra-rich might have had a greater economic benefit if distributed among less wealthy people. There's a difference between some rich people employing "a few more maids" and thousands of small businesses each hiring one new employee.
No one every got a job from a poor person.
Maybe so. But it shouldn't be a matter of extremes: it should be possible to find ways to encourage small businesses to hire more staff and to encourage people to take the risk of going into business, without throwing even more money at the already well-off businesses.
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For what it's worth, here's my worldview:
Unfettered capitalism is very good at growing the economy, an area where socialist regimes fail, but it is also very good at making society more divided - "The rich get richer and the poor get nothing". This creates all sorts of social problems, recent events a good example.
What I'd prefer is the sort of government allows business to thrive, but takes measures to redistribute the resulting wealth a bit more evenly, eg Sweden. In particular, the government needs to stem the tide of wealth going into tax havens where it doesn't do any good for anyone.
*holds hand up and waves it around*
Try Australia.
We've done a reasonable job of looking after the vulnerable people in society while also giving people a chance to try their luck as entrepreneurs. (Although yes, there have been failures at both ends of the social spectrum.)
Plus, we have kangaroos. ;-)
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The Democrats have built their platform around big government handouts. They’re the party of welfare, food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, and, if they could get their way, free education and universal healthcare. They’ve conditioned the poor and minorities to expect and rely on big government to take care of them. If you want the handouts to continue, you must vote Democrat.
Well, yes, I've heard that's an issue. However the charge only sticks if it's actually the case that an extensive number of people spend all their lives on welfare. I don't know for sure but I understand that most people who receive welfare do so for only a modest period of time, and then get their financial independence back - which is exactly how welfare should work: as a social safety net to support people until they can regain their financial independence - the economic cost then is much less than trying to lift people out of absolute penury.
ETA: There's an interesting ideological question here for Republicans, too. Do you object to universal healthcare because of cost or because it looks like socialism? Australia, it shouldn't need to be pointed out, is not a socialist country, yet our socialised universal healthcare system costs, per person, about half what the American system costs.
The Republican position has always been that we don’t want people to have to rely on government handouts. We want to improve the economic conditions so that the poor can get good jobs, begin to provide for themselves, get off the cycle of dependency, and rise out of poverty. As soon as a Republican starts to talk about this, they’re branded as racist because, the narrative goes, they want to take the free stuff away from poor minorities. (Never mind the fact that there are more whites living in poverty in America than any other group.) As soon as a Republican talks about trying to improve economic conditions for the poor, it’s “you just want your rich buddies to get richer.” It is a strategy of class warfare aimed at trying to keep the poor a Democratic voting bloc.
The problem here is that the statistics show exactly that - whatever's been happening in the USA in the last 40 years has helped wealthy Americans far more than the rest (http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/)
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I didn't fear that all women would lose rights under Bill Clinton. I didn't fear that all disabled people would lose rights under Bill Clinton. (Trump wants to gut the ADA.) I didn't fear that all gay people--and, yes, I already cared in 1992--would lose rights under Bill Clinton. I didn't fear that all people of a specific religion would lose rights under Bill Clinton.
What rights are you talking about specifically? As far as the women's rights go, I assume you're talking about abortion. For gay people, are you referring to gay marriage?
I can't speak for Gillianren but I think there are more issues than those. In the case of women it could involve issues to do with equality of employment opportunity, access to finance (that is, loans and credit cards and the like), and access to medical services. For gay people it could include things like inheritance rights, reversion of pensions on the death of the partner, the ability to adopt children and access to IVF.
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For Bob B. - You say that gay rights are "settled," and that Trump doesn't show any hostility towards them.
It appears that he has a short listed a Supreme Court nominee who wants to make consensual gay sex illegal. Oh, excuse me. No, he just wishes to allow states to do so, and believes that the federal government has no right to stop them. That's much better, isn't it?
http://www.snopes.com/2016/11/17/pryor-lgbt-laws/. And don't forget that Pence as governor wished to divert funds for AIDS victims to gay conversion therapy. Because we all know gays are the only people afflicted by AIDS.
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All of that sounds very un common law. The question should not be whether there is a right to gay relations, but whether there is a reason to proscribe it.
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All of that sounds very un common law. The question should not be whether there is a right to gay relations, but whether there is a reason to proscribe it.
Well, you know, Republicans just want the right to be left alone, and how can they enjoy being left alone knowing someone else is having horrible, immoral gay sex? (sarcasm, if you can't tell)
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I can't speak for Gillianren but I think there are more issues than those. In the case of women it could involve issues to do with equality of employment opportunity, access to finance (that is, loans and credit cards and the like), and access to medical services. For gay people it could include things like inheritance rights, reversion of pensions on the death of the partner, the ability to adopt children and access to IVF.
Quite. Trump is claiming the law is settled and also talking about appointing someone who wants to reestablish the law allowing states to criminalize gay sex. There is also the bathroom thing; Trump's VP was one of the voices behind forcing trans people to use the bathroom of their birth gender. Which, incidentally, tends to result in trans women being subject to more assaults, both physical and sexual, than cis women experience when trans women use the women's bathroom. Turns out that this is another case where cis het men are the problem. (No, not all of them, but far fewer trans women are perpetrators of assault, and Pence doesn't have a problem accusing all of them of being predators.) It's still legal in most states to fire people because they're gay, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if a Trump administration put out a national law codifying that. And it turns out that Republicans have no problem overturning states' rights when they don't like the right the state is issuing.
Under the Hobby Lobby decision, an employer can make the decision for me if I am going to receive medication. They can decide that they don't want me to have it because of their religious beliefs. Believe it or not, plenty of people take the Pill for reasons having nothing to do with birth control. But a mistaken belief that the Pill is an abortifacient is enough to prevent a company's employees from accessing it under their health insurance. Even if the woman is using it to control endometriosis, that doesn't matter. The employer's false beliefs are more important than the employee's health issues.
