Trump General Discussion VII

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http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/12/1...ar-detained-cbp-phone-search-trump-travel-ban

Bikkannavar says he was detained by US Customs and Border Patrol and pressured to give the CBP agents his phone and access PIN. Since the phone was issued by NASA, it may have contained sensitive material that wasn’t supposed to be shared. Bikkannavar’s phone was returned to him after it was searched by CBP, but he doesn’t know exactly what information officials might have taken from the device.
 
"Sorry honey, but you can't have your spaghetti with tomato sauce tonight. See, the tomato pickers had to leave the fields, lest we deport them. And I really wasn't in a position to pay a buck more for the sauce, so American workers were out of the question. Yes, of course I could've fought for higher wages, but you have to understand, that's bloody socialism, and that will be our downfall."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers
 
And he's a US born citizen. Very disturbing that they're detaining US citizens until they give up their phone PINs.



If this turns out to be true, then sure hope someone on the right, ANYONE speaks out.


But there is something about the phone story that makes me question what's going on here. If this was truly a NASA issued phone then 1) there is no expected privacy, and 2) they would have access without a PIN.
 
If this turns out to be true, then sure hope someone on the right, ANYONE speaks out.


But there is something about the phone story that makes me question what's going on here. If this was truly a NASA issued phone then 1) there is no expected privacy, and 2) they would have access without a PIN.

It looks like they found out it was NASA-owned after he mentioned it. Government devices are typically well protected with encryption, pins, etc.
 
It looks like they found out it was NASA-owned after he mentioned it. Government devices are typically well protected with encryption, pins, etc.



Which would just speak to the atrocious way this order was put together if they're running into issues like this.


If this turns out to be true then every one of you Trump supporters that used to claim "small government" and "big brother" I expect to speak out, and I will hold your feet to fire until you do.
 
Yeah, this is definitely one of the stupidest ideas yet. So much for that "limited government" that the GOP just LOVES to claim they support.

I also love the insinuation that a child is only "legitimate" if they're brought into the family in a "traditional" way. 'Cause calling a child illegitimate isn't an insult to them and their family, and won't mess them up mentally and emotionally at all, apparently.



You know what's next. Tenesssee couple brings their kid to the local Jesus school, after the state is only too happy to go along with some future insane DeVos pro-religious charter school insanity, and prior to enrollment the school is like "now here on the form, you didn't check the box saying your child was conceived in the missionary position, if he wasn't, then he is not legitimate and cannot attend our school."
 
...wow...

Fuck that jackass.

You know what's next. Tenesssee couple brings their kid to the local Jesus school, after the state is only too happy to go along with some future insane DeVos pro-religious charter school insanity, and prior to enrollment the school is like "now here on the form, you didn't check the box saying your child was conceived in the missionary position, if he wasn't, then he is not legitimate and cannot attend our school."

Honestly wouldn't surprise me one bit, this scenario.
 
Trump's Merica:

Bigoted Valentine card causes uproar, anger at CMU student group

It's the Trump double edge, bigoted and historically inaccurate.

Keep telling yourself bigotry had nothing to do with this election, go ahead, keep telling yourself that.
While I obviously agree that bigotry played a part in Trump's election, stupid frat bros have been doing stupid frat bro things for a long time, so I can't blame this on President Agent Orange.
 
While I obviously agree that bigotry played a part in Trump's election, stupid frat bros have been doing stupid frat bro things for a long time, so I can't blame this on President Agent Orange.



True, but I keep hearing from Trumpets the feeling of emboldenment they have to be themselves now without the fear of having to be "pc".

I hope more and more expose themselves for who they are.
 
True, but I keep hearing from Trumpets the feeling of emboldenment they have to be themselves now without the fear of having to be "pc".

I hope more and more expose themselves for who they are.
I agree with that, but at the same time if everything complain and blame everything on Trump, the real stuff gets lost. It's pretty much part of their strategy; flood the airwaves so they can sneak things by
 
There are now daily reports of refugees crossing the border into Canada in the middle of winter. Over 20 in a Manitoba border town, more in Winnipeg (their centres say they have no more capacity), some 40+ into Quebec. It's -20Celsius, these people are walking through miles of fields with knee- or ass-deep snow. One man (I think from Ghana?) lost all his fingers except the thumbs due to frostbite.

