Politics

[Freude am Fahren]

I'm not smoker, nor a vaper.

I do think linking vaping in with smoking as an ideological wrong. For instance, my Dad is a state Corrections Officer. He switched to vaping a while back as a way of getting away from cigarettes which are more harmful for him and second hand smokers around him. Then the prison banned vaping, now he's back on regular cigarettes. I see vaping as an opportunity to embrace something less shitty than smoking, even if it is harmful in its own way.

I don't mind vaping bans for the sake of second hand exposure, that's a different debate. Simply calling it the same as smoking bothers me. Not trying to put words in your mouth, just using you to launch into that tangent.

I agree with you. I do think vaping can be good if it's a means of getting away from cigarettes.

However, in this case, it's not really a different debate, since this does have to do with second hand exposure, smoking/vaping in public. In your uncle's case, at least in Florida, I'm not seeing a difference. I don' think vaping should be banned anywhere smoking is allowed, and in Florida, it's not. If you can smoke, you can vape.

edit: I suppose, you could look at like this: If vaping (the lesser of two evils) is allowed places where smoking is not, it allows more opportunities for people trying to quit smoking to get their fix. Maybe that was your uncle's situation?

[neanderthal]

Com'on, that's not spare time. Do interns work on spare time? If I have sex in my cube, conference room, or anywhere on company property, company policy is to fire me. Lucky US govt didn't have such policy. Nevertheless, it wasn't just for fun on spare time. All the legal fees ended up causing the Clintons to be nearly dead broke when they left the white house...

Anyway, conservatives do look at marriage infidelities very seriously. If you can't even be faithful to your wife, how can we be sure you'll be faithful to the nation we entrusted to you?

Differences between Trump and Clinton could be insanely different, but both very serious.

The main difference now is that we're sure the cigar was inserted by Bill..., but we're still not 100% sure Putin inserted anything into Trump's ass.

Bullshit. Complete and utter first class horse shit unicorn shit.

Trump was unfaithful to his wife, to each of his fucking wives, and they voted for him.
David Vitter. his name was in the phone book of the "Hollywood madam."
Rudy Guliani. Cheated on his wife with his cousin. Divorced her, married the cousin. Cheated on her, divorced her, married his mistress.
Mark Sanford. Was busy fucking his mistress in Argentina, while "officially" he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Scott DesJarlais.
Etc
The list is long.

[neanderthal]

Cruz was hatched, tho

Dude!!!!!

[neanderthal]

That rule is already very odd since Ted Cruz wasn't born here but he ran as a GOP candidate, and John McCain was born in Panama...but it was on a US military base so it "counts".

Conservatives are very "law and order/ rule of law" until it comes to their candidates, their positions, their dogmas.

Candidates: Cruz' presidential run is a fantastic example. McCain's as well, technically.
Positions: Remember the rancher (Bundy) who was feeding his cattle on federal land and refusing to pay a nominal fee to do so? But rules is rules.
Dogmas: The NFL protests; kneeling being "unpatriotic."


I don't think most people in the US, especially the ones against the NFL protests, can even differentiate between being patriotic, nationalistic and jingoistic.

[neanderthal]

I've found some more irony in the right wing GOP followers. A lot of them are railing against "globalists", whether they are equating it to "jews" or not.

However it is the addition of regulations and trying to prevent jobs from going overseas which the Democrats under Obama tried to do....and on the flip side, the GOP with Trump gave those globalist corporations insane tax breaks and are trying to remove as many regulations as possible.

Yes, in an awkward way, if you look at it really crooked you can see how that kind of thing may seem like an advantage for the U.S. but in general, it isn't

Don't get me started on the incongruence ...

[neanderthal]

Re: Trump impeachment.

Conspiring to commit collusion is way difficult to prove.
Tax evasion, tax fraud, money laundering-ish crimes are far easier to pin on him.

But those charges would not be as easy to pass thru the senate as something like treason, so my hunch is that they're going to sweep it under the rug with an agreement with the prosecution in which -among other things- he doesn't run for office in 2020.

That shit will piss me off and a whole bunch of other Democratic voters too. It'll reinforce the notion that both parties are the same (they're fucking not billi) even though the Democrats might actually have a really good reason to do such a thing (say ... to actually govern for instance!)

If Trump doesn't sign legislation, like the debt ceiling, that can really affect a fuckton of people and grind the economy to a halt. if a deal was made to get him to sign, I would STILL see that as capitulating, even if I understand there are greater things at stake. but i fear that many (billi for instance) would see it simply as capitulating.



The thing is, politics requires nuance. And nuance gets Democrats hammered, every. single. time.

[G'day Mate]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/image/10475934-3x2-940x627.jpg

[Crazed_Insanity]

The left loved Jim more and the right loved Don more after that incident.

Whose really right though?

[FaultyMario]

The person doing their job. IMHO.

[FaultyMario]

No way in hell the basket of deplorables lets Chris Christie be AG. Didn't Pence/Bannon fire him from the relatively minor transition office?

[FaultyMario]

Sessions FIRED.

Wouldn't there be "holy hell to pay (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-40746525/graham-there-will-be-holy-hell-to-pay-if-sessions-fired)" if it happened?

[tigeraid]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/image/10475934-3x2-940x627.jpg


And apparently, infowars has been spreading a shortened video clip of this around the internet where they speed up the part where his hand comes up to make it look like he was trying to hit her, and cuts off everything that happens before and after.

Won't be long before Deepfakers working for the administration start creating video clips of Hillary Clinton gunning down schoolchildren.

[Crazed_Insanity]

The person doing their job. IMHO.
They're all doing their jobs.

The poor girl was trying to get the mic back but Jim just wouldn't let her do her job.

Now WH has banned him. Was it all worth it?

Arguing with the president about whether it's an 'invasion' or not?

There are no more important issues to talk about other than president's choice of word?

I call that stupidity from both sides. If a journalist really wants to school the president about something, pick some other topic with a more realistic chance of bringing him down or make him look bad. This stupid incident only ended up dividing the country more. If you look at all the youtube comments, trump lovers ended up loving trump more and CNN less.

[FaultyMario]

They're all doing their jobs.


I disagree.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Well, if you're the politically correct type, you may think Trump is wrong calling it an 'invasion', but he is doing his job protecting his country. Why should a nation just allow thousands of people to enter its borders illegally like that?

I know Jim is also trying to do his job, but rather than arguing with the president about whether or not we should call it an 'invasion', maybe he could actually make some sort of emotional appeal for these poor refugees instead... Also, you're in the white house, if the president thinks the talk is over, respect that please. Now his opportunity to do his job at the WH is revoked. Was it worth it? Probably for his 15 min of fame...

In the end, nation is more divided. Refugees are still seen as invaders by the right and poor souls by the left. Nothing is resolved. Nobody is being helped.

They all did their jobs... very poorly.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Bullshit. Complete and utter first class horse shit unicorn shit.

Trump was unfaithful to his wife, to each of his fucking wives, and they voted for him.
David Vitter. his name was in the phone book of the "Hollywood madam."
Rudy Guliani. Cheated on his wife with his cousin. Divorced her, married the cousin. Cheated on her, divorced her, married his mistress.
Mark Sanford. Was busy fucking his mistress in Argentina, while "officially" he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Scott DesJarlais.
Etc
The list is long.

Of course there'll be double standards...

For Trump, at least he was playing the 'born again' game. That's an easy way to wash his sins clean...

If he were to have an affair again... or really caught grabbing pussy cats, I'm sure conservative voters will start finding some other GOP candidates to support...

I know it seems like he can get away with murder without damaging his reputation, but I just don't think that's the reality.

DNC also need to examine why they can't win against these scum zombies during elections.

[The359]

A) They're not illegally entering the country. They're in Mexico.
B) They're planning to apply for asylum at the border, which is legally allowed.
C) They will be housed in camps, not released to the public, while their asylum cases are gone over.

None of these are an invasion. He's not protecting shit other than his (low) approval rating.

[Crazed_Insanity]

People applying for asylum don't all just stay in Mexico. They usually do live and wait within the nation that they're applying the asylum with.

Plus, it is known that chances of US granting them their asylum request is low. Political or religious persecutions are the usual method, unfortunately, not for gangster persecutions.

Anyway, point is this is a political hot potato... for sure it won't get solved by arguing with the president with words and refuse to give up the mic when president doesn't want to talk to you anymore...

Fox news journalism for sure is fucked up. However, this kind of CNN journalism although isn't as fucked up, but it helps no one... and will only further divide the people. Lefties all cheered for Jim sticking it to the president! Righties all cheered that President Trump sure showed him...

But in the end, what good came out of that?

Ideally we should try to have solutions with people cheering on both sides!

[The359]

Billi, it'd help if you read A, B, *and* C.

Lest we also forget that the reason much of their country is going downhill is because the United States overthrew their democratically elected leaders and installed a military junta.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Who is coordinating "C"? Mexican government? Unless something special is done, what would be the point of setting up camp when you know most of them will be sent back to where they came from?



Lest we also forget that the reason much of their country is going downhill is because the United States overthrew their democratically elected leaders and installed a military junta.

It'd be nice if Jim brought that point up and use it to help the refugees' cause..., but then again, maybe it's not a good idea to involve Hillary Clinton with this mess again...

One possible solution, since this mess was likely caused by a blue administration, let all the blue states absorb these refugees.

In the future, if red admins' wars/decisions resulted in refugees, all the red states will be responsible for them.

If Unites States don't want anymore refugees, then don't mess with foreign governments around the world!

[The359]

Billi, if you have no clue what the fuck you're talking about, it's probably best to not just guess. It occured under Reagan, after much US involvement in Honduras in the 60s and 70s.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Wow, those refugees started their trek decades ago? And then US never messed with Honduras again?

Let me google about that:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-us-role-in-the-honduras-coup-and-subsequent-violence_us_5766c7ebe4b0092652d7a138

I think then secretary clinton was involved...

Anyway, so which ever admin did it, all blue and red states need to accept these refugees then...

[Freude am Fahren]

So Andrew Gillum conceded on election night the race for FL Governor, but now the count is getting down to the threshold for a mandatory recount. So if you concede, can you take it back if the votes come up otherwise?

[dodint]

I imagine so, why else spend taxpayer money on a recount?

[Tom Servo]

Wow, those refugees started their trek decades ago? And then US never messed with Honduras again?

So, as you've watched over a good 17 years the effect that 9/11 has had on our nation, and the slow changes brought about by media empires and social media, what part of that made you think "if what happened in Honduras didn't happen instantaneously, then there's no way these things could be related?"

[Crazed_Insanity]

Are you sure that's what I was trying to say?

You guys seems very sure that poor Hondurans only suffer when republicans are in charge, huh?

Then secretary Clinton is obviously an angel who can do no wrong?

Look, can we all agree that US government, regardless of blue or red or during which time frame, fucked them over and we should be responsible for these refugees' lives?

Jim could've easily used that reasoning to show that what's going on isn't an 'invasion', that we actually owe it to them to help! But he didn't do any of that... just having a war of words with the president and refusing to shut up when asked to... and now he's banned by the admin just like any other troll on internet forum.

[Tom Servo]

I don't think anyone is ever sure what you're trying to say, yourself included.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Can you also answer my other questions?

Or you are just playing the same game Jim's playing? Not really seeking any real meaningful discussions from the person you're talking to, but only intend to make that person look bad?

Anyway, at least you're not a journalist, so I understand why you do that. However, I thought it was kinda stupid for a journalist to do that with the president.

Going back to my original point, poor jobs on both sides.

[JoshInKC]

You see billi, asking the president why he is calling refugees an invasion is a meaningful discussion or can at least lead to a meaningful discussion.

It is utterly nuts the lengths you will go to to defend him. I just do not get how invested you are in protecting and reinforcing the existing power structures when you made such a big point out of how you didn't like either party. How did you vote for jill stein when you're evidently so deeply conservative?

[Crazed_Insanity]

I’m only deeply conservative relative to you guys. True conservative probably see me as deeply liberal.

I voted for neither and criticized both sides, yet you see me as a trump supporter... desire to maintain current power structure... yeah, good observation.

[FaultyMario]

http://twitter.com/keanothedog/status/1060720206048313346?s=09

[MR2 Fan]

I don't think anyone is ever sure what you're trying to say, yourself included.

QFT

[MR2 Fan]

So Andrew Gillum conceded on election night the race for FL Governor, but now the count is getting down to the threshold for a mandatory recount. So if you concede, can you take it back if the votes come up otherwise?

I don't know...it might be just a gesture and not part of requirement by law?

[sandydandy]

I believe it's like when Bill Clinton was in office, they can impeach but the Senate would have to confirm to remove from office, so they can technically impeach without it doing anything I see. I didn’t properly understand the definition of impeach. I thought it meant automatic removal. :|

[Crazed_Insanity]

Impeachment is just a process trying to remove... like charging somebody with a crime. Actual removal happens when he/she's found guilty!

Nixon wasn't found guilty/removed from office... he simply resigned... to save everyone the trouble.

[neanderthal]

You see billi, asking the president why he is calling refugees an invasion is a meaningful discussion or can at least lead to a meaningful discussion.

It is utterly nuts the lengths you will go to to defend him. I just do not get how invested you are in protecting and reinforcing the existing power structures when you made such a big point out of how you didn't like either party. How did you vote for jill stein when you're evidently so deeply conservative?

Ax him bruh!!!

[FaultyMario]

Am I too far off the mark in thinking that Alexandria Ocasio could be #47 or maybe #48?

[The359]

America would never let a declared socialist in.

[MR2 Fan]

I don't know...I think Bernie had a good shot because he was populist and not hated by anyone like Hillary was.

In other news, the Senate races may be closer in a few states after more votes found...Arizona may go to the Democrat and I think there's a chance the Florida one might as well....but the GOP are screaming fraud at the top of their lungs of course.

[G'day Mate]

How are these being "found"?

[drew]

Mail-in/absentee ballots. They may have been "lost", in the way 2-3 polling locations were "evicted" and had "no power", yet the polling equipment was "coincidentally" inside the building (Kemp is an asshole).


But that's just my theory. I wouldn't put anything past these dickbags.

[mk]

Is their optical reader line by line style?

Some left senator pick empty but filled dog catcher.

[FaultyMario]

America would never let a declared socialist in.

Maybe if "America" and "socialist" are blurred definitions. Which I expect both to be in the next 10 years.

[mk]

Extreme weather at Aisne-Marne.

[Dicknose]

So Andrew Gillum conceded on election night the race for FL Governor, but now the count is getting down to the threshold for a mandatory recount. So if you concede, can you take it back if the votes come up otherwise?

Conceding is not official. Its just a PR statement. If you do end up winning you can say "oh wow didnt expect that"
You can win and then resign...

I had an election here were a candidate conceded and the TV station asked me to change the computer prediction because I had the person winning. No I wont change it, I agree with the computer, it looks the best estimate. And they won and took the seat.

Much better to concede and be wrong that claim victory and be wrong!

[MR2 Fan]

whatfore do you mean?

https://www.trbimg.com/img-582620fc/turbine/ct-hist-00276876a-tribhistory24-jpg-20161111/950/950x534


for those international viewers...the newspaper published the wrong headline the night of the election of Truman (whatever year that was)

[FaultyMario]

Am I too far off the mark in thinking that Don Jr. could be indicted soon?

[Crazed_Insanity]

Lately I’ve come to the realization that so what if a state is overwhelmingly blue if it’s covered by wildfire? Likewise, so what if a state is overwhelmingly red if it’s covered by flood water?

Make sure don’t forget to love and cherish those close to you and around you while you can. Of course voting still makes a difference, but loving will leave an even greater impact! Yeah, it sucks to have hitler or Hussein or trump in power, but they will soon pass...

[neanderthal]

Lately I’ve come to the realization that so what if a state is overwhelmingly blue if it’s covered by wildfire? Likewise, so what if a state is overwhelmingly red if it’s covered by flood water?

Make sure don’t forget to love and cherish those close to you and around you while you can. Of course voting still makes a difference, but loving will leave an even greater impact! Yeah, it sucks to have hitler or Hussein or trump in power, but they will soon pass...

Quoted for posterity.

Remind us to not give a fuck if you're ever in a catastrophe; earthquake, fire, accident, whatever! You're a real cunt of a human being billi.