I'm afraid that the recent overturning of Don't Ask Don't Tell will be thrown out, and gay people will be banned from the military again. Never mind that plenty of other countries have gay people serving in the military without difficulty. The Israeli military has had men and women serving together, and contrary to Trump's cavalier "what do you expect?" doesn't have anywhere near the rape problem we do. Hell, before DADT was thrown out, a man who was raped by his superiors, which is shockingly common, could be thrown out for being gay. Even if he wasn't.
Trump's laughable "plan" for helping people pay for childcare only benefits about the top ten percent. Which means I'm afraid more people will be unable to afford the shocking costs of childcare and will be looking to a social safety net that won't be there anymore, and that poor children will have fewer opportunities. The reason people don't believe Republicans who claim to be helping poor Americans is that their plans don't help poor Americans. What good are lowered taxes when you end up paying far, far more out for the services taxes were paying for? Graham's sister's new in-laws were visiting from Sweden this summer, and they were appalled at the lack of services we get as Americans. Yeah, they pay way more in taxes than we do, and they're fine with it. They've still better off.
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Trump's laughable "plan" for helping people pay for childcare only benefits about the top ten percent. Which means I'm afraid more people will be unable to afford the shocking costs of childcare and will be looking to a social safety net that won't be there anymore, and that poor children will have fewer opportunities. The reason people don't believe Republicans who claim to be helping poor Americans is that their plans don't help poor Americans. What good are lowered taxes when you end up paying far, far more out for the services taxes were paying for? Graham's sister's new in-laws were visiting from Sweden this summer, and they were appalled at the lack of services we get as Americans. Yeah, they pay way more in taxes than we do, and they're fine with it. They've still better off.
The same in Australia. Opinion polls have shown (yeah, okay) that Australians are generally willing to pay more tax in order to fund more services.
The thing is, here in Australia we have absurdly complicated forms of social welfare which often ends up assisting well-off people as well as the poor; middle-class welfare is an ongoing issue, brought on by a conservative government which realised one way to stay in power was to use the tax windfall from a resources boom to provide benefits for our relatively large middle class. Now that the resources boom is over we have structural budget problems which both sides of politics are being tardy about dealing with, for fear of losing votes to the other side. This is despite the fact of the opinion polls suggesting that voters respect governments which are willing to make hard economic decisions.
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A couple of random thoughts...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-18/donald-trump-presidential-transition-yuge-task/8036766
This article includes the results of a couple of surveys taken a week before and a week after the election, about perceptions of the state of the US economy. What's interesting to note is how much better performing Republicans think the economy is when asked after the election, compared with before. Yet how much could possibly change about the economy in a fortnight?
And, interestingly, this article (http://www.newswithviews.com/guest_opinion/guest305.htm) published in March this year lists Mike Pence as a Dominionist (along with at least a few people listed as possible members of Trump's cabinet). It'd be a sad irony if one of the least religious Presidents in recent decades ends up presiding over one of the most overtly religious cabinets in recent decades.
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If the government does it it is a war crime, not terrorism.
For some reason, "We're not terrorists, we're war criminals!" was not used as a campaign slogan this time around. I can't figure out why.
But in any event, it depends on your definition, with the same country sometimes having conflicting definitions. For example, Title 22 of the United States Code states that terrorism is committed by "subnational groups or clandestine agents". Now why on earth would the United States want a definition of terrorism that specifies that it is performed by "subnational groups"? Can anyone think of a reason? But in any event, it looks like the lawmakers dropped the ball with the "clandestine agents" part - the United States can (and has) used clandestine agents to commit premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets, thereby satisfying all the other requirements of the Title 22 definition. Such inexcusable incompetence on the part of the lawmakers, no?
This is not the only definition the US has; it also has a Title 18 definition which does not exclude national groups. Whatever were they thinking?
Let's ask Edward Peck, United States Chief of Mission to Iraq during the Carter administration and also United States ambassador to Mauritania, who did some work for Ronald Reagan.
In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, [my working group was asked] to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government. We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities. […] After the task force concluded its work, Congress [passed] U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331 ... the US definition of terrorism. […] one of the terms, "international terrorism," means "activities that," I quote, "appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping." […] Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. […] And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.
This dangerous anti-American criminal is still alive. Justice has not yet been served.
William Odom was a three-star general in the American army, and the director of the NSA during the Reagan administration. Here's what he had to say.
As many critics have pointed, out, terrorism is not an enemy. It is a tactic. Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today's war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world.
This dangerous anti-American criminal escaped justice, having died of a heart attack in 2008.
However, we can use your preferred nomenclature, and refer to "war crimes" rather than "terrorism".
Presidents who haven't violated international law are few and far between.
The electorate never seemed to care.
Many members of the electorate do not care, and why should they? They are not the victims of war crimes, foreigners are. As long as they get theirs, why should they care how many thousands of foreigners are slaughtered?
But Clinton never was president, the president makes the decisions and bares the moral responsibility.
I think you meant "bears", as the president does not "bare" the moral responsibility; he rather tries to hide the moral responsibility, which is the opposite of baring it.
But, the Second Halcyon Dayz Principle above must bring warmth to the hearts of people like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The United States government itself seems to take a somewhat different view of the situation, having once attempted to prosecute Usama bin Ladn's chauffeur for terrorism. The prosecution failed, but not because the law was declared invalid; rather, it was an ex post facto law, passed by the US congress after Mr. bin Ladn's associate had stopped providing his chauffeuring services. Usama bin Ladn's next chauffeur, however, should he ever be captured and tried by the United States, may find "I'm just a driver, it's my boss you want!" does not save his neck. In fact, there are people in prison for 65 years in the United States for donating money to charities registered as tax-exempt organisations; despite this seal of approval from the US government itself, they were found to be conduits to some organisations in Palestine that were so nefarious the US government actually supported them with funds. So the US government does not seem to accept the Second Halcyon Dayz Principle. They even forgot to let all the other Nazis go when Adolf Hitler blew his brains out.
But, if someone serves as a high government official in a president's administration, plans, recommends, and supports operations including war crimes, even though they are exonerated by the Second Halcyon Dayz Principle, they must be careful - they must not actually vote for the president in whose administration they are serving. If they do, then they are endorsing the war crimes, according to the First Halcyon Dayz Principle:
Candidates are a package deal.
If you vote for a candidate who advocates bigotry for other reasons than their bigotry you are still endorsing the bigotry.
You didn't find the bigotry objectionable enough to not vote for it, you are fine with people who don't happen to be middle class white heterosexual males being discriminated against as long as you get yours.
So it is acceptable to plan, organise, and support war crimes in a president's organisation - you're completely clean, as long as you don't actually vote for that president.
Or do I misunderstand the First Principle as applying to war crimes, when it really only applies to bigotry?
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Alvarez, would you expect Trump not to be a "terrorist" by this definition after his first year in office? Because is your point is that you won't vote for anyone who has supported the U.S. government in clandestine means, I doubt you'd ever vote for someone's second term. And yes, that would Include Jill Stein.
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I was being sarcastic.
If a foreign country did to American citizens what the US government did, and does, to foreign nationals, America would most likely consider it a reason to go to war.
And yes, most American voters don't seem to care, many don't seem to be even aware of it.
This attitude might be a product of the Cold War, but America has engaged in crimes since the very beginning.
To name the Trail of Tears, the colonial war against the people of the Philippines, and the repeated invasions and occupation of sovereign countries in Latin America during the 20ties and 30ties as examples.
The system is rigged in favour of maintaining the power of the duopoly, and since the duopoly controls the system that is not going to change any time soon.
So the few who do speak out have a problem when it comes to electing the Criminal-in-Chief, many give up hope for peaceful change and don't vote at all, others hold their nose and vote for literally the lesser evil.
Trump is not the lesser evil, he's the greater evil by a considerable margin.
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To elaborate:
Clinton is a pragmatic realpolitiker. She will do what she considers necessary to further the interests of the US.
And she's aware that a good international reputation is in the interest of the US.
She's rational and amoral.
Trump is a spoiled unstable vindictive narcissistic six-years-old brat in the body of a botoxed billionaire.
He doesn't have the emotional maturity to care about anything other than Trump.
He's irrational and immoral.
Who do you think is the lesser threat to the safety and well-being of the world, including the US?
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Remember, Trump may be inexperienced, but will surround himself with good people who will get rid of the extremists and guide him on the path of good government.
Like this choice: "Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, a man whose views on race once led a Senate committee to deem him unfit for a federal judgeship, is Donald Trump’s choice to head the federal agency that enforces the nation’s civil-rights laws."
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Oh, come now! He stopped supporting the Klan just as soon as he found out they smoke pot!
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So the few who do speak out have a problem when it comes to electing the Criminal-in-Chief, many give up hope for peaceful change and don't vote at all, others hold their nose and vote for literally the lesser evil.
Trump is not the lesser evil, he's the greater evil by a considerable margin.
Funny thing there - just a few weeks ago, I thought along very similar lines. If I were faced with an election between two candidates, neither one of whom were ideal, I would have thought to myself, "If neither one of these candidates is good, then which one of them is less bad?" So I would have thought about it for a while, made my choice, and then voted for that one, even though I may have disagreed (perhaps very strongly) with some of the policies of the person for whom I was voting.
However, just within the past few weeks, it has been my fortune to come across a number of wise and virtuous people who have convinced me of the error of this way of thinking, and argued very persuasively that one must strive for complete ideological purity. One of them wrote this:
Candidates are a package deal.
If you vote for a candidate who advocates bigotry for other reasons than their bigotry you are still endorsing the bigotry.
You didn't find the bigotry objectionable enough to not vote for it, you are fine with people who don't happen to be middle class white heterosexual males being discriminated against as long as you get yours.
Which makes you part of the problem.
Certainly something that deserves to be criticized.
No "lesser evil" for the author of this quote, eh? So even if you are making your choice for completely noble and righteous reasons, like support for free or subsidised healthcare, gay marriage, or mandatory death penalty for anyone who doesn't think the United States is the greatest country the world has ever known or yet shall know, you are still endorsing any more nefarious positions/attributes the candidate may happen to possess. Best not to do it at all.
Someone else properly chastised a person who presented a "lesser evil" sort of argument, stating:
I'm so sorry if you're upset that voting for a racist, homophobic, incompetent misogynist gets you smeared as a bigot. I can't imagine why that would happen.
No "lesser of evils" here either. You need to stand up and own all of your candidate's positions! Although "bigot" is a long way from the worst thing one could be smeared as in this particular election cycle, don't you think?
These are just two of the people who are pointing out the folly of "lesser of evils" arguments. Perhaps it would be helpful if you were to explain where the two wise and learned people cited above have gone wrong, and how a "lesser of evils" choice is justifiable.
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Alvarez, would you expect Trump not to be a "terrorist" by this definition after his first year in office? Because is your point is that you won't vote for anyone who has supported the U.S. government in clandestine means, I doubt you'd ever vote for someone's second term. And yes, that would Include Jill Stein.
That's quite a lot of words for someone who's not talking to me, don't you think?
But, you are one among many who seem to have forgotten what they themselves said only a few days before. Which brings me to another point - I have noticed something I hadn't really anticipated (although perhaps I should have) in the last few days.