[neanderthal]

How are these being "found"?

There was a box of ballots found in the store room of one of the schhols that was used as a polling location. The polling location was in a heavily minority populated district...

Also, a lot of people who were forced to take provisional ballots because of the "exact match" requirement enacted by Kemp in Georgia. If you registered as "John Doe" or even "John A Doe" and you came in with ID for "John Anonymous Doe" that disqualified you. At least that's what you were told.
Except it doesn't disqualify you, as long as you can prove that the original "John Doe" is you; bring papwerwork (a bill?) with that same John Doe name and the same corresponding address. Those are the votes that are now being counted; provisional votes that hadn't been "verified." Provisional votes usually don't count until they're verified.

However, most people, when told that their ID doesn't match, often walk away. Those who know their rights demand at minimum a provisional ballot. guess where they enforce the "exact match" requirement the most?

They also "consolidated" the polling places in heavily monirty districts in Georgia, meaning more people had to vote in the same polling place. So when you show up t vote and there's a line around the block you're discouraged from voting. Rev Jesse Jackson happened to be at one of those polling places where they only had 2(?) machines and long ass lines. After alerting the media and raising holy hell, somehow four more brand new still in the packaging machines were brought in.

But how many poeple had already been discouraged from voting? How many had left? How many had a job or other responsibility they had to attend to?


There's numerous stories of voter disenfranchisement out there.

[G'day Mate]

Are your electionsn not overseen by a non-partisan organisation, or is it just a few rogue actors doing such suppression?

[drew]

In the case of the GA Governor race, the guy running for governor IS overseeing it. Thus the problem.Voter suppression is in the GOP playbook. Whether it's gerrymandering, or blatantly blocking/eliminating votes.

Don't get me wrong, pretty sure this happens on both sides, I just don't believe it's been this brazen in the past by either party.

If you saw most district maps, you'd be right to say "what the fuck?!"

[Dicknose]

Are your electionsn not overseen by a non-partisan organisation, or is it just a few rogue actors doing such suppression?

They dont have the equivalent of the Electoral Commission.
So there are issues such as rules for who is eligible to vote, boundaries (gerrymandering), methods of voting and deciding if votes are valid (the infamous hanging chad). These issues can go down to a very low level (equiv of our local councils)

It does seem very primitive and so against the concept of a fair democracy.

These would all be solved by a single non-partisan organisation to be in control of the electoral process - but goes against the principles of elections being run by the states themselves.
Was an interesting article in the local paper (smh) pointing out that many of their problems dont happen here due to AEC and compulsory voting. The punch line was basically - if this was in another country we would probably be sending observers to monitor the vote to help make it fair!

[MR2 Fan]

I could see how this could be made fair pretty easily:

1.) Have one NATIONAL standard voting system that cannot be hacked
2.) Have the voting sheets go to an independent third party
3.) Have those votes that the third party sees NOT tied to a candidate, so in other words they just see Option A, Option B, etc. and tally the votes that way, then those numbers get converted back to the official ballot after the third party is finished calculating the vote.

[Tom Servo]

I'm not sure why we don't just all use the Ink-A-Vote system we have here in LA. Pretty low tech but works well.

If we do go higher tech, I think by law it should have to be open source.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, this probably could be fixed, but similar to heritage gun rights mess, there'll be no motivation to fix it.

Sometimes it could just be incompetence rather than intentional..., such as CA accidentally registered illegals to vote. The right might see that as a left wing conspiracy but in reality our DMV makes lots of mistakes.

Will the federal government fund the effort to fix all 50 states? Will the states bend over and allow the federal government to take over? Unlikely in both counts.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Quoted for posterity.

Remind us to not give a fuck if you're ever in a catastrophe; earthquake, fire, accident, whatever! You're a real cunt of a human being billi.

Paraphrasing Obama, 'why are you so mad?' What are you seeing in my post that I don't see? Anyway, it's your emotion, you have the right to run with it however you want. Take care man.

[FaultyMario]

CA accidentally registered illegals to vote.
Ugh.

Come on dude, I'm sure you can use language in a way devoid of negative implications (https://www.iep.utm.edu/pejorati/#SH3f).

Here's an excerpt in case folks don't want to follow the link.


According to a conventional implicature account of slurs (hereafter, the ‘CI account’), slurs and their neutral counterparts have the same literal meaning, but slurs conventionally imply something negative that their neutral counterparts do not. For instance, ‘Franz was German’ and ‘Franz was a Boche’ are the same at the level of what is said – they have the same literal truth-conditions, that is, they are both true just in case Franz was German. But ‘Franz was a Boche’ conventionally implies the false and derogatory propositionthat Franz was cruel and despicable because he was German. One virtue of the CI account is that it explains the descriptive features of pejoratives as well as expressive autonomy.

[neanderthal]

Yeah, this probably could be fixed, but similar to heritage gun rights mess, there'll be no motivation to fix it.

Sometimes it could just be incompetence rather than intentional..., such as CA accidentally registered illegals to vote. The right might see that as a left wing conspiracy but in reality our DMV makes lots of mistakes.

Will the federal government fund the effort to fix all 50 states? Will the states bend over and allow the federal government to take over? Unlikely in both counts.

As usual, billi is full of unicorn shit.


The DMV also specified that none of the impacted customers were undocumented immigrants. Source. (https://abcnews.go.com/US/1500-noncitizens-registered-vote-california-dmv-error/story?id=58377069)

[Tom Servo]

Heh, well, they failed to update both my wife's and my voter registrations when we moved, so I figure that makes it even.

[MR2 Fan]

Once this Trump Russia stuff gets finished I do think we'll see more push to fix the voting system here, especially with more Dems in congress AND governors...Gerrymandering is one that's being challenged now which is a huge thing if that can be changed nationwide.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Gee, you guys are so politically correct. Mario, do you really believe 'illegal' is now a slur? Anything with negative connotations need to be revised so that we don't offend? Why are people so pissed off nowadays that we absolutely need to walk on this political correctness eggshell all the time? Hey, just do legal things then you won't be called an illegal.

Now, is it legal for non-citizens or legal residents to vote? No, thus, to me, this error may have accidentally allowed 'illegal voting'. In terms of voting, anyone who's a non-citizen in a voting booth would be an 'illegal' in my eye. Plus, when you use the word 'non-citizen', it includes illegal aliens, right? How can you be so absolutely sure that CA DMV only accidentally allowed legal residences and none of the illegal aliens with driver's license to vote? Take DMV's word for it, right? Right... fine, I'll believe them. However, legal residences who are not citizens voting is still 'illegal'.

Plus, original point of my post is about how states may accidentally screw things up, it's not always about intentionally messing with voters/votes. With this particular case in CA, right wing conspiracies just may spin out of control all just because a simple stupid mistake... it was committed without any political agenda..., but right wingers will probably end up seeing us Californians as crazy liberals who'd let foreigners to influence our elections...

I'm sure there are also non-deplorable racists in southern red states doing the best they can to ensure a fair election too. I'm sure eventually they will win out. Just like after fires, floods, mass shootings, terrorist attacks, the good people always end up outnumbering those bad apples! Give people some benefit of the doubt before getting so pissed off with every little thing...

If anger is driving real constructive political change, great! However, if anger is just causing you to want to kill the opposition or wishing them dead or world of hurt, then it's time for you to quit politics.

[Tom Servo]

Referring to people as "illegals" has always been a slur. Also, none of the people you were talking about were undocumented, they are here legally and presumably "do legal things", yet you called them "illegals" anyway, then got all mad about it when you got called out.

Also, personally I'd consider being racist to be deplorable, so I'm not sure if there are a lot of "non-deplorable racists".

[MR2 Fan]

more indictments coming....


via Twitter:

@chrisgeidner

Developing ... "I'm going to be indicted," Jerome Corsi — former Infowars DC bureau chief linked to Roger Stone — says on his livestream.


infowars...if all of them could be indicted that would be awesome

[Crazed_Insanity]

Referring to people as "illegals" has always been a slur. Also, none of the people you were talking about were undocumented, they are here legally and presumably "do legal things", yet you called them "illegals" anyway, then got all mad about it when you got called out.

This is the same thing as Jim arguing with Trump whether it should be called an 'invasion' or not. Rather than arguing which adjective is the most appropriate to use, it'd be nice if we can come up with a agreeable solution to actually solve these problems.


Also, personally I'd consider being racist to be deplorable, so I'm not sure if there are a lot of "non-deplorable racists".
Okay, I meant to say non-deplorable & non-racist. Surely there are such people in red states... and I'm sure they will eventually prevail.

We Californians can just focus on fixing our own problems 1st. Try to do our best to make sure we're not the leader in terms of poverty, mass shooting deaths, and illegally allowing residents to vote, etc. When we become a role model state, then maybe we can teach them other states a thing or two.

[FaultyMario]

Words do matter. That's how we interiorize reality.

Words can create much ku.
But only actions can bring salvation.

[G'day Mate]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dr4XBXCVAAAN5je?format=jpg

Stable genius for sure.

[Denetti]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ2L-R8NgrA

[21Kid]

Sad but true. 😢

[Crazed_Insanity]

GOP Jesus just sucks. Unfortunately DNC Jesus just isn't being taken seriously.

I get the feeling that the real Jesus won't associate himself to either party.

[MR2 Fan]

@jeneps - “If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID," Trump oddly and falsely claims in Daily Caller interview.



what planet is this idiot on???

BTW, the comments are gold

https://twitter.com/jeneps/status/1062789293020794880

[Crazed_Insanity]

Can I listen to or read from the source of this quote?

[George]

I don't understand that quote either.

Probably could google to learn more, but since voting for Democrats in the last two elections, I'm overcome with sloth and the assumption that someone else will do it for me.

That, I say, that's a joke, son. :lol:

[dodint]

“If you buy a box of cereal — you have a voter ID. They try to shame everybody by calling them racist, or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing.”

What he was trying to assert was that you need an ID for lots of things in life, so why not voting? If you write a check at a grocery store you have to show ID, etc.

His observation is empty in the sense that you don't show ID if you pay with cash or most credit cards. I doubt he has ever purchased his own groceries so I can understand how he'd get that part confused.

[Tom Servo]

https://media1.tenor.com/images/fbbbf2e53651b5dd9044ff13640f8b01/tenor.gif?itemid=5831031

[dodint]

:lol:

[George]

I knew a hard-working Republican would come to my aid!

This reminds me of...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akLjzTisZoI

[dodint]

Yeah, that was what I thought of as well, the scanner issue.

I'm not a Republican, fwiw. I think Trump does enough to make himself look like an ass on his own. I find it incredibly loathsome when the media goes hunting for things like this. I think it distracts from the more mundane but important policy decisions that are being made with almost no coverage given to them at all. For instance, Trump tried to remove the Public Works mission from the US Army Corps of Engineers (full disclosure, my employer) and redistribute it to other government agencies. It would not have made anything more efficient or consolidated jobs, it just would've cost a ton of money to rearrange people and assets inside various government agencies. It's dumb and costly. Report on that.

[MR2 Fan]

IMO this isn't something as simple as Dan Quayle spelling Potato wrong...it means one of two things: he has no idea how to buy groceries which means he's entirely out of touch with average americans, OR it's more evidence that he's mentally unwell

[dodint]

That's my point, though. There is a finite amount of reporting that can occur in a news cycle. It's pretty well established that he's mentally unwell. Of course he's out of touch, he's a billionaire. And there is sufficient evidence he's a buffoon.

I just don't see how it adds anything to the discussion other than a way for liberals to point and laugh for a few more minutes. Use that time to learn something, calling Trump an idiot for the 900th time doesn't 'pwn a Trumper' or make you more enlightened. It just creates more noise.

[SportWagon]

https://www.gettrumpybear.com/

[Tom Servo]

I'll disagree there as I think that voter disenfranchisement is a really big issue right now, and voter ID is a pretty well known tactic for that. Trying to claim that you can vote if you can buy cereal when voter ID laws are in place I don't think is stupidity, it's part of a script he's following poorly. It mostly just sounds like he's stupid, but it's part of a much larger issue that I think directly affects our democracy.

FWIW, I think it's good that nobody here focused on his not showing up for events due to rain but that this is something we've discussed. One is ultimately unimportant, the other, IMHO, actually is.

Also, I don't have a problem with anything that lets me point and laugh for a few minutes, but that's me.

[dodint]

You'll note (or not) that I was specifically referring to journalists wasting their time and resources. But what gets more clicks, yet another article discussing Trump being an idiot or an exploration of a policy decision? I can see where you were confused by my wording, specifically the phrase "Use that time to learn something" which shifted the burden from the journalists to the user, my mistake there.

Voter disenfranchisement is important. Cutting 12 words out of a paragraph and offering it up as a complete thought is very disingenuous; journalistically irresponsible and unacceptable before social media. Intelligent well-minded people here could not make sense of it beyond it being a punchline. When viewed in its full context it's pretty clear to understand his meaning; "if you have an ID already for [everyday activity] what's the problem with using it to vote?" You're right, that's a baseline talking point of a Voter ID proponent. Why does it need to be covered in the truncated form and packaged as ridicule for syntax? Ridicule it because it's poor policy. If you're to be honest with yourself you'll see attacking the policy wasn't the intent of packaging it as an excerpt. It was for the lulz.

[Tom Servo]

Fair point about clickbait vs real articles that actually have some depth, I hated working for a company that specialized in clickbait titles and articles that essentially just summarized Reddit threads on the day's events. That said, I don't know that I expect much more from Bloomberg.

Also, I find it hilarious that he couldn't essentially handle a one line script and say what you stated as his meaning, and I have no problem with laughing at the dummy nor do I consider it a waste of my time. I find it quite enjoyable.

[dodint]

I drive cars in circles for fun. Who am I to judge?

[Tom Servo]

Me too, so I think I'm still one down on you.

[Jason]

Re Voter ID, I will only ever support it if said IDs are free, easy to get, and don't require a permanent address. But, conservatives don't want that, they just want to limit the amount of (certain) people voting, while hiding behind the voter fraud boogey man.

[FaultyMario]

We have voter IDs in Mexico.

But we also have a national system for organizing elections, i.e. federal over state, and the voting ID is pervasive and almost compulsively accepted.

It can promote voting rights, but it is a *very* expensive system and its centralized, which i don't think you yanks are too hot about.

[Tom Servo]

We have voter IDs in Mexico.

But we also have a national system for organizing elections, i.e. federal over state, and the voting ID is pervasive and almost compulsively accepted.

It can promote voting rights, but it is a *very* expensive system and its centralized, which i don't think you yanks are too hot about.

I don't know that it's so much a "you yankees" as there's almost no evidence of any "impersonation" voter fraud, which is the only thing that voter ID would prevent. It'd be an expensive system that would attempt to solve a problem that, for everyone except dear leader, doesn't exist. ACLU says there are 31 credible allegations of impersonation voter fraud since the 2000 election. For all our faults, fraudulent elections appear to not be one of the ones that we have.

[Crazed_Insanity]

As usual, left laughs at president being out of touch by twisting his words out of context. Right also enjoys falsely accused blue states for allowing ‘illegals’ to vote. Fake news on both sides while nothing is being solved.

I really don’t understand why the left is so against voting with ID. Why couldn’t federal government subsidizes poor folks so that they can afford proper ID? Deficit too high? Maybe the legal battle fees saved could help some poor folks get some proper IDs?

Partisan politics is just so stupid.

[Tom Servo]

Ugh, someone want to point this one at the multitudes of articles easily found on the internet explaining why voter ID laws discriminate against minorities, the elderly, and the ill? I mean, I know with a bare minimum of effort he could do it himself instead of "both sides"ing this, but sometimes he needs a little nudge.

Here's a start: https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet

[dodint]

Voter ID is like Congressional Districting. It should be common sense and serve the people. But then partisanship steps in and it gets abused.

[Crazed_Insanity]

If those folks who have no IDs, no birth certificates, no money to travel, no permanent addresses, you sure they really care about voting?

Rather than fighting the republicans, can we find a way to help these folks to find a place to live, affordable transportation, and proper IDs first? I’m sure these group of folks appreciate the effort to allow them access to vote, but why couldn’t both sides work together to help these people get these basic things that they cannot afford rather than just keep on fighting amongst themselves while there remain a group of Americans who can’t afford to get birth certificates.