I have known many Americans who have been suffering from amnesia for eight years now (some of them even longer). For example, many of them had forgotten completely that they were against extrajudicial killing. And yet, just in the last few days, many of them have been cured completely! What do you think of that?
Perhaps the new American president-elect has some clandestine healthcare programme, that is already improving Americans' memories. If so, maybe he can help the people in this thread who have trouble remembering the principles they elucidated just hours or days before. We'll find out soon enough.
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I'm rather intrigued as to why someone who has never posted before on Apollohoax has suddenly shown up to defend Trump in one of it's "Other Topics" threads.
So, alvarez, what's your position on the Moon Hoax? Did we go to the Moon or not? If Bart Sibrel ran against a Democrat, would you vote for him?
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I'm rather intrigued as to why someone who has never posted before on Apollohoax has suddenly shown up to defend Trump in one of it's "Other Topics" threads.
Me too.
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Paid Trump shill :o ;D ;D ;D ;D
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So he called after the journalists and told them they should be ashamed of themselves for criticizing him.. oh my God.. isn't the press allowed to say freely what it wants? It seems he started implementing his bright ideas
Apart from that , a funny song for Trump
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The press is free to criticize the President. He's being a whiny baby.
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Not that this should come as a surprise after he whined incessantly about the election being rigged against him before he actually won it. Now he can't cope with the idea that he and his colleagues are prime targets for satire, comedy and political criticism, just like every other politician and president who came before him. And since he built his campaign heavily on criticising the current president and his rivals in the elections, it just goes to show the level of hypocrisy he is capable of.
The fact that he is already complaining about criticism (either of himself or of his VP) before he even takes office is frankly very worrying, and should be for everyone who voted him in. The man now lined up for the top of government can't apparently cope with the concept of free speech when it comes to commentary about him. Man up, take it on the chin, and show us we're wrong, don't whine about it.
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And he is already getting warmed up for regime change before he has even started. He tried to undermine Theresa May yesterday.
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So many similarities with our newly elected president: a particular antagonism towards press and criticism
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/reportsfeatures/567463-will-president-aoun-respect-press-freedom
racism and suggestions of closing the borders
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/racism_and_indifference_bassil_as_an_example_
they both think themselves heroes and saviors of their country..havign this inflated narcissism. what is more Orange is their political party's color, Trump is famous for his orange color. Also, as Trump interferes his son-in-law in politics, so does Aoun. Both were elected in this year in close times. The Lebanese Forces Block surprisingly elected Aoun, and a former member of that same block in America worked for Trump's presidency propaganda :)
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It's worrying, but if you're into dark humour it's also funny. The Presidency is probably the worst position for someone who cannot bear criticism.
The difference is that I felt a little sorry for Nixon when I read how he'd carefully remove a certain cartoonist's work from the paper before letting his young daughters read it, so that they wouldn't get upset on his behalf. I suppose that Barron just gets to read Stormfront.
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It must be harder and harder for not-racists to look at the people Trump is currently surrounding himself with and defend him. And his choice for Secretary of Education is appalling, though not actually racist. Just apparently opposed to public education.
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I don't know. I think that Trump supporters are in a mental space where whatever he does is good, because to them, he stands between them and The Abyss. If the man who saves you from The Abyss says Steve Bannon is not part of the alt-right, even though Bannon himself says he is, you don't argue with him.
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I'm rather intrigued as to why someone who has never posted before on Apollohoax has suddenly shown up to defend Trump in one of it's "Other Topics" threads.
Who has never posted here and then suddenly shown up to defend Trump in one of the "Other Topics" threads? I can't find anyone who matches this description.
But, I am confident the board membership will have no problem concocting a conspiracy theory that validates their own sense of self-righteousness to explain this person's sudden appearance, whether that person exists in reality or only in the the conspiracy theorists' brains.
So, alvarez, what's your position on the Moon Hoax?
Huh?
Did we go to the Moon or not?
I didn't go to the moon. I don't know who you are, so I don't know whether you went to the moon or not. If by "go to the moon" you include orbiting but not landing, then there are a few more people who did that, so my subjective assessment of the probability that you went to the moon under that definition would be slightly higher, but still very low.
On people who believe this sort of rubbish, well, the kindest thing I could possibly say is, maybe they just haven't taken the time to look into it. Or maybe they have psychiatric problems. Or maybe they're just liars, who deserve nothing but disgust and contempt, not unlike people who claim I'm a Trump defender. Although if people have no problem at all with mass murder, it's not really surprising if they're willing to tell lies, is it.
If Bart Sibrel ran against a Democrat, would you vote for him?
WTF is Bart Sibrel? Is he some neo-Nazi who wants to kill thousands (or millions) of foreigners, bleat about how incredibly righteous he and his supporters are, and disperse little bits of candy to his constituency? If so, I think he would need to run as a Democrat to get much support from the people at this board.
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And his choice for Secretary of Education is appalling, though not actually racist. Just apparently opposed to public education.
Finding a non-racist in the US is already quite an accomplishment. Finding one that supports public education - well, you can't really expect lightning to strike twice, can you.
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The press is free to criticize the President.
Indeed they are. Which reminds me of something I've been meaning to say.
but I also understand that she's despised mostly because Americans have been fed unhealthy doses of lies about her from the right wing media for probably close to 30 years.
Perhaps. She voted for the Patriotic act, but how many Americans, right-wing or left-wing, care about that? And she doesn't seem to believe in the existence of too many countries that cannot be improved by American bombing, but that actually resonates pretty well with the right-wing. I don't think very many Americans despise her because of these things.
She has been investigated thoroughly for years and the worst thing the right could come up with to pin on her was her private email server.
Ah yes, that's much worse than all the civilians she's helped to put into body bags.
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He's very rich, he can afford the best accountants and the best lawyers, so yes he can get away with it.
I don't know whether you're very rich or not, but if you are and have that attitude, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of jail time in your future.
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The right wing media has convinced people that going to war and killing people is good
Maybe that's where Hillary Clinton got the idea.
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How is the right any different? They think all of their ideas are gold... until they aren't, and then it's the other guy's fault. "We're going to invade Iraq and they will greet us as liberators." Yeah... how'd that turn out?
It seems to be almost universally accepted these days that the whole thing was a giant catastrophe, which may be why Madame Patriot Act has been trying to disown her vote for that particular war since at least 2005.
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I'm sure we will be opening more refugee camps for scared American expats soon. Maybe they can get a "Welcome to Canada" briefing from some of the Syrian refugees we've taken in.
If those American expats think their former government is going to leave them alone just because they've left the US proper for a colony, they're out of their f***ing minds. They can run away to the jungles of Cambodia, and they will still find the American government has crawled up their arses even further than when they were living in the US.
I have a feeling they're also going to be rather underwhelmed by the lack of Canadian enthusiasm for the presence of a group of such incredibly awesome people as themselves.
So let us imagine how this journey will go. A bunch of people, many of whom supported Obama for eight years and then voted for Clinton, will declare, "Remember when we didn't care how many evil foreigners were being exterminated, as long as we got what we wanted? We still don't care how many foreigners are killed, but now we're not getting what we want! This is not some minor unimportant issue like foreigners getting blown apart - we have to live under Trump!" So they pack up their empathy-free bubbles, and head off to - not one of the numerous countries where they've been dropping democracy from the sky in 500-pound metal containers, but Canada. Clearly, what's good enough for the inferior races isn't good enough for them.
Karmic justice will have thus bitten them in the arse once already, but they may find it isn't done with them yet.
First, they will have to get to Canada. How will they get there? If they fly, they might get to the airport and discover that the Trump has used one of the powers he inherited from the Great, Wise, and Benevolent Obama to prevent them from flying. How does one get on the no-fly list? No one is really sure, it's secret. How does one get off of it? One doesn't, really. Well, possibly. One could ask politely to the great dictatorship in Washington, "Oh please, glorious, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-holy government, I'm a good person, please let me fly? When I had no problem at all with you having dictatorial powers to punish any person you like by refusing to let them fly, I thought you were only going to use this power against people I don't like! I didn't think you were going to use it against holy self-righteous people like me!" Well, perhaps they ought to leave the last part out - challenging the government tends not to end well for the challenger in police states. So if one is sufficiently obsequious and grovels well enough, perhaps one will get off the list. What's that you say? Go to court and challenge it? Surely that is some kind of joke?
So, if their grovelling is unsuccessful, or if they just don't feel like waiting a few years to see whether the government will, in its munificence, decide to allow them to fly, maybe they can all take a bus together. Obviously it will have to be a special reinforced bus to be able to withstand the internal pressure from carrying so much holiness and righteousness. But, they will still need a passport to get to Canada, and another particular bit of karmic justice might bite them in the arse here. Well, this one is more debatable, since the Great, Wise, and Benevolent Obama didn't enact this one until after 2012, so they could plausibly claim they didn't vote for it. That's a rather convenient fact, isn't it? But, the Trump may decide to use another one of the powers he inherits from the GBW Obama, and cancel their passports. Under recent legislation, all it takes to cancel their passports is an allegation of unpaid taxes - no proof, no court hearing, the IRS just has to say so. They could spend thousands of dollars and years in court fighting to get it back, and perhaps even be successful, although it's not clear what would prevent the IRS from revoking the passport again the very next day. Just imagine their outrage - "I only support confiscation of passports without due process from people I don't like! How dare the government confiscate my passport!" Well, fair enough, maybe they can claim they didn't actually support this one.
Should they avoid, or circumvent, these two obstacles, they can board the bus and head off to Canada. Perhaps the Trump will know they are going, having used the incredibly comprehensive electronic surveillance powers he will inherit from the GWB Obama. One can only imagine their outrage once again - "I support spying on other people, not on me!" And perhaps their concern over this spying will be justified, if the Trump decides to blast them straight to hell, using the powers of universal assassination he will inherit from the GWB Obama. Once again, imagine their outrage during their last seconds of life, as they see the missile streaking towards them, and they shout, "This is the greatest injustice in the history of the world! I only supported terrorism for eight years (or longer) because I thought only people I didn't like would be killed! How dare they kill a supporter of terrorism like me!" And they and their empathy-free bubbles would then be torn apart rather violently. How awful.
Should they avoid all of these particular forms of karmic justice, and manage to get to Canada, they might then notice that there aren't long queues of people waiting to give free blow jobs to these incredibly awesome, holy, and righteous newcomers, and be surprised that there are so many Trump supporters in Canada. But no matter, their troubles are almost over, at least until they try to open a bank account. Or buy a prepaid fare card for the Toronto transit system. Or try to engage in any one of a number of other actions that are perfectly legal from people from every country in the world, except those from "the land of the free". So a lot of the advice they receive from the Syrian refugees won't apply, since Syrians have many freedoms Americans don't - the GWB Obama signed legislation in his first term that imposed serious economic sanctions on any country in the world that did not discriminate against Americans, although this did not keep too many people from voting him a second term. But, they will now discover to their sorrow, that the US was not content to be a police state within its borders, but needed to be the dictatorship of the entire world. And exercising the right to kill anyone anytime for no reason at all was not enough - imposing its regulation extraterritorially on the entire world (the US justification for going to war against the UK in 1812) was also necessary. So these Americans will find that they have trouble opening a bank account, as many Canadian banks don't want to take the risk of running afoul of the extensive, complex regulations from the global regulatory authorities in Washington. Opening a securities account will be essentially impossible. They will have to file US taxes, just like they always did, but they'll also have to report their prepaid Toronto transit fare card not once, but twice a year, to the US government. Failure to do so is a felony - well the US needs to make sure they're not using that fare card for money laundering purposes. That seems quite reasonable, doesn't it? The person who was fined for failure to pay American taxes on the Canadian disability pension she was receiving for her mentally handicapped son might have something to say about this. She might also have something to say about how she can't escape these difficult, expensive, reporting requirements, because her son, being mentally handicapped, lacks the requisite cognitive capacity to relinquish his US citizenship under US law. So just imagine the outrage our American refugees feel when they find this particular law passed by the GWB Obama in his first term bites them in the arse. They'll be so enraged the empathy-free bubbles they live in might even burst.