Isn’t this just like the ‘not invasion!’
‘Yes invasion!’
‘Not!’
‘Yes!’
...

While the Hondurans fucked by either Reagan or Hillary rot in Mexico.

Tell me what’s so good about partisan politics?

[Tom Servo]

I'm really struggling with the fact that I want Billi to understand that restricting the rights of the less fortunate than him to vote exacerbates their situation as they then can't vote for people who will advocate for them and that will only make the situation of the haves & have nots that much worse, vs. the fact that he may have made the dumbest post I've ever seen him make and I feel like I should just ignore it as there's no way anyone's drilling through something that insane.

I kinda feel like I hit both marks there, so I'll just leave it at that. At any rate, I know he's on a weird "both sides" tirade again and I'll just keep him on ignore for the next week or so until he's onto his next thing.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I’m pretty sure ‘outsiders’ are at awe of us Americans... since the founding fathers allowed us guns and right to vote without IDs, we’re just going to stick with tradition regardless of how time and tech have changed...

[drew]

I have click regret.

[FaultyMario]

I don't know that it's so much a "you yankees" as there's almost no evidence of any "impersonation" voter fraud, which is the only thing that voter ID would prevent.

"You yanks" as in "people who'd take your word for it". Have you any idea how much simpler your tax filing system is compared to the rest of the world? In general, your bureucracy is a lot easier because it's based on good faith. We go the other way around, we assume people want to cheat the system and create these very complex institutions and processes.

When I registered for school in the states all I had to do was show proof of identity and of immunizations. In order to study Uni in Mexico I had to first take my HS diploma to the consulate in San Diego and then take that and my school transcripts to an office in Mexico City to have them validated.

[FaultyMario]

MBS is now signaling he will execute people who carried out his orders to murder Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate. They are fall guys.

..

[tigeraid]

Is that any different than executing a woman because she was raped and impregnated? :rolleyes:

[Tom Servo]

Since this was asked for, the full transcript of the interview with Trump that included the cereal line. I really don't want to give them the pageviews, but I can't paste in the transcript because it's too long for the forum. Meh.

Or, preferably, read it in FaultyMario's posts further down.

https://dailycaller.com/2018/11/14/transcript-trump-daily-caller-interview/

[dodint]

I think I pulled the full quote I provided from a Vox article.

[FaultyMario]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump sat for an exclusive Oval Office interview Wednesday with The Daily Caller’s Saagar Enjeti and Benny Johnson for approximately 31 minutes.

The transcript is as follows:

Round 1: Acting AG

THE DAILY CALLER: Let’s get the news of the day out at the top. There’s all of these things that are being discussed about the chief of staff [John Kelly], about Kirstjen Nielsen. Why are you disappointed in the DHS secretary and is John Kelly going to be staying in his job right now?

DONALD TRUMP: So, you know, always in an administration after the midterms you make changes, so, I’m looking at things and I’ve got a lot of options. A lot of people want to come in. A lot of politicians that have had very successful careers that are very good want to come in. So I’m looking at things — haven’t made a decision yet. I will be making a decision on Homeland shortly. But I have not made decisions yet. But I will be making changes on various things. Overall, I have a very good cabinet. I think our cabinet’s great. You know, you’re talking about a few names, you’re not talking about many. Uh, we’ve been doing incredibly on trade deals and trade with my whole staff of traders, because that’s what they are. What we’ve done on trade deals is incredible — with Mexico, with Canada, with South Korea — taking deals that were horrible and making great deals. And now we’re in the midst of China and others. But we have a great cabinet, we have — we’ll see, uh, there will be some changes made before the end of the year.

THE DAILY CALLER: Sure. Could you tell us where your thinking is currently on the attorney general position? I know you’re happy with Matthew Whitaker, do you have any names? Chris Christie —

DONALD TRUMP: Matthew Whitaker is a very respected man. He’s — and he’s, very importantly, he’s respected within DOJ. I heard he got a very good decision, I haven’t seen it. Kellyanne, did I hear that?

WHITE HOUSE ADVISER KELLYANNE CONWAY: 20 pages.

DONALD TRUMP: A 20-page?

THE DAILY CALLER: It just came out right before this, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I heard it was a very strong opinion. Uh, which is good. But [Whitaker] is just somebody that’s very respected. I knew him only as he pertained, you know, as he was with Jeff Sessions. And, you know, look, as far as I’m concerned this is an investigation that should have never been brought. It should have never been had. It’s something that should have never been brought. It’s an illegal investigation. And you know, it’s very interesting because when you talk about not Senate confirmed, well, Mueller’s not Senate confirmed.

THE DAILY CALLER: Right.

DONALD TRUMP: He’s heading this whole big thing, he’s not Senate confirmed. So anyway, I have a lot of respect for Matt Whitaker, based primarily on reputation. And I think he’s really — I think a lot of people are starting to come out very much in favor of him during this period of time.

THE DAILY CALLER: What about who will eventually replace him, sir?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I’m looking at a lot of people. I have been called by so many people wanting that job. We have some great people. In the meantime, I think Matt’s going to do a fantastic job.

[FaultyMario]

Round 2: Jim Acosta and the media

THE DAILY CALLER: Banning Jim Acosta. Taking his White House credentials. His hard pass. Is this going to be something that happens with repeated nature inside of the White House? Who you feel are disrespecting the White House, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: Your world has changed quite a bit and you have grandstanders much more than you did before. He’s just a grandstander. He’s just an average guy who’s a grandstander. And he’s got the guts to stand up and, you know, and shout. It’s primarily led by CNN because they pay him to do that. CNN is low on the ratings now, relative to Fox and others, and they’re doing very poorly actually. But because of me — the age of Trump — because of me, they’re doing better than they’ve done but they’re doing very poorly in compared to others. Very very poorly. And, um, and getting worse. They’ve lost a tremendous amount of credibility and, you know, Jim Acosta’s just somebody that gets up and grandstands. He doesn’t even know what he’s asking half of the time. So, we’ll see how the court case goes. It’s today.

THE DAILY CALLER: Are you confident that you’re going to win the court case?

DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know, I think that we should. Certainly, you shouldn’t be able to go up into a White House and, on principle, it’s very disrespectful to the rest of the press. You were actually getting up to do a question.

THE DAILY CALLER: That’s right, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: — And this guy’s screaming. And I kept saying to you, ‘come on,’ you didn’t give me much help. I kept saying, ‘give me the question already.’ But, you know, he just screamed and, you know, you knew it because you’re standing, you didn’t know what to do, and I understand that. He was very rude to the young lady. I won’t, I won’t even — who knows. Who knows. Certainly, he didn’t act very respectful to the press. He’s actually more disrespectful, I think, to the rest of the media. Because he gets up and grandstands and he wants to ask three or four questions and everyone else is, you know, you’re trying to get one question in and the room was packed with a couple of hundred people that want to ask questions. So, I think he’s very disrespectful to the media, I think he’s very disrespectful to the office, and I think he’s bad for the public. You know, when I say that the fake news is the enemy of the people, it really is. A lot of the animosity that we have in our country is because of fake news. They’re so angry at the news. They get it. You guys are at my rallies all the time, you see the anger when I mention the words ‘fake news’ and they turn around. And they use CNN because they — it just sort of works for them I guess. But it’s ABC, it’s — NBC is maybe worse than anybody. I mean, NBC’s a total fraud as far as I’m concerned. Their news is disgusting. But I think NBC is as bad as anybody. You look at — and CBS — you look at what’s going on with the fake news and the people get it. Now they get it — you know they had a very high approval rating before I became president and I think it’s actually a great achievement of mine. Their approval rating now is down as low as just about anybody. And much lower than your president. I actually have good approval ratings, which nobody ever writes. I was at 51, I guess, with Rasmussen the other day. So I will say that I really think that when you have guys like Acosta, I think they’re bad for the country. Because they show how fake it all is. And it’s a grandstander, and we’ll see how the court rules. You know, then they talk, ‘Oh, freedom of the press.’ But can you really have — is it freedom of the press? It’s actually the opposite. Is it freedom of the press when somebody comes in and starts screaming questions and won’t sit down after having answered a couple of them? And then won’t sit down and then I can’t ask you guys because he’s standing — I don’t think that’s freedom of the press, I actually think that’s the opposite.

THE DAILY CALLER: Which is an important follow-up question, why this administration? This doesn’t seem to be the norm. It certainly wasn’t the norm in previous administrations, that reporters behave in this capacity.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think they behaved badly. I remember Sam Donaldson was terrible at two presidents, and, you know, we tend to forget. I think that now it’s become, with cable television, playing such a role, although, you know, cable television was supposed to be a dying medium. And because of me it’s now hotter than it’s ever been. But someday I won’t be here and it will die like you’ve never seen. And so will The New York Times — will die — and every one of them will just be dead. I mean, look, I remember picking up before I announced for president, I picked up The New York Times and I said to somebody, ‘Boy, this paper is dead, look at it.’ The paper was dead. It was like a leaflet that you hand out at the supermarket, and now it’s a vibrant paper. But you look at the stories, many of the stories on the front page are about me. You know, all my life I told this story, had stories on the front page. A few, not a big deal. Which wasn’t bad, you know, maybe seven, but, you know, a few. And, you know, now if I have a few each day it’s surprisingly low. But it has made a big difference.

THE DAILY CALLER: Sir, I do want to turn to policy.

DONALD TRUMP: That’s why I always joke when I say they’ll all be endorsing me. Cause I don’t know what happens to their business after I’m gone.

[21Kid]

That's my point, though. There is a finite amount of reporting that can occur in a news cycle. It's pretty well established that he's mentally unwell. Of course he's out of touch, he's a billionaire. And there is sufficient evidence he's a buffoon.

I just don't see how it adds anything to the discussion other than a way for liberals to point and laugh for a few more minutes. Use that time to learn something, calling Trump an idiot for the 900th time doesn't 'pwn a Trumper' or make you more enlightened. It just creates more noise.
Agreed

Re Voter ID, I will only ever support it if said IDs are free, easy to get, and don't require a permanent address. But, conservatives don't want that, they just want to limit the amount of (certain) people voting, while hiding behind the voter fraud boogey man.
Agreed

Voter ID is like Congressional Districting. It should be common sense and serve the people. But then partisanship steps in and it gets abused.
Agreed.

Although it feels like we're moving towards The Hunger Games.
One side is fighting for the people, and the other is doing everything in their power to keep the wealthy in power and make sure that the lower classes fight amongst themselves.

[FaultyMario]

Round 3: Policy options

THE DAILY CALLER: Sir, right now, in 2010 we saw several pieces of major legislation passed in a lame-duck Congress. What can we expect your and the Republican agenda to be in this Congress? Is it going to be an immigration fix? What about criminal justice reform? What are the two to three things you’re looking at?

DONALD TRUMP: We’re working on many things. Criminal justice reform we’re working on very hard. We have a meeting today, do you know about that? We have a meeting today.

THE DAILY CALLER: We heard about that.

DONALD TRUMP: Get these two in, alright? I think we have a chance at that. We should be able to fix health care. We should be able —

THE DAILY CALLER: Just one second, sir, on that criminal justice bill. Is that the Jared Kushner-backed bill that you want to focus on?

DONALD TRUMP: The answer is I’m looking at it very closely, okay? I am. It’s a good thing. You know, Texas is backing it, if you look at Mississippi and Georgia and a lot of other places, they believe in it, those governors, and they’re conservative people. Rick Perry’s a big fan. You know, a lot of people are backing it. Look at the people that are backing it. Even, you know, like Mike Lee, he votes against a lot of things and we respect Mike and Mike is backing it. We have a lot of people that are backing this.

THE DAILY CALLER: What about immigration, sir? Are you willing to shut down the government if you don’t get a certain set of policies?

DONALD TRUMP: I may be. I may be. I’ll have to see how it plays out. But I may very well be willing to shut down the government. I think it’s horrible what’s happening and, you know, building the wall, it’s in smaller stages, we can build it very quickly. I’m building the wall in smaller stages and we moved the military there, we put up barbed wire, we did all sorts of things. You have to have a barrier. You have to have a barrier. Look, we have a chance of, they can do presidential harassment, put very simply, and I’ll be very good at handling that and I think I’ll be better than anybody in the history of this office. And in a certain way I look forward to it because I actually think it’s good for me politically, because everyone knows it’s pure harassment. Just like the witch hunt, the Mueller witch hunt. It’s pure harassment. It’s horrible. It’s horrible that they’re allowed to get away with it. Again, not Senate confirmed but, you know. You have 17 people — half, many of them worked for Hillary Clinton, some on the Foundation. The Hillary Clinton Foundation. I mean, you think of it. So, I think we’ll do very well if they want to play the presidential harassment game. If they play the presidential harassment game I don’t think anything’s going to be done ’cause why would I do that, okay? If they want to get things done I think it will be fantastic, I think we can get a lot done. I think we can almost get more done because they’re gonna want to prove something, too. So if they wanna do health care, we can do health care. There a very good fixes to health care that could solve a lot of problems. We’ve really, you know, terminated a lot of the Obamacare, as it was referred to. But we could do a new health care bill that would be fantastic that could take everybody’s — that could incorporate good pieces of everybody’s good ideas. So there’s a chance at that, there’s a great chance at comprehensive immigration reform. If they wanna do it, they wanna do it, they wanna do it right. And there’s a good chance at doing things that maybe you couldn’t do. Don’t forget, I didn’t really have a majority. I had one senator. And I had a few Republicans in the House. You know, a very small number. Um, and now the pressure’s on them because they’ve gotta come to me with things. Hey, the beauty is, and I’ve said this, you heard me at the news conference, I don’t know if you agree with me — let’s say I won with two Republicans or three. I’d have to make deals with Republicans. I’d have guys coming to me, you know, out of that group there’ll be people. Let’s not say they’re good or bad but they’re people: ‘well I don’t want to do this.’ Well, I’m gonna have three or more. I mean, literally, unless I had like a 25 majority, you know, something substantial, they would come to me and they would say, ‘well, I don’t like it.’ You wouldn’t even be able to get something through there. It would be too close. Where I am now, when they have a small majority, I can sit back and say, ‘hey.’ And the beauty is when it gets passed, when we pass things, we’ll get it passed in the Senate, which now we can’t because we need 10 Democrat votes. Because we’ll have Democrats and I’ll be able to get enough Republicans to pass. But the beauty is, the beauty is that we actually have something that can work much better than it worked before, because before it was politically very difficult for a lot of people.

THE DAILY CALLER: While we’re on the subject of Congress, I do want to get — does Kevin McCarthy have your full endorsement in the speaker’s race?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I didn’t endorse because I stay out of it, but I like Kevin a lot and I like Jim [Jordan] a lot. I like both of ’em.

THE DAILY CALLER: How would you like them to work it out?

DONALD TRUMP: Who else is running, nobody, right?

THE DAILY CALLER: That’s all there is right now.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I like both of ’em a lot. I think Jim is a fantastic guy and I think Kevin’s a fantastic guy. They’re very different but Kevin is a very political person, which is good. He’s a very honorable guy, and I think he’s gonna do great, and it looks like, you know, he’ll probably get it.

THE DAILY CALLER: Would you like to see Jim on the ranking member on Judiciary?

DONALD TRUMP: I would like to see Jim in a high position ’cause he deserves it. He’s fantastic, but I haven’t gotten into the endorsement or not. I just like both of ’em too much, too much to get very much involved. It’s something I shouldn’t be involved in. But Jim is a fantastic guy and Kevin is a fantastic guy and they’re very different and they complement each other.

[FaultyMario]

Round 4: Voting, Election 2020.

THE DAILY CALLER: Broward County election commissioner Brenda Snipes is in violation of Florida law. She’s in violation of Florida reporting laws, she’s in violation of a judge’s order. She’s also reportedly mixed in illegal ballots with legal ballots and asked for them to be counted. Is she behaving criminally and should she be removed?