They could ask the bus to stop at the American embassy so they can give up their US citizenship, an absolutely necessary step for living a normal life. This process is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult - we might suspect the US would bomb China if it had such an expatriation process. (From what I've heard, it doesn't - China seems to have quite a lot of freedoms the US doesn't.) Last I heard, the waiting period was over a year. Maybe it's shorter now.
So what do you think? Within a few years, would these American refugees have assimilated themselves into and made their mark on Canadian society? Would Canada be bombing the crap out of the rest of the world, conducting assassinations, detaining people for years without trial, and doing all the other sorts of things they supported under the GWB Obama? (Maybe Obama could become the Prime Minister of Canada!) Of would they be allied with Trump, demanding that he "fight for their freedom", bomb Ottawa, invade Canada, and possibly annex it?
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He's very rich, he can afford the best accountants and the best lawyers, so yes he can get away with it.
I don't know whether you're very rich or not, but if you are and have that attitude, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of jail time in your future.
If you can be jailed for expressing cynicism about the ability of the rich to avoid tax, things are worse than I thought.
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I'm still amazed at why alvarez has come to a board he's never contributed to before to rant against Clinton, while ignoring Trump.
Alvarez, I'm asking you straight out - what is your interest in Apollohoax? Did you come here because of any interest at all in our primary subject matter, or do you simply scan websites looking for people who don't like Trump, and spend your time tu quoquing them?
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And frankly, it take a lot of doing to me to condemn Clinton for corruption while coincidentally ignoring that there's increasingly clear evidence of a foreign power's interfering in the election process on Trump's behalf.
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I should remind alvarez that you are required on this board to answer direct questions, even if the answer "I don't know." So, I'd like my question answered, please.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-14/opinion-donald-trump-conflicts-of-interest/8095842
This is an interesting (and worrying) article about Trump's conflicts of interest between his business interests and the US national interest. In particular, it draws attention to a clause in the US Constitution about Presidential emoluments, along with his indebtedness to a bank which is in the process of being fined by the US Government for its lending practices.
Trump has borrowed up to $2.5 billion from Deutsche Bank in the last 20 years. The US Department of Justice is currently negotiating a settlement of up to $14 billion with the bank as a penalty for its predatory lending practices in the lead-up to the global financial crisis.
The settlement will be overseen by the incoming attorney-general, whom Trump will personally appoint.
The irony here should not be lost on us. Trump lambasted Hillary Clinton throughout the campaign for being effectively indebted to the large financial institutions that brought down the US economy in 2008. Trump, on the other hand, is literally indebted to them.
My bolding.
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[snip]
They could ask the bus to stop at the American embassy so they can give up their US citizenship, an absolutely necessary step for living a normal life. This process is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult...
??
From what I've read, you go to a US Embassy or Consulate, and in the presence of an official at the post sign a form renouncing citizenship. What is expensive, time-consuming or difficult about that?
...we might suspect the US would bomb China if it had such an expatriation process. (From what I've heard, it doesn't - China seems to have quite a lot of freedoms the US doesn't.)
That's nice. Which freedoms would these be?
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[snip]
They could ask the bus to stop at the American embassy so they can give up their US citizenship, an absolutely necessary step for living a normal life. This process is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult...
??
From what I've read, you go to a US Embassy or Consulate, and in the presence of an official at the post sign a form renouncing citizenship. What is expensive, time-consuming or difficult about that?
Apparently the application has to be reviewed by a U.S. district court to ensure that the renunciation doesn't make the applicant stateless, so it wouldn't be immediate. But it appears that this would be processed by the government, and not have to be pursued by the applicant.
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Aaaaaaand when asked to explain why he was on this particular part of the forum and no other, Alvarez suddenly lost interest.
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[snip]
They could ask the bus to stop at the American embassy so they can give up their US citizenship, an absolutely necessary step for living a normal life. This process is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult...
??
From what I've read, you go to a US Embassy or Consulate, and in the presence of an official at the post sign a form renouncing citizenship. What is expensive, time-consuming or difficult about that?
...we might suspect the US would bomb China if it had such an expatriation process. (From what I've heard, it doesn't - China seems to have quite a lot of freedoms the US doesn't.)
That's nice. Which freedoms would these be?
Say, Alvarez, seeing as you're back, would you mind answering these questions?
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I happen to be back from work early because I finished up my work and was spluttering and sneezing everywhere so I guess I'll watch the coverage in half an hour. I missed Theresa May driving down the Mall do I guess I'll catch this instead.
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I can't. I just can't. I've got a lot of friends around the country who are marching tomorrow, though.
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I can't. I just can't. I've got a lot of friends around the country who are marching tomorrow, though.
With the greatest of respect, I hope none of them were involved in violent protest.
I mean, I fully support people having their say (doing so is better protected in the USA than here in Australia), but the reports I've seen of damage to private property and assaults on people (coward-punched while being interviewed on TV, no less) are not going to do anything to garner sympathy.
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I have no sympathy for the guy that was coward-punched while being interviewed on TV seeing that he is a neo-nazi scumbag. But yeah, I don't agree with the property damage.
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They haven't marched yet; the majority of marches are today. We're much more worried about their disruption by Trump supporters and their use as a tool who just want an excuse to break stuff, honestly. That's probably what happened in Portland in the first days after the election--there's a certain amount of suspicion that the people breaking stuff didn't vote for Clinton, possibly didn't vote at all, and are just anarchists looking for an excuse to participate in behaviour that they believe will break down society. I knew people in college who were that sort at the WTO protests in Seattle at the time. I agree that it makes the movement look bad, and so do my friends--with one or two exceptions, who believe a little social breakdown is necessary to enact change. Which, you know, that's a conversation I'm done having.
I am still okay with that guy getting punched, at least a little, because literally neo-Nazi. Apparently even his awful haircut is intended to evoke his politics, and he was talking about them at the time it happened. It's hard to be upset when someone punches a Nazi, even if it doesn't do any good for the movement.
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Anarchists always live up to their name.
But the most amusing was when they joined in the protest against tuition fees. Anarchists claim to be upset that the government isn't supporting the higher education more. Everything about that is a contradiction.
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I can't. I just can't. I've got a lot of friends around the country who are marching tomorrow, though.
With the greatest of respect, I hope none of them were involved in violent protest.
I mean, I fully support people having their say (doing so is better protected in the USA than here in Australia), but the reports I've seen of damage to private property and assaults on people (coward-punched while being interviewed on TV, no less) are not going to do anything to garner sympathy.
I agree totally. Protest, yes. Civil disobedience, yes. Violence & destruction of property, no.
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Anarchists always live up to their name.
At least those you see on TV.
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It's also worth noting that there were no arrests at the protests in most cities; I have yet to hear of any arrests, even though the crowds were far, far larger than anticipated. The city I live in has 50,000 people. They were estimating 2500 would attend, and they are now estimating over 10,000 did. There was no violence and no destruction of property (the grass at the capital probably got shredded again, but 10,000 people will do that), and the biggest problem I know of from the LA march is an overcrowded public transit system.
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I can't recall ever seeing so much public outrage over the election of a US Presdident
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The polls indicate there has never been this much. He's going into office with the lowest approval rating ever recorded of an incoming President. It's not just that he lost the popular vote by nearly three million people. Though that is a lot of it; the last election I can remember that was even close to this controversial was 2000, the other time in my life when the popular vote and the EC had different results. It's that a lot of us are saying, "Well, I didn't like Romney or McCain or even W, but I didn't fear they'd strip my rights as much as I fear it from Trump." I'm scheduled for a tubal ligation on the third. For what I think are obvious reasons, I literally cannot have it any sooner. Under most Republicans, I'd be saying, "I don't think they could make that a problem for me that soon; laws take time to pass." But Trump is already signing damaging executive orders, and I am already worried that I won't be able to get the procedure early next month.
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I can't recall ever seeing so much public outrage over the election of a US Presdident
Nope, last time there was this much political rancor was the 1960s.
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I wonder how many people who voted for him now wish they had not (like Brexit) ?
I also wonder how much damage he will be able to do before the mid-terms take away his power?
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I can't recall ever seeing so much public outrage over the election of a US Presdident
As far as I know only about 58% of registered voters bothered to vote in 2016. I wonder how many of those protesters (if registered voters) filled out a ballot for president.
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Obviously not everyone who protested voted; I presume most of the protesters in other countries were not US citizens (even though they are still affected by everything the US does), and there were more than a few children even in the US marches.
But the latest crowd estimates (available at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xa0iLqYKz8x9Yc_rfhtmSOJQ2EGgeUVjvV4A8LsIaxY/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xa0iLqYKz8x9Yc_rfhtmSOJQ2EGgeUVjvV4A8LsIaxY/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0)) show the number of US protesters alone somewhat exceeding Hillary's popular vote margin over Trump.
So yeah, I can reasonably assume that most of those eligible did vote. Not that it did any good, of course.
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I'm also curious how many of them marched because voter suppression efforts prevented them from voting. Certainly enough people are likely to have been prevented from voting to have turned the election.
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Is Trump Straussian?
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bknight, I wonder what your assessment of your earlier prognostication is, having seen Trump in power for five days?
While trying to stay out of the firing line that seems to be forming, I believe that Trump is not the hair trigger that many have portrayed. He will no doubt sound better now that the opposition is narrowed.
...
I will repeat my earlier pose. I believe all of us will see a much more pragmatic and can do type attitude towards the polices.
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I rather doubt that the decision for child bearing will be taken from women, but we shall see.
All I can say is, I hope you didn't enjoy NPR or PBS too much. Or the National Parks Service being allowed to tweet about global warming.
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And there's already been an anti-abortion executive order.
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And there's already been an anti-abortion executive order.
Yes. And states such as Texas are at work creating state laws restricting or eliminating abortion, so as soon as they feel the court is stacked to overturn Roe v. Wade, they'll be ready to go.
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All I can say is, I hope you didn't enjoy NPR or PBS too much. Or the National Parks Service being allowed to tweet about global warming.
Wyoming is already legislating to prevent power companies sourcing from renewable energy such as wind and solar.
http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2017/Introduced/SF0071.pdf
This can only be a move designed to protect coal jobs and promote the burning of fossil fuels.
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This is a scary quote from Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing, with respect to whether "secular" people will be respected by the new AG:
Whitehouse replied, with a leading, and perhaps slightly conclusory question: “And a secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious, correct?” At which point Sessions responded, “Well, I’m not sure.” For a few seconds the Senate chamber seemed to go completely silent.
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And there's already been an anti-abortion executive order.
Signed by a misogynist, while observed by several middle aged men. As many commentators have highlighted, how can one man sign away women's rights while witnessed by another 7 men. It's like some terrible fraternity making up a whole bunch of new rules for their club over the next 2 years.
I'm no expert on US politics, do the executive orders have to be ratified by Senate or Congress, and will the Republicans gaining control in the mid-terms put an halt to the man?