DONALD TRUMP: Look, you know, the bottom line — it’s, she’s a disaster. You look at her past, she’s a disaster. Even with me. I won Florida and, you remember? That area, Broward, didn’t come in. It didn’t come in. I think Palm Beach was like — they wouldn’t call Florida, I won. Then it got to a point where I won by enough that all the votes of the people that lived there would, you know, in other words — you can only put in so many votes, although she may change that system. You can only put in a number of people that are registered voters or live there. Now they’re, I guess they were trying to take illegal voters but these are — I’ve been saying, this is a problem all over the country, by the way. This is what I’ve been saying. This is a problem in California that’s so bad of illegals voting. This is a California problem and if you notice, almost every race — I was watching today — out of like 11 races that are in question they’re gonna win all of them. The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes, which is what I’ve been saying for a long time. I have no doubt about it. And I’ve seen it, I’ve had friends talk about it when people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It’s really a disgrace what’s going on. The disgrace is that, voter ID. If you buy, you know, a box of cereal, if you do anything, you have a voter ID. Well, over here, the only thing you don’t is if you’re a voter of the United States. A voter in the United States of America. I think it’s a disgrace what’s going on. Really a disgrace. And they try to shame everybody by calling them racist or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing. If you look at what happened in New Hampshire, where thousands of people came up and voted from a very liberal part of Massachusetts and they came up in buses and they voted. I said, ‘what’s going on over here,’ my people said, ‘you won New Hampshire easily except they have tremendous numbers of buses coming up.’ They’re pouring up by the hundreds, buses of people getting out, voting. Then they’re supposed to go back within 90 days. And of the people that are supposed to go back, almost none of them do. In other words, they go back after the vote is over. They go back — and I think it’s like three percent — I mean, almost nobody goes back to show that, you know, that they were allowed to vote. And so what do you do? Recall the election. Recall the election. I mean, there, you should be able to recall the election.

THE DAILY CALLER: You think they should call Florida right now, sir?

DONALD TRUMP: Uh, I think they should’ve called Florida election evening. Well, many votes were added to that, and, you know what’s going on. And now they have mixed them up. You said it better than I did. They mixed the votes up and now you can’t find the ones that were put in, they just put ’em into a batch. When they call this woman incompetent, they’re wrong. She’s very competent but in a bad way.

THE DAILY CALLER: Should she be removed from office?

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, she should have been removed — I think she should have been removed in the middle of this mix-up.

THE DAILY CALLER: How do you prevent this in 2020? From happening when you run for re-election?

DONALD TRUMP: First thing you do is fire her and her cronies. You get ’em out of — you get ’em out. And it should have been done, I mean, if there’s anything really that I would be — because, again, in the 2016 election, you guys remember, remember how long it took to get Florida?

THE DAILY CALLER: It took a long time.

DONALD TRUMP: Had I not been winning Florida by more than they could — I mean, you can’t produce — if you have a million people, you can’t give 1,200,000 votes, okay? So actually, what happened is they went with fairly accurate numbers because whether I won by 10 votes or by half a million votes it didn’t matter. But I had, fortunately, enough votes, and they were sitting there waiting. They said, ‘Broward County is not reporting.’ This went on for hours.

WHITE HOUSE ADVISER KELLYANNE CONWAY: The Panhandle came in an hour later.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, the Panhandle was so devastating to Crooked Hillary, that, frankly, it didn’t make any difference, okay? Because the Panhandle was so — it was like 98 percent. That thing came in, then all of a sudden Broward came in. And I won by, you know, I won by a lot of votes. I call it four Yankee Stadiums.

[FaultyMario]

Round 5: Amazon.com

THE DAILY CALLER: Sir, as a resident of both D.C. and New York City, what do you think about Amazon’s relocation and the decision of both Virginia and New York to give billions of subsidies to Amazon. Do you support that?

DONALD TRUMP: I think they’re paying a very big price. I think that it was a competition. I know all about those competitions, I’ve been in those competitions, you know, and it’s a lot of people, a lot of cities who are competing for it. They took the best deals.

THE DAILY CALLER: So you support the cities giving them tax breaks?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think they’re giving up a lot. They’re very expensive deals. Only time will tell. Maybe Amazon will have massive competition and they won’t be the same company in five years, in which case it will be a big mistake. You know, Amazon could have — I see Walmart is doing very well and others are building sites. I think that’s going to be a very competitive business someday, Amazon. And I’m not sure that size necessarily helps when you get —

THE DAILY CALLER: Do you still think they’re cheating the U.S. postal system?

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, I think they’re getting the bargain of the century. I think that Amazon’s getting — and that’s why I’ve asked for a review of that. And others too, you know, not just Amazon. There are classes of companies that are getting the bargain and I think that — I may be wrong about this, you’ll check — but I think the contract they signed with Amazon was a closed contract. You can’t even see it. It was a sealed contract. No, I think Amazon has the bargain of the century with the U.S. Post Office, which is losing a fortune.


Round 6: Attack on Tucker Carlson and dealing with Antifa :random:

THE DAILY CALLER: Tucker Carlson had his house attacked, he had a mob outside of his house while his wife was home. They cracked the door — what is this violence? Where does it come from? Do you have a message for Tucker and his family?

DONALD TRUMP: I do, I spoke to Tucker and I think Tucker’s a great guy and I think it’s terrible, they were actually trying to break down the door.

THE DAILY CALLER: How do you think the police should handle Antifa, generally?

DONALD TRUMP: These people, like the Antifa you’re talking about, the Antifa — they better hope that the opposition to Antifa decides not to mobilize. Because if they do, they’re much tougher. Much stronger. Potentially much more violent. And Antifa’s going to be in big trouble. But so far they haven’t done that, and that’s a good thing. But they better hope that the other side doesn’t mobilize, you understand what I’m saying. Because if you look, the other side is the military, it’s the police, it’s a lot of very strong, a lot of very tough people. Tougher than them. And smarter than them. And they’re sitting back and watching and they’re getting angrier and angrier.

[FaultyMario]

Round 7: Final thoughts.

THE DAILY CALLER: What’s your takeaway from the 2018 election and what do you think that means for 2020 for you?

DONALD TRUMP: I think I did very well. Because if you look at — Obama was 60-something odd House seats and lost seven Senate seats. So we picked up three or four Senate seats depending on how it all goes — it’s a big pickup. In fact, they say in 80 years I think the presidential party’s only picked up two Senate seats, I picked up three. I mean, assuming that they don’t do any further shenanigans in Florida. Almost picked up Tester. Almost picked up, you know, if you look — and that was somebody that wasn’t even in play. And that was another one at the very last moment, all of a sudden, that was over. Almost picked up Arizona and that was another one that I question, I have to question that more strongly than our candidate, a wonderful person. But she didn’t question strongly, so I’m not going to, but I think that was very odd the way that all happened in Arizona. But we picked up — I mean, it looked like we picked up five. But probably three. It’s a lot. I think this — if I didn’t go around, and you were there, you saw the crowd — in the history of politics, and I say this proudly, I wasn’t even running. In the history of politics nobody’s ever gotten crowds like that or close because you were in those stadiums and those arenas, but outside you had many more times — you know, in Houston we had 109,000 people sign up for 22,000 seats. We actually took ads saying, ‘please don’t come’ and that helped Ted Cruz a lot. So if you look at Ted Cruz, and you look at some of the people that won, they wouldn’t have won without my helping them. And then you look at the new senators, you look at Indiana, Donnelly was not going to happen. Nobody said Donnelly was going to lose. Nobody said — even look at a case of a congressman. I couldn’t help too many congressmen because I don’t have that much time. The only congressman I went for was Andy Barr and that was in Kentucky, Mitch was there but he wasn’t running, and Rand Paul was there. Good guy, Rand Paul, by the way. And he was there, and the only congressman — I specifically went, there was no senator running in Kentucky, it was Andy Barr, and he won nicely. And he was down 10 and he won his race. Every place I went, look at Georgia, I’m assuming he wins. That’s another one now they’re trying to play around with the votes. Honestly, it’s a disgrace what’s going on. Oprah went, Obama went, and Michelle Obama went. They went, and they spent a lot of time, and I went and did a rally, and the real number was probably 55,000 people, cause, you know, were you there in Georgia?

THE DAILY CALLER: Not Georgia, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: Because we had a hangar, another hangar holding 18,000 at the top of the hangar. These are massive, like 747 hangars. It went way back, and he won. And everybody said he wasn’t going to win. But they had Obama, Mrs. Obama and Oprah. Oprah spent three days there and every place I went, we won or came real close with areas, like, as an example, Tester. Tester, nobody wanted even to contest it. Well, look at what happened in North Dakota with Heidi. Heidi, they said don’t contest. One year ago when we were looking, they all said don’t contest Heidi, she can’t be beat. She lost by a lot. I went there three or four times. I mean, the truth is, every place I went, we either won or did well or did really well. If I didn’t go, if I didn’t do those stops — I did 31 stops in 30 days or something like that. If I didn’t do those stops, I think we would’ve lost 10 Senate seats, seven to 10 Senate seats, and we would’ve lost 60 to 70 House seats or more. By doing the stops, then again a lot of times I’d have the congressmen in the room, so they wouldn’t be the prime focus but I’d get up and I’d be able to talk about them for a couple of minutes apiece, right? If I didn’t do the stops — and I’ve been thanked by a lot of Republicans — if I didn’t do those stops we would definitely not have control of the Senate. It would be a question, so what are we up, three? Two or three. We would be down five or six or seven. And they know that. Nobody has ever had a greater impact. Well, I’ll give you another. You take Georgia. He was 10 points down when I endorsed him, he ended up winning by 40 points in the primary. He’s now in, but he was 10 points down. It was 70 to 30, something like that, 70-30 or 70-40, maybe 70-40. But it was an easy win. Take DeSantis. Ron DeSantis was a three, had no money. He was running against in the Republican primary, who was at 31 and he had $21 million cash in the bank. The Department of Agriculture, right? Nice guy, too. But I didn’t know him so I don’t feel guilty. I endorsed DeSantis. I endorsed DeSantis and he won by 20 points. Okay, it wasn’t even a race. And his opponent, who I spoke to afterward because he is a nice guy, he said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’ He said, ‘you endorsed him, the race was over.’ There’s never been an impact — I don’t say it braggingly. I mean, it’s hard for me to say it because I’d rather have them say it but they don’t say it very well. No, there’s never been a story, nobody ever writes it. But you take a look at the races that I was involved in, I had a massive impact. Then they said, ‘well, DeSantis is not gonna make it in Florida, he’s never gonna get elected.’ So I went down and made a speech, he got elected, he won. Now they’re trying to take votes away from him, it’s a disgrace what’s going on, but it looks like he’s gonna be good and hopefully, Rick [Scott] is gonna be good. Maybe the machines are bad, now the machines are all smokey, they’re all — it’s crazy. Honestly, it’s a disgrace. Georgia, what they’re doing is a disgrace, and Florida, what they’re doing to the two people — no, to the three. Look at what they’re doing, how about the agriculture guy. He was leading all night long and then he ends up losing by 5,000 votes because nobody was watching that one. That’s a very important position in Florida, right? Pretty impressive if I do say so myself.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Round 4: Voting, Election 2020.

THE DAILY CALLER: Broward County election commissioner Brenda Snipes is in violation of Florida law. She’s in violation of Florida reporting laws, she’s in violation of a judge’s order. She’s also reportedly mixed in illegal ballots with legal ballots and asked for them to be counted. Is she behaving criminally and should she be removed?

DONALD TRUMP: Look, you know, the bottom line — it’s, she’s a disaster. You look at her past, she’s a disaster. Even with me. I won Florida and, you remember? That area, Broward, didn’t come in. It didn’t come in. I think Palm Beach was like — they wouldn’t call Florida, I won. Then it got to a point where I won by enough that all the votes of the people that lived there would, you know, in other words — you can only put in so many votes, although she may change that system. You can only put in a number of people that are registered voters or live there. Now they’re, I guess they were trying to take illegal voters but these are — I’ve been saying, this is a problem all over the country, by the way. This is what I’ve been saying. This is a problem in California that’s so bad of illegals voting. This is a California problem and if you notice, almost every race — I was watching today — out of like 11 races that are in question they’re gonna win all of them. The Republicans don’t win and that’s because of potentially illegal votes, which is what I’ve been saying for a long time. I have no doubt about it. And I’ve seen it, I’ve had friends talk about it when people get in line that have absolutely no right to vote and they go around in circles. Sometimes they go to their car, put on a different hat, put on a different shirt, come in and vote again. Nobody takes anything. It’s really a disgrace what’s going on. The disgrace is that, voter ID. If you buy, you know, a box of cereal, if you do anything, you have a voter ID. Well, over here, the only thing you don’t is if you’re a voter of the United States. A voter in the United States of America. I think it’s a disgrace what’s going on. Really a disgrace. And they try to shame everybody by calling them racist or calling them something, anything they can think of, when you say you want voter ID. But voter ID is a very important thing. If you look at what happened in New Hampshire, where thousands of people came up and voted from a very liberal part of Massachusetts and they came up in buses and they voted. I said, ‘what’s going on over here,’ my people said, ‘you won New Hampshire easily except they have tremendous numbers of buses coming up.’ They’re pouring up by the hundreds, buses of people getting out, voting. Then they’re supposed to go back within 90 days. And of the people that are supposed to go back, almost none of them do. In other words, they go back after the vote is over. They go back — and I think it’s like three percent — I mean, almost nobody goes back to show that, you know, that they were allowed to vote. And so what do you do? Recall the election. Recall the election. I mean, there, you should be able to recall the election.

THE DAILY CALLER: You think they should call Florida right now, sir?

DONALD TRUMP: Uh, I think they should’ve called Florida election evening. Well, many votes were added to that, and, you know what’s going on. And now they have mixed them up. You said it better than I did. They mixed the votes up and now you can’t find the ones that were put in, they just put ’em into a batch. When they call this woman incompetent, they’re wrong. She’s very competent but in a bad way.

THE DAILY CALLER: Should she be removed from office?

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, she should have been removed — I think she should have been removed in the middle of this mix-up.

THE DAILY CALLER: How do you prevent this in 2020? From happening when you run for re-election?

DONALD TRUMP: First thing you do is fire her and her cronies. You get ’em out of — you get ’em out. And it should have been done, I mean, if there’s anything really that I would be — because, again, in the 2016 election, you guys remember, remember how long it took to get Florida?

THE DAILY CALLER: It took a long time.

DONALD TRUMP: Had I not been winning Florida by more than they could — I mean, you can’t produce — if you have a million people, you can’t give 1,200,000 votes, okay? So actually, what happened is they went with fairly accurate numbers because whether I won by 10 votes or by half a million votes it didn’t matter. But I had, fortunately, enough votes, and they were sitting there waiting. They said, ‘Broward County is not reporting.’ This went on for hours.

WHITE HOUSE ADVISER KELLYANNE CONWAY: The Panhandle came in an hour later.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, the Panhandle was so devastating to Crooked Hillary, that, frankly, it didn’t make any difference, okay? Because the Panhandle was so — it was like 98 percent. That thing came in, then all of a sudden Broward came in. And I won by, you know, I won by a lot of votes. I call it four Yankee Stadiums.


Thanks Mario!

Swervo, I, and I think most people around the world, just don't think it's that 'unreasonable' to have some form of ID in order to vote. All registered voters should be given an ID for free if one is needed. If we can send them social security checks, disability checks, welfare checks or food stamps... then we should be able to send them a freaking ID, right? Shouldn't be that impossible to do in order to make the republicans shut the fuck up.

Personally, I think everyone who paid taxes should be allowed to vote. Unless you're at poverty level, if you pay no taxes or find ways to avoid it, then you don't get to vote... and if you can't vote, then you can't run for office either. Mario is right that we have too much good faith. Expecting the president to show tax returns and resolve conflict of interests in good faith..., yeah, that worked real well until the day when we encounter somebody who don't believe in good faith.

I'm willing to go for benefit of the doubt, but in this day and age with only moral relativism, what is good faith? Faith in what? What is the definition of 'good'? Surely right and left cannot agree on that even... so why not just settle the matter. Track down all of our poor voters who might need an ID and get them one rather than keep this debate going for another few hundred years. This should be much easier to solve than the gun issue.

[Tom Servo]

Riding my bike down Main St. in Santa Monica, a shirtless man in extremely short blue shorts yells at me "Don't be a cock, vote Trump!"

I mean, I figure it's kinda politics related, right?

[The359]

As always, all deals the post office makes with companies are sealed, because they are business dealings. So how he would "know" that Amazon is making a great deal is astounding since even he does not have access to those dealings.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Oh, com'on, he did say that he could be wrong... :p

He also acknowledged that those deals are closed so his opinion is purely out of his ass.

Still, I'm sure he formulated his stinky opinion based on the fact that Amazon is making a killing and USPS is on life support. Of course that doesn't really mean USPS got a rotten deal..., could just be that they're just not as efficient or productive, innovative, or whatever... but then again, if Amazon is such productive and innovative company capable of delivering packages better, faster and cheaper, why don't they do it all themselves? Why even pay such a lame delivery service to do such a poor job?

Speaking on a personal note, I've seen postmen delivering my amazon packages on Sundays!!! Mail men don't get a single day off now?

[speedpimp]

I could see how this could be made fair pretty easily:

1.) Have one NATIONAL standard voting system that cannot be hacked

But State's Rights...blech.

[neanderthal]

Oh, com'on, he did say that he could be wrong... :p

He also acknowledged that those deals are closed so his opinion is purely out of his ass.

Still, I'm sure he formulated his stinky opinion based on the fact that Amazon is making a killing and USPS is on life support. Of course that doesn't really mean USPS got a rotten deal..., could just be that they're just not as efficient or productive, innovative, or whatever... but then again, if Amazon is such productive and innovative company capable of delivering packages better, faster and cheaper, why don't they do it all themselves? Why even pay such a lame delivery service to do such a poor job?

Speaking on a personal note, I've seen postmen delivering my amazon packages on Sundays!!! Mail men don't get a single day off now?

USPS is thriving and delivering more packages than ever and often shipping packages for Fedex and UPS. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-mail-does-the-trick-for-fedex-ups-1407182247) However it is constrained by Republican malfeasance that requires it to prefund its pension obligations 75 years in advance (or some ridiculous sum like that,) something no other body in the universe is required to do.

Once again billi is full of shit

[Crazed_Insanity]

Oh com’on, unless you’ve been fasting for a while, most people are full of shit!

[Leon]

The height of the shitpile varies though.

[FaultyMario]

Julian Assange is one annoying prick.

[Tom Servo]

Stolen from Twitter:

Why doesn’t Jim Acosta just go to the car and change his shirt or put on a hat and go right back into the press briefings?

[neanderthal]

Stolen from Twitter:

Why doesn’t Jim Acosta just go to the car and change his shirt or put on a hat and go right back into the press briefings?

Brilliant!

[Tom Servo]

When asked if the devastation of the California fires had changed his opinion on climate change, our president replied "No, no, I have a strong opinion. I want a great climate"

Fuuuuuuuuck

[MR2 Fan]

SAVAGE

via Twitter:

@wvjoe911

Unpacked our Nativity scene yesterday. Removed all the Jews, Arabs, and foreigners. Ended up with a jackass and a handful of sheep.

[Crazed_Insanity]

:lol:

[21Kid]

Awww... I got Billi'd

Saw a new message, but it's blocked. No reason for me to come in here. :(

[MR2 Fan]

he just put a laughing emoji, that's all

[mk]

I have two IDs.
Expired passport and drivers license.

Nowadays my drivers license, original cardboard with picture, is invalid everywhere but behind the wheel.
Still, it's the one I use everywhere, voting included.

I just can't understand how that voting supression can continue thru the ages.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Oh, it can and it will. That's the power of partisan politics.

[21Kid]

But her emails!?!

Lock her up!!!

:smh:

[G'day Mate]

So is this new obstruction thing as big a deal as the fake news is making it out to be?

[Jason]

Donnie never sees consequences, so nothing is a big deal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Tom Servo]

I haven't seen anything about that at all in the news over here, so I'm guessing definitely not a big deal. The only things I'm seeing at the moment are Ivanka's use of a private email server for government-related emails (and subsequent "the fucking balls on these people" claim that she didn't know you're not supposed to do that), and the absolutely bonkers statement from dear leader about why we won't do anything to Mohammed bin Salman or Saudi Arabia for having Jamal Khashoggi assassinated.

[FaultyMario]

I liked Michelle Wolff's twit on the subject.

[Jason]

I'd argue that firing Sessions, and installing his own acting AG, who has been critical of the investigation, instead of having the Deputy (Rosenstein) step in, would be obstruction. Especially since the acting AG isn't recusing himself, and appears to now be overseeing the investigation. Basically he has the capability to shut the whole thing down at any second, if they feel like being brazen. If they feel like being sneakier, he could just withhold any findings Mueller brings, or completely defund the investigation, at least that's my understanding.

Basically, the Mueller investigation is dead unless Whitaker recuses himself, from what I understand.

[Freude am Fahren]

Nothing will happen, and he will probably win in 2020, and the world sucks.

Every time someone says, or an headlines says something about something finally happening, I just roll my eyes.

[Crazed_Insanity]

It is fascinating how trump is immuned to seemingly everything...

Mueller is our last hope, hope he knows what he’s doing...

[Tom Servo]

I'm curious to see how much changes when the new House comes into play in January.

[The359]

He'll just fight back twice as hard, because now he has a group he can point a finger at.

[Tom Servo]

True, but most of his fighting back up until this point has been getting some of the more spineless Republicans to back what he wants to avoid him saying nasty things about them on Twitter. That won't work as well with a bunch of democrats who now have a majority.

[G'day Mate]

Basically, the Mueller investigation is dead unless Whitaker recuses himself, from what I understand.

I do fear this may be correct.

[Jason]

I'm curious to see how much changes when the new House comes into play in January.

Ditto, I think they can do some interesting things, like forcing his tax returns. Not sure if anything will come of it, but we should at least get a little more transparency.

[Crazed_Insanity]

It’ll just be gridlock. Which will be good I guess.

[mk]

Speculation of deep thinking Donald and impeachement trial.

VP is put aside by the law and Trump accuses that chief justice is biased.
Roberts recuses himself and Clarence Thomas takes his place.

But what if,
Thomas recuses himself because he's black and Trump is a racist.
Who's next.

What if still if,
Senate finds a rabbit in a hat and convicts Trump.
The process is too much for the judge and POTUS Pence picks the next one.

What must happen that Senate finds two rabbits and make Nancy Pelosi's day.

What if time catches the next judge and POTUS Pence have another pick.

Would the Donald then say that "the wall is built."

[Crazed_Insanity]

I like what I’m seeing... conservative judges ruling against Trump... house Democrats not blindly supporting Pelosi...

Hopefully the reasonable moderate majority will kick partisan extremists on both sides out of power eventually...

Fingers crossed.

[MR2 Fan]

"After several high-profile disease outbreaks linked to food, Congress in 2011 ordered a fix, and produce growers this year would have begun testing their water under rules crafted by the Obama administration’s Food and Drug Administration.

But six months before people were sickened by the contaminated romaine, President Donald Trump’s FDA – responding to pressure from the farm industry and Trump’s order to eliminate regulations – shelved the water-testing rules for at least four years."

https://www.wired.com/story/the-science-is-clear-dirty-farm-water-is-making-us-sick/

[FaultyMario]

From this morning's barrage spewing out of dear leader's twitter I can only assume Whitaker has seen an advance of Mueller's findings and reported on it. Alternate Biff Tannen has shat his diaper (https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--1YBn69re--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/swq1nocy6161qzotqx8i.jpg).

[dodint]

"After several high-profile disease outbreaks linked to food, Congress in 2011 ordered a fix, and produce growers this year would have begun testing their water under rules crafted by the Obama administration’s Food and Drug Administration.

But six months before people were sickened by the contaminated romaine, President Donald Trump’s FDA – responding to pressure from the farm industry and Trump’s order to eliminate regulations – shelved the water-testing rules for at least four years."

https://www.wired.com/story/the-science-is-clear-dirty-farm-water-is-making-us-sick/

Good find. This is the interesting and important policy stuff that normally gets buried. I imagine this surfaced because the romaine story is popular and meme'worthy.

[FaultyMario]

With new crimes being tacked to Manafort's back by the special prosecutors, as they allege that:




3. After signing the plea agreement, Manafort committed federal crimes by lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Special Counsel's Office on a variety of subject matters, which constitute breaches of the agreement

it really makes me think that Manafort's counselors have been getting info back from the mothership. The Guardian reports:


As part of the deal, Manafort pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the US and conspiring to obstruct justice, in relation to his unregistered lobbying work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. Other charges against him were dropped.

By then, Manafort had in August been convicted of eight counts in a separate fraud case brought against him by Mueller in Virginia. Manafort is scheduled to be sentenced in the Virginia case in February.

Trump’s legal team claimed to have remained in contact with Manafort during the former campaign chairman’s cooperation with Mueller, which if accurate would be a highly unusual arrangement.

Which leads me to believe that Trump has been hammering the nails to his own coffin (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/28/top-10-stories-of-hubris).

I'm confident that once the dust settles, american ingenuity will reign in (https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Politics-Voices/2014/0818/The-arrogance-of-power-and-the-case-for-presidential-term-limits) and thoughtful changes will move you guys forward.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Hopefully Trump served as a good wake up call for politicians on both sides of the spectrum.

Will they get their acts together and serve the people or will they continue partisan politics as usual and then allow another TV-personality to take over...?

Surely in this day and age, there will be a lot more TV-personalities coming thru the pipeline.

USA should be able to survive Trump..., fingers crossed...

My prediction... unless that coffin he's nailing is ready soon or unless the economy tanks, pretty sure Trump will be re-elected at this point...

Of course, the final unless would be seeing a more charismatic/hopeful candidate running against Trump...

It really shouldn't be that hard to beat Trump.

[Jason]

Dear Leader has been busy on Twitter today...

Suggesting that Mueller, Podesta, Obama, Rosenstein (!), The Clintons, Holder, Abedin, Clapper, Comey, and Lynch are all guilty of Treason.

Suggesting that only people born in the US should get government assistance.

Multiple tweets focused on Hillary Clinton being racist.

Edit: Pictures here: https://splinternews.com/the-president-is-doing-great-today-1830707607 in case he deletes them

Also... how many of the above people received mail bombs recently?

[JoeW]

I heard he suggested having a state run media channel...

[MR2 Fan]

I heard he suggested having a state run media channel...

suggested? he already has one practically

"Fox & Friends producers allowed Scott Pruitt to pre-approve interview scripts, emails show"

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-emails-fox-pruitt-scripts-20181127-story.html

[Freude am Fahren]

We probably have closer to a media run state than the other way around.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, not sure which is better/worse... media run state or state run media?

Mark Zuckerberg for president!

[FaultyMario]

People are giving way too much credit to celebrity CEOs.

[Freude am Fahren]

Something I saw today to describe Sarah Huckabee Sanders: "congenital Liar"

[Crazed_Insanity]

People are giving way too much credit to celebrity CEOs.

Well, if possible, I’d definitely vote for Musk not only because he will bring our asses to Mars, but also because he’s not afraid to admit that he inhaled! If we’re going to have another Twitter happy prez, I want it to be him... but too bad he was a supernaturally born citizen.

[Tom Servo]

Dear Leader has been busy on Twitter today...

Suggesting that Mueller, Podesta, Obama, Rosenstein (!), The Clintons, Holder, Abedin, Clapper, Comey, and Lynch are all guilty of Treason.

Suggesting that only people born in the US should get government assistance.

Multiple tweets focused on Hillary Clinton being racist.

Edit: Pictures here: https://splinternews.com/the-president-is-doing-great-today-1830707607 in case he deletes them

Also... how many of the above people received mail bombs recently?

Even if the $3,874 a month thing wasn't bullshit, the comparison is. "They get *up to* x amount while we *average* x amount." Comparing Max() vs. Avg() isn't exactly legit.

[Tom Servo]

Oh lordy.


Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress about Trump real estate project in Russia.

[MR2 Fan]

...tick tock...

[tigeraid]

Jesus Christ this is infuriating. :mad:

https://splinternews.com/politics-has-victims-1830738403


Ortega, who has a green card, is a permanent U.S. resident but not a citizen eligible for voting. In 2014, according to the appeals court ruling, she submitted a voter registration form and indicated that she is not a citizen. Her application to vote was rejected. She called the office and asked why, and they told her that it was because she had checked “No” on the citizenship question; so she resubmitted the form and checked “Yes.” The office then registered her to vote.

...she was allowed to vote due to bureaucratic error, even after she plainly said she was not a citizen. When investigators came to see her, she told them this. In January 2016, she was arrested. Last year, she was tried, convicted by a Texas jury, and sentenced to eight years in prison. Now, that conviction has been upheld. The office of Texas attorney general Ken Paxton proudly announced this fact in a press release. They prominently state that they offered Ortega a plea deal, but “Instead, she voluntarily chose a jury trial.”

Rosa Maria Ortega is a mother of four. She has a sixth-grade education. She testified that she didn’t understand the forms.

Every time you hear a pundit on television telling you that we must pursue “civility” above all, think about Rosa Maria Ortega, sitting in a Texas prison, because she voted, and because some minor paperwork error allowed her to do so. Then think about her four children, whose mother is now incarcerated... Think about where justice lies in the United States of America.

[Jason]

Oh lordy.

Well that explains why he's been ramping up the Twitter rants about the investigation the last few days...

[FaultyMario]

Oh lordy.

So that's how the prosecutors knew that Manafort was lying to their faces in spite of the plea bargain.

Somewhat related, I'm with Cenk Uygur on why Assange is bad for journalists, by choosing to disclose and publish information based on his interests he is betraying the public trust. Add to that, the presuntive fact that he had information on other parties that he chose not to disclose and publish... then well, it's clear he is a brocker who deals on information and not a journalist.

Add to that, wikileaks has been sloppy in releasing information that puts people's lives at risk and he's caused more bad than good. I hope, hope, hope his case is defended by great lawyers because I believe we are living in a world that needs to have clear boundaries on what information can be gathered, what can be traded and what needs to stay with the individual.

[MR2 Fan]

whenever anyone says both parties are the same:


The Resistance
‏ @amervoices

Since 1965

Democrats (25 years in power):
3 indictments
1 conviction
1 prison sentence.

Republicans (28 years in power):
120 indictments
89 convictions
34 prison sentences.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Look, both sides are obviously not exactly the same. For one thing, blue and red are just not the same color.

Just looking at # of indictments/convictions/sentences..., sure you can say your side is less evil with lower numbers, but unless your side achieved 0, you are the 'same'. Less evil is still evil. Less evil doesn't make you good.

Now, I’m not demanding blue side has to be perfect. Let's return to the topic of Honduras for example:

http://theconversation.com/how-us-policy-in-honduras-set-the-stage-for-todays-migration-65935

Some of you like to blame Reagan(admin with lots of indictments). I can also blame Hillary Clinton(Though Obama admin had 0 indictments).

Bottomline is that USA is the 'same' country... often times doing the 'same' evils around the world to protect its own interests. Doesn't matter if the admin is red or blue.

That's what I meant when I say both sides are the 'same'.

Even if we have president Clinton, maybe she wouldn't openly build a wall out of political correctness, but I still doubt she'd care what happens to the Hondurans or any other illegal immigrants. Remember that Obama deported more people than Trump! They just don't advertise this fact on twitter. US interests, or her own financial interests, are way more important then anything else. I just can't in good conscience vote for either of those candidates. Our nation and the world will be fucked one way or another with either one as president.

Having a president Clinton will make you feel better because you think she's on your side, but I'm sure for the Hondurans, they'll feel just the 'same'. Fucked.

[Tom Servo]

Re: building a Trump Tower Moscow (that I saw WaPo says would have included a $50 million penthouse for Putin)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtPg34oVYAA9YS3.jpg:large

Reminds me of something...

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/311/608/1d6.gif

[FaultyMario]

According to the Wall Street Journal, one plan was stopped by the great recession. Until it was revived with interest from Azerbaijani Power Broker Aras Agalarov and it gained momentum during the Moscow Miss Universe.


Plans were drawn up to renovate and rebrand the Stalin-era Sovietsky Hotel as Ivanka Hotel, says one person who was involved in the project, which included a store that would sell Ms. Trump’s jewelry line. Ms. Trump launched her jewelry line the next year, in the fall of 2007.