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I'm just glad we don't have the culture wars stuff to anywhere near the same degree. When gay marriage was legalised in England and Wales, a few old timers went harumph for a bit then got over it.
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Canadian abortion clinics and doctors who carry out abortions privately might find they have an increase in business soon.
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Canadian abortion clinics and doctors who carry out abortions privately might find they have an increase in business soon.
You can never ban abortions, you can ban safe abortions. That was the most powerful quote I saw today in response to the goon.
He'll go after gay marriage next. Each day seems to be another erosion of rights for a particular set of people in society. It's like he has a list and he's ticking them off as he goes. Is he really Abe Simpson in disguise running through a grudge list and grinding a different axe each day.
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And there's already been an anti-abortion executive order.
Dutch respond to Trump's 'gag rule' with international safe abortion fund (http://"https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jan/25/netherlands-trump-gag-rule-international-safe-abortion-fund").
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States hit by the tornadoes recently (red states) have been waiting for Trump to send disaster relief. "We're sure he'll get back to us shortly," the Mississippi governor says.
Meanwhile, no one is nominated to head FEMA. Probably because Trump just knows that they run concentration camps or something. Alex Jones told him so.
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I'm no expert on US politics, do the executive orders have to be ratified by Senate or Congress, and will the Republicans gaining control in the mid-terms put an halt to the man?
Executive orders, in theory, are law as soon as they're signed. In theory, they're based on the President's pre-existing powers as head of the Executive Branch. Congress, which is made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives, can overturn them, as could the Supreme Court, as part of the system of checks and balances written into the US Constitution, but Congress is controlled by Republicans already and, while SCOTUS is not, that's because the Republican-led Congress spent over a year refusing to even hold hearings for Obama's nominee to replace Scalia. So we're sitting at an eight-member SCOTUS that will be nine as soon as someone Trump nominates is confirmed.
Of course, he's promised that his nominee will overturn Roe v. Wade and probably Obergefell v. Hodges. So that's not going to help.
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All I can say is, I hope you didn't enjoy NPR or PBS too much. Or the National Parks Service being allowed to tweet about global warming.
Wyoming is already legislating to prevent power companies sourcing from renewable energy such as wind and solar.
http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2017/Introduced/SF0071.pdf
This can only be a move designed to protect coal jobs and promote the burning of fossil fuels.
Well, seeing as Britain is likely to scrap billions of pounds worth of subsidies for renewable energy including wind and solar, it's probably a prudent move.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4150244/Billions-wind-solar-subsidies-axed.html
Ontario has also tried to make renewable energy work and it's been a disaster:
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/boondoggle-how-ontarios-pursuit-of-renewable-energy-broke-the-provinces-electricity-system
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As an Ontarian, I don't see how it's prudent to punish people for successfully producing green energy. If Ontario went with a pie in the sky plan that assumed that these sources would just fall into place, it doesn't replace the need that we *must* find non-polluting and renewable sources of energy.
Climate change is not going away, not matter how much we wish it would, and fossil fuels are not renewable.
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All I can say is, I hope you didn't enjoy NPR or PBS too much. Or the National Parks Service being allowed to tweet about global warming.
Wyoming is already legislating to prevent power companies sourcing from renewable energy such as wind and solar.
http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2017/Introduced/SF0071.pdf
This can only be a move designed to protect coal jobs and promote the burning of fossil fuels.
Well, seeing as Britain is likely to scrap billions of pounds worth of subsidies for renewable energy including wind and solar, it's probably a prudent move.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4150244/Billions-wind-solar-subsidies-axed.html
There is a world of difference between making a system compete on an even footing, and legislating against that competing system altogether as is happening with this Wyoming Bill.
What is happening in Wyoming is about protecting coal jobs, and maintaining a system of energy production that is doomed to eventual failure. Coal is a finite resource, wind and solar are infinite for all practical purposes.
IMO, the future of residential power lies with something like this...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/green/10377334/Eco-living-the-Leicestershire-home-that-powers-itself.html
... with the purpose of power companies being to provide energy for industry and little else. Even commercial premises can be built to be so energy efficient that they require only a fraction of the externally sourced power requirements they normally would.
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Fot those who thought Clinton was too hawkish, hope you like current developments: http://globalnews.ca/news/3212333/u-s-commando-killed-3-wounded-in-yemen-raid-authorized-by-donald-trump-military-official/?utm_source=Article&utm_medium=Outbrain&utm_campaign=2015
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All I can say is, I hope you didn't enjoy NPR or PBS too much. Or the National Parks Service being allowed to tweet about global warming.
Wyoming is already legislating to prevent power companies sourcing from renewable energy such as wind and solar.
http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2017/Introduced/SF0071.pdf
This can only be a move designed to protect coal jobs and promote the burning of fossil fuels.
So...the party which supposedly stands up for the free play of the market is happy to legislatively interfere with the free play of the market.
Just like they're happy to legislatively interfere with the rights of individuals despite being the party which supposedly stands up for the rights of individuals.
Ri-i-i-ight.
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So...the party which supposedly stands up for the free play of the market is happy to legislatively interfere with the free play of the market.
Just like they're happy to legislatively interfere with the rights of individuals despite being the party which supposedly stands up for the rights of individuals.
Ri-i-i-ight.
That's one of the weirdest things about Trump's economic stance. He has absolutely no faith in free markets - in fact, I doubt he quite understands them. So, the era of free trade that was started under Reagan is going to come crashing down under another Republican. I suspect he doesn't understand that, whatever benefit he can get from such a stance, other countries won't idly sit by. They'll start building their own trade barriers, and international trade will grind to a halt.
Now, some people might say Fine! But most of those aren't CEOs of international companies or Republican theorists. So Trump is off on his own here.