Ms. Trump was “in her early 20s and had only recently joined Trump Organization in 2006 and was not involved in planning a Moscow hotel at that time or opening a store in any such hotel,” a person familiar with her role at the company said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-tower-moscow-it-was-the-end-of-a-long-failed-push-to-invest-in-russia-1543532455?tesla=y&mod=article_inline

[Dicknose]

Somewhat related, I'm with Cenk Uygur on why Assange is bad for journalists, by choosing to disclose and publish information based on his interests he is betraying the public trust. Add to that, the presuntive fact that he had information on other parties that he chose not to disclose and publish... then well, it's clear he is a brocker who deals on information and not a journalist.

Add to that, wikileaks has been sloppy in releasing information that puts people's lives at risk and he's caused more bad than good. I hope, hope, hope his case is defended by great lawyers because I believe we are living in a world that needs to have clear boundaries on what information can be gathered, what can be traded and what needs to stay with the individual.

I dont think that makes him that much different from most journalists - they generally have a bias (like most of us) and that can skew what they publish.
The big difference is that Assange has access to so much info that he the ability to easily pick and choose - most journos dont get that choice or at least its more subtle.

But Assange shouldnt pretend that he is something more, better, more noble! He is not saving the world.

[Dicknose]

Look, both sides are obviously not exactly the same. For one thing, blue and red are just not the same color.

Just looking at # of indictments/convictions/sentences..., sure you can say your side is less evil with lower numbers, but unless your side achieved 0, you are the 'same'. Less evil is still evil. Less evil doesn't make you good.


Its not a black and white world - if you think two things are equal because they are both not perfect then you are not going to be able to make change or improve things.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I know it's not a black and white world. I also didn't say blue and red are equal.

My point is lesser of the 2 evil approach isn't working very well. It's making the 2 sides hating each other more and more..., yet same problems are getting worse and worse... and each side can also conveniently blame the other side too as problems worsen. It's always the other side's fault!

This duopoly isn't working out very well and I think we need to change it in order to improve things.

I think the rise of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were the result of people getting sick and tired of this screwed up duopoly. Unfortunately Trump won out... and now people are probably wishing they could have their usual screwed up duopoly back...

[MR2 Fan]

George H.W. Bush has died at age 94

[G'day Mate]

He’s the first US president I remember from childhood. That’s sad to hear. Did he have a few health scares recently? I remember Barbara died earlier in the year too, right?

[drew]

whenever anyone says both parties are the same:


The Resistance
‏ @amervoices

Since 1965

Democrats (25 years in power):
3 indictments
1 conviction
1 prison sentence.

Republicans (28 years in power):
120 indictments*
89 convictions*
34 prison sentences.*


*and counting.

I sincerely believe that the GOP is involved with a lot of this, thus the blinders they have to any sort of push back on Trump's shenanigans, sans the ones that grow balls because they're out of office in a month). I'd be very surprised if there are more open seats when the music stops.

This is a category 5 shit show.

[mk]

Is partial GOP support still for pre '68 party?

[FaultyMario]

George H.W. Bush has died at age 94

A man we'll* soon forget.


*PoC around the world.

[FaultyMario]

We have a new regime.

I feel represnt3d.

[neanderthal]

A man we'll* soon forget.


*PoC around the world.

You ain't lying.

People saying "have some respect, the man just died" are white washing his legacy, and doing so excarcebates the ignorance most Americans have of their countries bloody hands in the affairs f conutries now decimated by war, strife, poverty. And large number of those Amercans also bemoan the number of people trying to seek assylum, refugee status, or just immigrate here, from those countries.

The last four (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, Dump) Republican Presidents have been terrible for the rest of the world at large and for PoC.

We in the PoC community will not remember him fondly.

[neanderthal]

Look, both sides are obviously not exactly the same. For one thing, blue and red are just not the same color.

Just looking at # of indictments/convictions/sentences..., sure you can say your side is less evil with lower numbers, but unless your side achieved 0, you are the 'same'. Less evil is still evil. Less evil doesn't make you good.

Now, I’m not demanding blue side has to be perfect. Let's return to the topic of Honduras for example:

http://theconversation.com/how-us-policy-in-honduras-set-the-stage-for-todays-migration-65935

Some of you like to blame Reagan(admin with lots of indictments). I can also blame Hillary Clinton(Though Obama admin had 0 indictments).

Bottomline is that USA is the 'same' country... often times doing the 'same' evils around the world to protect its own interests. Doesn't matter if the admin is red or blue.

That's what I meant when I say both sides are the 'same'.

Even if we have president Clinton, maybe she wouldn't openly build a wall out of political correctness, but I still doubt she'd care what happens to the Hondurans or any other illegal immigrants. Remember that Obama deported more people than Trump! They just don't advertise this fact on twitter. US interests, or her own financial interests, are way more important then anything else. I just can't in good conscience vote for either of those candidates. Our nation and the world will be fucked one way or another with either one as president.

Having a president Clinton will make you feel better because you think she's on your side, but I'm sure for the Hondurans, they'll feel just the 'same'. Fucked.

As usual, you lack nuance.


As detailed below, the Obama-era policies represented the culmination of a gradual but consistent effort to narrow its enforcement focus to two key groups: The deportation of criminals and recent unauthorized border crossers.

The most recent enforcement figures released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on December 30 offer the latest evidence of these trends. Eighty-five percent of all removals and returns during fiscal year (FY) 2016 were of noncitizens who had recently crossed the U.S. border unlawfully. Of the remainder, who were removed from the U.S. interior, more than 90 percent had been convicted of what DHS defines as serious crimes.

Source. (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/obama-record-deportations-deporter-chief-or-not)

But tact has never been your strong suit, has it.

-----

And yes, YOU WERE on record here "same sidesing" the parties and calling for a revolution at the polls. And your little protest vote got us Trump. Yu and your ilk.

Crazy thing is Bernie or bust types now trying to get moderate liberals behind Bernie for 2020 don't realise one minor but very crucial thing; they've already shot the hostage. Trump is already in the White House. They have no leverage.

Threatening us with "4 more years of Trump" isnt going to have any effect on us. It's not a carrot, we've already been given the stick. bernie getting nominated is a guaranteed 4 more years of Trump.

[JoshInKC]

The last four (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, Dump) Republican Presidents have been terrible for the rest of the world at large and for PoC.

We in the PoC community will not remember him fondly.
Yeah, he was certainly the best republican president of the US in my lifetime, but that's a staggeringly low bar to clear. Which isn't to say that Carter, Clinton, and Obama were awesome for the global south, though Carter has probably the lowest body count by a pretty good margin.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, Carter was probably the most noble of modern presidents, but also the least popular one termer... just like sr bush, probably the least evil republican, but again not the most popular.

Nice guy always tend to finish last I guess.

Neanderthal, thanks for sharing that Trump just suck at deporting rapists/thugs. So, anything to say about USA messing with Honduras? Is that something only red admins would do? Blue admins would never do anything evil, right?

Anyway, let’s just keep on fucking/threaten each other so that we can ensure Trump wins another term, ok?

[G'day Mate]

Sorry, but what is PoC?

[Tom Servo]

People of Color, essentially people who aren't Caucasian.

[G'day Mate]

Ah, cool

[neanderthal]

Yeah, he was certainly the best republican president of the US in my lifetime, but that's a staggeringly low bar to clear. Which isn't to say that Carter, Clinton, and Obama were awesome for the global south, though Carter has probably the lowest body count by a pretty good margin.

True.

I think Carter was the only one to not have an active war we were engaged in though, which makes his body count low. Obama inherited one. Bush I was thrown into one (Gulf War) Bush II was thrown in one (Afghanistan) but actively engaged Iraq and Egypt although Egypt was more a war of subversion. Reagan didn't have one per se but there were so many subversive actions by the CIA in South America and the rest of the world at that time that I just consider him to have been at war.

[neanderthal]

Yeah, Carter was probably the most noble of modern presidents, but also the least popular one termer... just like sr bush, probably the least evil republican, but again not the most popular.

Nice guy always tend to finish last I guess.

Neanderthal, thanks for sharing that Trump just suck at deporting rapists/thugs. So, anything to say about USA messing with Honduras? Is that something only red admins would do? Blue admins would never do anything evil, right?

Anyway, let’s just keep on fucking/threaten each other so that we can ensure Trump wins another term, ok?

The US has always been fucking with South/ Central America: Colombia. Honduras. Venezuela. Panama. Mexico. Cuba. Chile. Etc. The destabilised economies are one of the reasons we have so many people trying to get away from there and come here.
Something I keep reminding "build the wall" advocates. Stop bombing Yemen and Syria, and maybe so many of them won't be trying to come here. Stop destabilising the governments and economies all over anywhere south of us and maybe so many of them won't be trying to come here. It's not rocket science.

[neanderthal]

We have a new regime.

I feel represnt3d.

He's selling the presidential jet and a whole fleet of aircraft and helicopters!!! Opening up the presidential mansion to be a cultural center? i like this dude already. He's on a warpath against the oligarchs and bourgeoisie.

[Crazed_Insanity]

The US has always been fucking with South/ Central America: Colombia. Honduras. Venezuela. Panama. Mexico. Cuba. Chile. Etc. The destabilised economies are one of the reasons we have so many people trying to get away from there and come here.
Something I keep reminding "build the wall" advocates. Stop bombing Yemen and Syria, and maybe so many of them won't be trying to come here. Stop destabilising the governments and economies all over anywhere south of us and maybe so many of them won't be trying to come here. It's not rocket science.

The thing is that other than Carter, blue admins mess with the rest of the world too. It’s not just the republican presidents. Less evil just isn’t the same as good. It also doesn’t help if we only blame republicans on this. This is a bipartisan effort!

Just like republican love blaming democrats on the deficit, but whenever they’re in power, they sure don’t mind blowing thru the deficit to further their agenda...

If we truly want to solve problems, it can’t be politics as usual... my ‘less evil’ can do no wrong while blaming everything on the other side mentality has to cease.

[FaultyMario]

He's selling the presidential jet and a whole fleet of aircraft and helicopters!!! Opening up the presidential mansion to be a cultural center? i like this dude already. He's on a warpath against the oligarchs and bourgeoisie.

He's a merchant for symbols, but I'll gladly buy them. ;) He needs to improve government efficiency by a big margin if he wants to have the funds for his New Deal-ish policies or else his administration is going to tank. :random:

Apparently he's already secured all the Cuban aid that Bolsonaro, incoming Trumpian president of Brazil, has decided he does not need. Mexico should be getting 3,000 doctors from Cuba to dispatch to the poorest counties. And here's the thing that should concern our northern neighbors: by refusing to provide foreign aid, now that the nationalist wave is making some of the richest countries show their stingy, poorer countries have turned to building their own reciprocity networks. Cuba, Bolivia, Uruguay, Ecuador might have the greatest ideas on social development and regional cooperation but, as their economies are tiny, their impact was limited. We not only share the border with the U.S., we also have a bigger economy, and Lopez Obrador has been playing it cozy to Trump's Ego (instead of to Trump's wallet, like Peña).

The one thing that would put a dent in American interventionism in our countries was if we had an effective regional leadership and you guys were in the middle of an isolationist period and had things like China and the Middle east as your bigger worries.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I think one of the silverlining of Trump the isolationist president is that he has started no wars(yet), and poor nations without any of his fancy hotels probably won't be messed with.

[FaultyMario]

In other news, 3 women accuse Neal Degrasse Tyson of sexual misconduct, including rape.

Big heartbreak.

[Jason]

The rape allegation has been around for a while.... the other two were more instances of him either being clumsy or a bit creepy, but nothing to go to jail over, and frankly I'm not really sure why their brought up at all. That being said, the older rape allegation is serious, and should be investigated fully.

[Tom Servo]

“A cult of personality is sterile. It cannot reproduce itself. The leader cannot contemplate the fact that he will die and be replaced, and citizens abet the illusion by forgetting that they share responsibility for the future.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/authoritarian-leaders-trump-putin-orban.html)

Good article on authoritarianism and cults of personality.

[MR2 Fan]

So um, Paris isn't looking like a good vacation destination right now

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-protests-threaten-french-economy-finance-minister-warns/

[FaultyMario]

Paris in winter? Fuck that!

There were two recent images from the movilizations, the one where the riot police officers take their helmets off and stop pushing against protesters and the one in which firefighters turned around for the authorities during a ceremonies. Seems the french take the part about "citoyens" seriously.

[tigeraid]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/authoritarian-leaders-trump-putin-orban.html


The face of the leader becomes, as a result, a flag, an arbitrary marker of “us” and “them.” The internet and social media are helping us to see politics in this binary way. We imagine that we make choices as we sit in front of our computers, but the choices are, in fact, framed for us by algorithms that learn what will keep us online. Our online activity teaches machines that the most effective stimuli are negative: fear and anxiety. As social media becomes political instruction, we prime ourselves for politicians who reproduce the same binary: What makes us afraid and what makes us feel secure? Who are they and who are we?

[Crazed_Insanity]

Trump for sure looks up to Putin and Xi, but he is far from there yet. Low in popularity and with 2 branches of government against him. He probably is a cult-like figure, but I really don't see him as an authoritarian. I also don't see 'cults' as the source of our problem. The main problem is exactly what tigeraid has quoted.

I think our further polarization probably was caused by internet and social media... so we end up with a binary choice. In a way, I think Hillary has a cult following as well, likewise with Bernie Sanders. But at least with Bernie Sanders, the enemy he portrayed wasn't the other half of Americans, but the rich elite. I just think it's a bad idea to keep on propagating the idea that half of our nation are deplorables.

If that were true, just split the States up according to their color then. Allow the people of proper color to migrate to the right color state and then build a wall and point all of our guns at each other...

Personally, I don't believe neither blue or red USA will be able to do better than the united USA, but if we're just too sick of each other to unite together, then we might as well go our separate ways.

Anyway, for now, either we do something to fix our internet/social media... or we fix our emotional responses. Both are probably not very easy to fix... so I suppose we just need another common enemy in order to unite the people. Pitting fellow countrymen against each other is definitely not the way to go.

Hopefully whoever our next democratic nominee will know how to really move the nation forward, together, and thus making it great again!

[Tom Servo]

I just think it's a bad idea to keep on propagating the idea that half of our nation are deplorables.


Continually misrepresenting what was said about this is precisely part of the problem that this article is talking about. Nobody has ever claimed that every Republican is deplorable. It was specifically a term referring to alt-right people like Richard Spencer, Milo Yiannapolis, Baked Alaska, others of that same ilk and the people that follow them. The kind of people who keep threatening to throw any jewish person they meet online in an oven.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I probably shouldn't have used the exact word 'deplorable'.

Help me pick a proper adjective that wasn't used by Mrs. Clinton.

How would you describe somebody like roofer?

I'm not even a republican..., so how about an adjective to describe somebody like me?

Point is the seemingly extreme polarization we have nowadays. Blue vs Red. For somebody like Billi, Reds see me as blue and Blues see me as red.

Anyway, I really do believe democracy works better if we have at least 3 viable options. Our voting ballots shouldn't just be true or false.

[Tom Servo]

There ain't no way you weren't going for that connotation. We all know what "deplorable" is in reference to in the Politics thread. That's now a charged term, partially because of the same misrepresentation, that all Trump voters or all Republicans are "deplorable", despite nobody ever actually saying that (well, I guess some people did, the same people who don't belong to the group that was actually referenced but are instead Trump supporters/Republicans and sport bumper stickers that say "Proud Deplorable!" or some shit like that).

I'll avoid talking about roofer as it's been made clear to me that I shouldn't discuss him on here because he's not here. While I'd disagree because he left of his own volition, I'm sticking to that.

You, I'd describe you as really, really weird.

[Crazed_Insanity]

We live in a very politically charged times. It’s like English words are slowly all turning into politically charged words.

Can’t call people illegals anymore... has to be legally challenged...

Can’t really call Billi deplorable, so let’s just stick with really really weird. :p

So those typical conservative gun loving nationalists who don’t quite belong to the ‘deplorable’ group that Hillary was actually referring to... how would you describe them?

And how ever you describe them, half of all Americans are like that. Can America really be better with them together with people like you?

I sure hope so.

At the moment, I don’t think so...

[Jason]

Flynn memo is interesting today, for what it does say, and doesn't say. There's a huge swath of redactions relating to a criminal investigation separate from the Mueller investigation. There's also to revelation that Flynn's eager cooperation has lead to cooperation from others, AND Flynn has had 19(!) Interviews during the process.

Nothing specifically points out Trump yet, but some serious shit has gone down, and we just have to wait on the details.

[Tom Servo]

Definitely some wild stuff in there.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtntZIbUwAAA01S.jpg:large

(credit to @pixelatedboat (https://twitter.com/pixelatedboat/status/1070147409991221253))

[Tom Servo]

Also, this magic happened.

https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1068570837459050496

[G'day Mate]

A lot seems to be coming out of the Mueller investigation at the moment, so considering Matthew Whitaker's appointment he must be either
1. Allowing it
2. Unable to affect it
3. Holding back even more that what is still coming out

In the meantime it seems some 400 former DOJ officials have signed something opposing Whitaker's appointment anyway

[FaultyMario]

Today in the news:

Fox: Flynn memo big pile of nothing.
Every other news producer: Flynn memo worrisome for Trump.

so I guess, that thing's somewhere in between those two extremes or not near at all.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Real truth is somewhere in between.

Plus, Trump has endured many 'worrisome' events.

Please just let me know when Trump is actually leaving office for sure!

[MR2 Fan]

I wonder if Jimmy Carter will get this much fanfare when he passes compared to Bush Sr.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I wonder if Jimmy Carter will get this much fanfare when he passes compared to Bush Sr.

I don't see why not.

BTW, listened to some eulogies delivered for the Sr. Bush.

He really sounded like a great guy according to his family and friends... maybe if he had lived longer and made more friends who are PoC...

Anyway, I think for sure we can all agree he's the least evil modern republican president?

BTW, do PoC around the world really think all the liberal democratic US presidents were better than republican ones?

At least for people of Taiwan, we tend to like republican presidents better because they're more willing to sell us arms to protect ourselves against China. Also Carter was the one who ultimately ended diplomatic relations with Taiwan and officially recognize China and world's real China! The democratic presidents tend to yield to communist China more compared to republican ones... So I think Taiwan prefers republican presidents better. (But of course US playing with China/Taiwan to have them hate each other is doing so to US's own advantage.)

Anyway, I'm still holding out hope that someday red and blue americans will one day get along together as well as Michelle Obama and George W! That's the day we will truly be great!

[neanderthal]

He's a merchant for symbols, but I'll gladly buy them. ;) He needs to improve government efficiency by a big margin if he wants to have the funds for his New Deal-ish policies or else his administration is going to tank. :random:

Apparently he's already secured all the Cuban aid that Bolsonaro, incoming Trumpian president of Brazil, has decided he does not need. Mexico should be getting 3,000 doctors from Cuba to dispatch to the poorest counties. And here's the thing that should concern our northern neighbors: by refusing to provide foreign aid, now that the nationalist wave is making some of the richest countries show their stingy, poorer countries have turned to building their own reciprocity networks. Cuba, Bolivia, Uruguay, Ecuador might have the greatest ideas on social development and regional cooperation but, as their economies are tiny, their impact was limited. We not only share the border with the U.S., we also have a bigger economy, and Lopez Obrador has been playing it cozy to Trump's Ego (instead of to Trump's wallet, like Peña).

The one thing that would put a dent in American interventionism in our countries was if we had an effective regional leadership and you guys were in the middle of an isolationist period and had things like China and the Middle east as your bigger worries.

A united Central and Southern America would be a giant economic force and a huge trading partner for the EU and China, while we would be busy building a damn wall.

[neanderthal]

I think one of the silverlining of Trump the isolationist president is that he has started no wars(yet), and poor nations without any of his fancy hotels probably won't be messed with.

Tell that to the climate.
Tell that to the Muslims he "banned."
Tell that to Cuba, who's ties to the US he has tried to cut.
Tell that to China on who's products he has assessed tariffs.
Tell that to the Ukranians who now know there is no check on Russian influence and meddling in their country.
Tell that to the Palestinians for the same reason.
Tell that to the American middle class who got fucked by the GOP tax bill he signed.
Tell that to the Education Department over whom he appointed Betsy deVoss.
I could go on but it seems you have a narrow view of what war is; it's not just guns and tanks.


That he hasn't started a war is a low goal post considering he was, and still is, separating babies from their parents at the border.

[neanderthal]

A lot seems to be coming out of the Mueller investigation at the moment, so considering Matthew Whitaker's appointment he must be either
1. Allowing it
2. Unable to affect it
3. Holding back even more that what is still coming out

In the meantime it seems some 400 former DOJ officials have signed something opposing Whitaker's appointment anyway

I really hope Pence gets indicted first! Pelosi is third in line but that won't matter with a Republican Senate though.

[tigeraid]

It is SHOCKING the number of Americans (and some Canadians) I've spoken to that don't know what the United States did to Honduras (and a bunch of other South American countries) in the 80s. This and many other refugee crises are a direct or indirect result of America's dirty wars under the Reagan and Bush years. I had one literally respond to me "well we never INVADED them...." :mad:

[Crazed_Insanity]

I really hope Pence gets indicted first! Pelosi is third in line but that won't matter with a Republican Senate though.

You have something against Pelosi? I thought you're a straight party line kinda guy, I guess I'm wrong about that. Anyway..., that's cool man!

BTW, I really think an unjust war that caused lost of innocent lives, sufferings and increased terrorist activities due to destabilized the region, bumped up our deficits so that we can't do anything else more constructive is way more evil than all the stuff you listed combined.

If Trump starts an unjust war, then he'll definitely win the most evil US president EVER award. For now, it's debatable I think.

[MR2 Fan]

I think what he means is that Pelosi would be president, not that she'd be indicted

[Crazed_Insanity]

Oh, my bad! :p

[Crazed_Insanity]

It is SHOCKING the number of Americans (and some Canadians) I've spoken to that don't know what the United States did to Honduras (and a bunch of other South American countries) in the 80s. This and many other refugee crises are a direct or indirect result of America's dirty wars under the Reagan and Bush years. I had one literally respond to me "well we never INVADED them...." :mad:

I think people also need to realize that US messing around didn't stop with Reagan/Bush.

https://theconversation.com/how-us-policy-in-honduras-set-the-stage-for-todays-migration-65935


The 2009 coup, more than any other development, explains the increase in Honduran migration across the southern U.S. border in the last few years. The Obama administration has played an important role in these developments. Although it officially decried Zelaya’s ouster, it equivocated on whether or not it constituted a coup, which would have required the U.S. to stop sending most aid to the country.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in particular, sent conflicting messages, and worked to ensure that Zelaya did not return to power. This was contrary to the wishes of the Organization of American States, the leading hemispheric political forum composed of the 35 member-countries of the Americas, including the Caribbean. Several months after the coup, Clinton supported a highly questionable election aimed at legitimating the post-coup government.

... the role played by the United States in shaping the causes of this migration raises ethical questions about its responsibility toward those now fleeing from the ravages its policies have helped to produce.


If only most Americans knew what their beloved leaders were doing abroad, maybe they can be more sympathetic to the migrating Hondurans.

[tigeraid]

100% correct. Democratic politicians had to continue making a worse mess of the one Republicans started. Doesn't change my original point.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Tell that to the climate.


Climate change is really a tricky topic. Is it really pure science or do we have politics mixed into that? Do conservative and liberal scientists reach different conclusions? Also, do scientists really have a solution for it or will we end up causing lot of financial strains and pains for mere incremental improvements?

Should Trump just sign the Paris Accord or just let the French burn down Paris in discord?

No question that we don't want global warming and screw up our planet, but we also don't want rioters to burn our house down either.

We are in desperate need of having leaders who can bring both/all sides together somehow... sigh...

Nationalists are rising globally not just because they are crazy and stupid... or maybe they are just crazy and stupid and internet/social media exacerbated the problems... people are just becoming increasingly more extreme nowadays... sigh... Chill out humanity! Put down your fucking phones and enjoy life once in a while!

[George]

I really hope Pence gets indicted first! Pelosi is third in line but that won't matter with a Republican Senate though.

I think the "third in line" thing is in case the president and VP are both killed or incapacitated simultaneously, such as in an airplane crash or terrorist attack. If either Pence or Trump were to be successfully impeached (or died), the other one, now president or still president, would simply nominate a new Republican VP, and keep doing so until one was confirmed by both houses of Congress.

If both Pence and Trump were impeached or died (at separate times), we'd soon have another Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller situation, where neither man was elected to his ultimate position.

[neanderthal]

It is SHOCKING the number of Americans (and some Canadians) I've spoken to that don't know what the United States did to Honduras (and a bunch of other South American countries) in the 80s. This and many other refugee crises are a direct or indirect result of America's dirty wars under the Reagan and Bush years. I had one literally respond to me "well we never INVADED them...." :mad:

In general, Americans feign ignorance then afterwards absolve themselves of blame. And that's mostly because they have no idea what american foreign policy is, or what it does.

Destabilising an economy to get rid of a populist leader they don't want? Yeah.
Assassinating or assisting in the assassination of a leader they don't like. Yeah.
Decimating an economy/ region/ country to gain an economic advantage (lower prices on resources, crops, imports, etc) Yeah.
Supporting apartheid, directly and indirectly? Yeah.

The list is long. And horrendous.

The people who are quick with "Freedom. USA." etc chants are usually the least aware.


Edit; it's important to note that the US gives a tremendous amount of aid to all sorts of countries around the world, a lot of it invaluable aid, but sometimes it's not always "good aid." i'm thinking specifically of aid that was tied to abstinence programs in Africa on that last one. Abstinence has been proven to be one of the least effective methods of birth control or AIDS/ STD preventation in large populations.

[neanderthal]

100% correct. Democratic politicians had to continue making a worse mess of the one Republicans started. Doesn't change my original point.

Billi loves taking my criticism of Republican policy as blanket approval of things done by both parties presidents, even though I am one of the most critical people on this board of our involvement in foreign countries affairs.

I might say, for instance, "what's going on with these child separations is an atrocity ..." and he'll respond with something like "Obama dropped more bombs than Bush" or "Obama deported more illegal/ undocumented aliens" etc and add in a cursory "but you never criticize him because you're a partisan hack" or words to the effect.

I'm not surprised he's done the same to you.

Your statement, by itself was enough. It said what you wanted it to say. It got it's point across succinctly. But billi has to be billi

[Crazed_Insanity]

Look, I would not predict Obama could commit pretty much the same foreign policy evils as W. Had I known that, I would not have voted for him. I’d probably go 3rd party back then if he failed to deliver that message of hope...

Likewise, knowing exactly what Hillary would do to protect US interests, I just couldn’t vote for her and allow status quo to go on.

Anyway, I hope you’d agree that in terms of foreign affairs, both parties are ‘very similar’. Hillary for sure is the lessor evil, but just not good enough.

[neanderthal]

Look, I would not predict Obama could commit pretty much the same foreign policy evils as W. Had I known that, I would not have voted for him. I’d probably go 3rd party back then if he failed to deliver that message of hope...

Likewise, knowing exactly what Hillary would do to protect US interests, I just couldn’t vote for her and allow status quo to go on.

Anyway, I hope you’d agree that in terms of foreign affairs, both parties are ‘very similar’. Hillary for sure is the lessor evil, but just not good enough.

No. I wouldn't agree. There was a very positive view of America during President Obama's turn, which hasn't been there since Trump and wasn't there at the end of Bush IIs turn.

But if you're trying to talk military, you can start with the numbers of Americans killed in foreign wars during Bush II vs Obama's 8 year tenures. You like seeing what you want to see.

[FaultyMario]

There was a very positive view of America during President Obama's turn, which hasn't been there since Trump and wasn't there at the end of Bush IIs turn.


Nope, maybe for the first hundred days. After that it was pret.ty clear it was business as usual. With that said, we really can't see Trump too far off the line. Sure, he makes boisterous remarks, but the foreign policies are not that much changed.

Edit: To clarify, foreign policy towards Latam.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Interventions don’t have to be militarized in order to be evil.

Hondurans were screwed by rich American interests long before Reagan/Bush. IMHO, all of our politicians are probably forced to do the will of the rich establishment one way or another... I seriously cannot believe the Obama I voted for would really do that to Honduras by his own will...

Anyway, however these things happened, Bluer admins usually sounded more politically correct, thus more positive views.

Again, I’ll use the Paris Accord for example... Trump not signing it definitely put US at a very negative light..., but in a way, it’s probably better that than eventually seeing riots in US cities. Pollution is definitely evil, but not taking care of your own ‘poorer’ citizens is definitely more evil. I can definitely see Hillary committing to do the ‘right’ thing to save the planet while ignoring the needs of the poorer, if not deplorable, Americans.

Our societies are now just stuck in a left/right mode only. If you’re pro-life, you have to deny people’s ability to choose. If you’re pro choice, then you are obviously a baby killing Muslim.

We need to snap out of that, to have a 3rd mode. To truly have the ability to choose to do the best we can for as many folks as possible. We all know the world ain’t just black or white. Lesser of the 2 evils is better, but if we really can have viable 3rd party options, we have a chance to pick the BEST option out of the 3! Lesser of the 2 evils just set the bar too low for too long...

[Tom Servo]

Nope, maybe for the first hundred days. After that it was pret.ty clear it was business as usual. With that said, we really can't see Trump too far off the line. Sure, he makes boisterous remarks, but the foreign policies are not that much changed.

Edit: To clarify, foreign policy towards Latam.

Not sure if neanderthal is referring specifically to Latam or worldwide, but anecdotally I can say that my relatives in Europe definitely held the views he describes.

[neanderthal]

Nope, maybe for the first hundred days. After that it was pret.ty clear it was business as usual. With that said, we really can't see Trump too far off the line. Sure, he makes boisterous remarks, but the foreign policies are not that much changed.

Edit: To clarify, foreign policy towards Latam.


Not sure if neanderthal is referring specifically to Latam or worldwide, but anecdotally I can say that my relatives in Europe definitely held the views he describes.

World wide. The Argentinians on my rugby team said good things about Obama's foreign policy...
Then again, comparing to Bush who came before him is a low bar, so there is that.

[neanderthal]

Interventions don’t have to be militarized in order to be evil.

Hondurans were screwed by rich American interests long before Reagan/Bush. IMHO, all of our politicians are probably forced to do the will of the rich establishment one way or another... I seriously cannot believe the Obama I voted for would really do that to Honduras by his own will...

Anyway, however these things happened, Bluer admins usually sounded more politically correct, thus more positive views.

Again, I’ll use the Paris Accord for example... Trump not signing it definitely put US at a very negative light..., but in a way, it’s probably better that than eventually seeing riots in US cities. Pollution is definitely evil, but not taking care of your own ‘poorer’ citizens is definitely more evil. I can definitely see Hillary committing to do the ‘right’ thing to save the planet while ignoring the needs of the poorer, if not deplorable, Americans.

Our societies are now just stuck in a left/right mode only. If you’re pro-life, you have to deny people’s ability to choose. If you’re pro choice, then you are obviously a baby killing Muslim.

We need to snap out of that, to have a 3rd mode. To truly have the ability to choose to do the best we can for as many folks as possible. We all know the world ain’t just black or white. Lesser of the 2 evils is better, but if we really can have viable 3rd party options, we have a chance to pick the BEST option out of the 3! Lesser of the 2 evils just set the bar too low for too long...

Unspoilered; that was literally exactly my point. Destabilising an economy doesn't need military intervention. The effects can be the same.

As usual, you're talking out of your poop hole. (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/opinion/hillary-clintons-poverty-agenda.html)


You'd know about her poverty initiatives if you had done a modicum of research.

[FaultyMario]

Then again, comparing to Bush who came before him is a low bar, so there is that.

Not to take away anything from Obama, he lead his country out of troubled times, but most of the problems he inherited came from a poor administration.That really flatters him.
That said, when compared against the average, he kept the empire on its usual course.

This here article summarizes my view, Obama campaigned on Hope, and we hoped for more from him (https://journals.openedition.org/cal/3088).

[Crazed_Insanity]

My sentiments exactly. Actually, that article contains some other stuffs that I didn't even know...

Anyway, it really made me wonder why would Obama emulate W that way? It made no sense whatsoever! Was Obama just a really good liar? Delivering hopefully messages he didn't really intend to fulfill?

The conspiracy theorist in me tend to think that W and Obama and all past admins were most likely serving another 'master' of the American empire. Otherwise, why would they all tend to end up making the same foreign policy decisions? This also made me wonder if Bernie Sanders could be immune to this 'disease' had he won. I guess I'll never know..., Even for the loud mouth Trump, like Mario has stated, there's really not much change in policy. So basically these 'puppets' may deliver different speeches, but will almost always end up doing the same crap. Perhaps Kennedy was the only untamed president so he ended up in a casket.

[Tom Servo]

Oh good, now Billi is a deep-state conspiracy theorist.

[FaultyMario]

No conspiracy theory needed, domestic forces have always shaped policy. It's not about what a president wants to do, but rather the margin that he can build from upon those he represents.

I suppose Trump would want to run the country the way he ran his rentals (https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racism-history), excluding the blacks and the mexicans, and that people from the public matter. And he would want to have all those other countries to know where they stand (https://www.npr.org/2017/01/20/510837911/the-trump-foreign-policy-doctrine-in-3-points) in the world. But -thankfully- he doesn't have the representativity to do that.

At the same time, Obama did not have the political monies to push through with his whole agenda, executives seldom do. Except in times of crisis, that's why it's relatively easy to go for the "conspiracy!" shout, constituents would normally rest their faith in their elected officials in difficult times, see the patriot act during W's tenure or FDR's 4 terms if an example is needed.

[FaultyMario]

Hopefully some sensible politics will come out of last month's mandate referendum.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Unspoilered; that was literally exactly my point. Destabilising an economy doesn't need military intervention. The effects can be the same.

As usual, you're talking out of your poop hole. (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/18/opinion/hillary-clintons-poverty-agenda.html)


You'd know about her poverty initiatives if you had done a modicum of research.

Glad we can agree on one point at least.

With regard to Hillary's poverty agenda, that's very nice, but my point had been when push came to shove, how do you think Hillary will prioritize her agenda? Catering more to the rich or the poor?

Plus, the conservative constituents don't want to be out of jobs and be pushed into poverty and then end up getting handouts from Hillary. That's the probably last thing they'd want.

Finally, as I've stated many times, CA throws more money than any other states addressing poverty but we ending up with more people living under poverty line as result(after adjusting to cost of living). So there's no guarantee that any attempts made to solve the poverty issue will work out. However, I do believe NY is doing a better job than CA, so I'll give that credit to Hillary since she's been a senator there... maybe she has a better solution and implementation. It's just that I wish she didn't give off the perception that she's so cozy with Wall Street, especially during a period when anti-establishment sentiments were high. She should've at least gave the impression that she's cozying up with main street more. That was a miscalculation on her part I think. I do think most sane people didn't expect the crazy pussy grabbing orangutan to win..., I personally didn't expect Trump to win either... but hey... people don't always make rational decisions.

[neanderthal]

Glad we can agree on one point at least.

With regard to Hillary's poverty agenda, that's very nice, but my point had been when push came to shove, how do you think Hillary will prioritize her agenda? Catering more to the rich or the poor?

Plus, the conservative constituents don't want to be out of jobs and be pushed into poverty and then end up getting handouts from Hillary. That's the probably last thing they'd want.

Finally, as I've stated many times, CA throws more money than any other states addressing poverty but we ending up with more people living under poverty line as result(after adjusting to cost of living). So there's no guarantee that any attempts made to solve the poverty issue will work out. However, I do believe NY is doing a better job than CA, so I'll give that credit to Hillary since she's been a senator there... maybe she has a better solution and implementation. It's just that I wish she didn't give off the perception that she's so cozy with Wall Street, especially during a period when anti-establishment sentiments were high. She should've at least gave the impression that she's cozying up with main street more. That was a miscalculation on her part I think. I do think most sane people didn't expect the crazy pussy grabbing orangutan to win..., I personally didn't expect Trump to win either... but hey... people don't always make rational decisions.

That's an idiotic take. I was going to debate it it point by point but decided it's a flaming bag of poop.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Oh good, now Billi is a deep-state conspiracy theorist.

Can you really explain to me why W and Obama ended up making the same or similar seemingly evil foreign policy decisions?

I'd be happy to not be a deep-state conspiracy theorist if you can explain that to me.

With regard to Latin America, most ordinary Americans don't really care about that region. So presidents are not constrained by public opinion. They're usually free to do what's right or what the rich/powerful lobbyists want. Pretty much the rich lobbyists won out every time... even against popular international opinions.

So I think US presidents are pretty much puppet figure heads based on the policy decisions they've made. Here we have blue and red Americans fight to the death trying to figure out who is the lesser of the 2 evils..., in the end, it doesn't really matter. The 'chosen' one will end up doing the will of Senator Palpatine... We are just bunch of storm troopers wear red and blue shades. WTC was our very 1st death star destroyed by the rebels. If we don't make changes and throw the evil emperor down to the dept of abyss like Lord Vader did, soon the strength of the rebel alliance will only grow bigger and the fall of American empire will only be matter of time.

Maybe the force be with us.

[tigeraid]

I don't think it's too far of a stretch to assume the military-industrial complex, and Wall Street and the big banks, exert so much force on the government that they're really who's running the show. Democrat or Republican, I think they're both behooved to maintain the status quo--the difference is the Republicans brag about maintaining it, while the Democrats claim to "fight it." In some cases they do, but often fail, and in other cases, like Obama's actions in Yemen, might as well be Republican anyway. The whole fucking system is rotten, but at least when Democrats are in power, they put some semblance of effort into DOMESTIC reform (like Obamacare, gay marriage, etc.)

[Crazed_Insanity]

Don't forget about unisex bathrooms! Yes, all death stars are equipped with bunch of those!

[neanderthal]

Not to take away anything from Obama, he lead his country out of troubled times, but most of the problems he inherited came from a poor administration.That really flatters him.
That said, when compared against the average, he kept the empire on its usual course.

This here article summarizes my view, Obama campaigned on Hope, and we hoped for more from him (https://journals.openedition.org/cal/3088).

I think a lot of people forget the gigantor sized shit storm President Obama inherited. It was the economy. It was the war in Afghanistan. It was the occupation of Iraq. It was haemorraghing jobs. It was people being bankrupted because their child got ill. It was the crash of the real estate market. It was the variable rate mortgate loans. It was creating and marketing of junk bonds for those mortgages. It was escalating tension with the rest of the world. It was the plunging stock market and wiping out retirement security for millions of people. It ws the escalating racism and dog whistles now being out in the open (you should have seen the faces of the patrons at the bar when he won, and I ordered a shot, and loudly toasted, to no one in particular "to President Barack Hussein Obama". Yes, I generally don't drink.) It was so many other things. it was an evil octopoda with Medusa for a head and the tentacles, each a giant Anaconda, greedily suffocating the economy, the air we breathe, the climate, our peace of mind, our humanity and our future on this planet. It was evil manifested in real time. (unlike now when its maliciousness manifested in real time.)

People also forget that President Obama dealt with the most recalcitrant Congress. The Worst. Congress. Ever. That they stonewalled his every move, and literally made it their objective to block him at every turn. No pretense at being there to govern and legislate. That he had his own problems at home to deal with. Outside of the shitstorm he inherited outside our borders.

Was he perfect. Fuck no. But no president has ever been given a worse pile of shit and been told "here's the Presidency, tuck in."

I look at at all that and say "damn, homie came through." While you're like "well, he failed South America." And billi is like "he bombed more than Bush." And others, "he failed the middle class and capitulated to the banks." And I marvel at how it's so nice to be removed from so much that your perspective is all that matters.

Obama failed us by not meeting his lofty rhetoric. We (y'all "Obama didn'ts" really, it ain't me) continue to fail him by not seeing the depths from which he rescued us, and the insurmountable resistance he met at every turn, trying to rescue us. You're the guys who got in an accident, were rescued by someone, and are complaining that the person who rescued you had to cut your clothes to stem the bleeding.

I also see y'all setting an extremely high bar for President Obama, while not really expecting anything remotely similar from any other President.

Meanwhile we can accurately say we haven't had a "good" President in the entire history of the United States. :sadbanana:

[Crazed_Insanity]

I don't think any of us has forgotten Obama's good deeds. He definitely inherited the biggest load of crap compared to any other presidents in history...

Still, we are NOT the ones setting up the high bar for him. He was the one setting it up for himself.

The hope he has given us was dashed. You certainly cannot blame some of Obama's evil foreign policies on the worst congress ever. Like I said, perhaps we can blame senator Palpatine twisting his arm. It really made no sense to me why Obama would continue the same crappy W foreign policies.

[MR2 Fan]

I think a lot of people forget the gigantor sized shit storm President Obama inherited. It was the economy. It was the war in Afghanistan. It was the occupation of Iraq. It was haemorraghing jobs. It was people being bankrupted because their child got ill. It was the crash of the real estate market. It was the variable rate mortgate loans. It was creating and marketing of junk bonds for those mortgages. It was escalating tension with the rest of the world. It was the plunging stock market and wiping out retirement security for millions of people. It ws the escalating racism and dog whistles now being out in the open (you should have seen the faces of the patrons at the bar when he won, and I ordered a shot, and loudly toasted, to no one in particular "to President Barack Hussein Obama". Yes, I generally don't drink.) It was so many other things. it was an evil octopoda with Medusa for a head and the tentacles, each a giant Anaconda, greedily suffocating the economy, the air we breathe, the climate, our peace of mind, our humanity and our future on this planet. It was evil manifested in real time. (unlike now when its maliciousness manifested in real time.)

People also forget that President Obama dealt with the most recalcitrant Congress. The Worst. Congress. Ever. That they stonewalled his every move, and literally made it their objective to block him at every turn. No pretense at being there to govern and legislate. That he had his own problems at home to deal with. Outside of the shitstorm he inherited outside our borders.

Was he perfect. Fuck no. But no president has ever[/] been given a worse pile of shit and been told "here's the Presidency, tuck in."

I look at at all that and say "damn, homie came through." While you're like "well, he failed South America." And billi is like "he bombed more than Bush." And others, "he failed the middle class and capitulated to the banks." And I marvel at how it's so nice to be removed from so much that your perspective is all that matters.

Obama failed us by not meeting his lofty rhetoric. We (y'all "Obama didn'ts" really, it ain't me) continue to fail him by not seeing the depths from which he rescued us, and the insurmountable resistance he met at every turn, trying to rescue us. You're the guys who got in an accident, were rescued by someone, and are complaining that the person who rescued you had to cut your clothes to stem the bleeding.

I also see y'all setting an extremely high bar for President Obama, while not really expecting anything remotely similar from any other President.

Meanwhile we can accurately say we haven't had a "good" President in the [b]entire history of the United States. :sadbanana:

QFT

[tigeraid]

Meanwhile we can accurately say we haven't had a "good" President in the entire history of the United States. :sadbanana:


Garfield? :/

[FaultyMario]

Meanwhile we can accurately say we haven't had a "good" President in the entire history of the United States. :sadbanana:

Not since they [you, whoever] took on the role of oppressor. Sure, Obama was "better" for Latam than William Taft or LBJ, but there was no change in promoting (and defending) investments in extractive economic activities. But that is because we were not part of his constituency.

I get it, there are positions of power at all levels and Mr. Obama used his mandate to clean up after a ton of shit had hit the fan. Which is why I'm amused by Trump's incompetence at wielding power. He's busy getting his hands dirty picking up the pennies; the pennies, man! Hillary would have raped us with Negan's baseball bat.

[FaultyMario]

I get it, there are positions of power at all levels and Mr. Obama used his mandate to clean up after a ton of shit had hit the fan. Which is why I'm amused by Trump's incompetence at wielding power.

Yeah, there's also this


I look at at all that and say "damn, homie came through."

Which is also amusing because you ungrateful bastards can't say, "hey thanks homie, owe you one".

[neanderthal]

I don't think any of us has forgotten Obama's good deeds. He definitely inherited the biggest load of crap compared to any other presidents in history...

Still, we are NOT the ones setting up the high bar for him. He was the one setting it up for himself.

The hope he has given us was dashed. You certainly cannot blame some of Obama's evil foreign policies on the worst congress ever. Like I said, perhaps we can blame senator Palpatine twisting his arm. It really made no sense to me why Obama would continue the same crappy W foreign policies.

You're gonna have to do better; tell us exactly what he should have done. Just evacuate Iran and Afghanistan? Do nothing about the humanitarian crisis in Syria? Or send more troops into harms way in Syria? Flip a switch and automagically fix all of South America? Punish the banks and investment firms and ruin their capacity to lend, in a broken economy? Force Medicare for all when the Part D loop wasn't fixed and other issues with it hadnt been resolved? (all while rendering millions of peple jobless in the private health insurance industry!)

Tell us. We will wait.

And give us details, like who would have taken up power in the vacuum if we left Afghanistan, etc.

We will wait for your expert analysis of all of President Obama's shortcomings and how he could have done better, even with a Congress whose mission it was to resist him at every turn.

[neanderthal]

Garfield? :/

Could've passed Civil Rights for blacks, but didnt. He did advocate, i'll give him that.

Remember, we seem to be going for perfect as "good" here; circumstances be damned. Good, competent, and adequate aren't good enough.

[neanderthal]

Not since they [you, whoever] took on the role of oppressor. Sure, Obama was "better" for Latam than William Taft or LBJ, but there was no change in promoting (and defending) investments in extractive economic activities. But that is because we were not part of his constituency.

I get it, there are positions of power at all levels and Mr. Obama used his mandate to clean up after a ton of shit had hit the fan. Which is why I'm amused by Trump's incompetence at wielding power. He's busy getting his hands dirty picking up the pennies; the pennies, man! Hillary would have raped us with Negan's baseball bat.

That's kinda the point; when was the US ever about not oppressing someone, somewhere? At the founding, when they "discovered" (and appropriated) a continent already populated with people until now? Never.

I'm not an advocate or fan of our imperialist economic tendencies, which only serve us.

[tigeraid]

I don't disagree. Perhaps you need a benevolent dictator. :up:

[Crazed_Insanity]

You're gonna have to do better; tell us exactly what he should have done. Just evacuate Iran and Afghanistan? Do nothing abut the humanitarian crisis in Syria? Or send more troops into harms way in Syria? Flip a switch and automagically fix all of South America? Punish the banks and investment firms and ruin their capacity to lend, in a broken economy? Force Medicare for all when the Part D loop wasn't fixed and other issues with it hadnt been resolved? (all while creating millions of peple jobless in the private health insurance industry!)

Tell us. We will wait.

And give us details, like who would have taken up power in the vacuum if we left Afghanistan, etc.

We will wait for your expert analysis of all of President Obama's shortcomings and how he could have done better, even with a Congress whose mission it was to resist him at every turn.

So since we were discussing Latin America earlier on, can we stay on that topic for now?

Did you read the article Mario linked? See all the stuffs in there?

Can you even explain to me why did Obama did those things? Can you tell that he did the wrong things against overwhelming international opinion?

If I were the president, sure, it'd be easy for me to claim that I'd be able to do the right things, but who knows... there's no guarantee that I'd be able to do better than Obama if Senator Palpatine also has a grip on me. Even if there's no Palpatine, I'm not confident enough to claim that I have sufficient competency to actually do better... I might make the world a messier place..., but I think Obama's main problem was that he set our hopes up too high himself... and in the end, he does pretty much the same things W would do was disappointing. Again, not that I'm ungrateful for all that he's done, but hopes dashed usually generate disappointments. Can't expect us to be happy about that.

[neanderthal]

Yeah, there's also this



Which is also amusing because you ungrateful bastards can't say, "hey thanks homie, owe you one".

I'm one of them; I stan.

I will readily admit his faults, but I stan.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I don't disagree. Perhaps you need a benevolent dictator. :up:

The Benevolent Dictator has been Jesus Christ, but He is on his way out though according to latest surveys...

[neanderthal]

So since we were discussing Latin America earlier on, can we stay on that topic for now?

Did you read the article Mario linked? See all the stuffs in there?

Can you even explain to me why did Obama did those things? Can you tell that he did the wrong things?

If I were the president, sure, it'd be easy for me to claim that I'd be able to do the right things, but who knows... there's no guarantee that I'd be able to do better than Obama if Senator Palpatine also has a grip on me.

Yes, lets stay on point because you are misdirecting.

What should President Obama have done? Tell us.