I would say this is deeply shameful if you are an American but my guess is the Trump supporters are more of a "good riddance" sort.

So maybe we should build a wall and make Trump pay for it?
 
It's so insane I can't even really get my brain to acknowledge it as a real thing.

First, this is one of the things I'm trying to point out to you (and may have done so poorly, and if so I certainly apologize. I know excuses are for nothing, but I did work about 80 hours last week, and I may have been coming off more aggressively than intended.) : I think your heart is absolutely in the right place, and I know that you care and want change, but like Vlad, you're trying to put text book definitions onto the American political system, which just doesn't work. In reality, no, Kasich is not a centrist. In America? He is. And I realize you want that to change, that you want America to be a place where the far left is seen as normal, like in a lot of the rest of the Western world, but to get to that point, I don't think you help when your rhetoric can occasionally come off as, 'burn it down and Fuck anyone who doesn't agree!' (exaggerating). You have a vision, and that's great. It's just not everyone else's vision, especially in a country that tries to prize itself as being a democracy. To that point: obviously we're failing in that regard right now, to give the people what they want, and the only cure for that is my big three: Reevaluation of the EC, an end to Gerrymandering and Publicly funded elections. So for that reason, I'm always going to vote D or 3rd party until someone fixes it. I have no faith that the Reps will, so most of my saying, 'I'd vote for [insert Republican here] is bullshit and I know it inside. I just try so hard to listen to both sides, but in the end I have an issue that's so important to me, I'd put away almost any of my other beliefs to vote for. Which of course makes me sound like a hypocrite for being angry with Trump voters, but in my defense, I'm a human being. I also feel the size and scope of the issue I am passionate about is so overarchingly important to the future of our country, I feel excused in finding it more important than how one feels about someone else's decision to have an abortion.

As to Kasich, I preface by saying, I don't want to continue to live in the past of this election cycle. As much as I'm tired of hearing, Bernie was cheated, or Hillary messed up by blank, at the end of the day it no longer matters and is over. Hopefully the DNC watched and learned. Well find out next year.

Now to answer your question: Kasich's economic plan, while showing some similarities to Trump's, shows some signs of reform I can get behind. Parsing some government programs down and reshifting, a Reevaluation of the tax code, a focus on balance, etc. I don't like his willingness to increase military spending, but I have already stated, I trust the guy economically, so I'd be more willing to wait and see how his policies would work out.

On education, he and I see pretty much eye to eye, and this is another hot button issue for me, just not to that level.

On women's health care, this is where you and I bumped heads before. Yes, he defunded planned parenthood in Ohio. He also filled the gaps in alternative options for the other important health services that PP provides for women. The reason I think we need to move away from PP isn't because I'm prolife, but because I think liberals and PP have done more harm than good by making the issue so thoroughly about abortions and not being as vocal about what else Planned Parenthood has to offer. There's no fixing the image there and as a result it might be better to replace it. I also don't hate the idea of letting states find their own way of handling it, along as there are guidelines such an organization is to observe. He also put his money where his mouth is on being pro-LIFE and has done real good with the adoption process, which I respect.

I fucking hate his views on gun control. It's my biggest Kasich turn off and I also hate the rhetoric.

His rhetoric (yes, yes, you're right there, I do appreciate his rhetoric) on Healthcare seems promising and I LOVE his focus on preventative care rather than reactionary. With guidance he could have a decent alternative to the problem of health in America, and fixing the problem at the root (the health care system is greedy as hell) is a path worth pursuing.

I don't like his plans to increase military spending, as I said, but his plans i/r/t national security seem far more promising than anything else I've heard from the right: be stronger allies, stand up to Russia (hahahah), focusing on the war of ideas and actually talking positively about refugees and this quote from his site is so refreshing in the wake of what we got, even if it's probably half bullshit



He also approves of the Keystone pipeline. The way it is now, I don't. We don't agree there at all. But he's also open to researching new goals for energy production, focusing on clean energy (because he cares about climate change, holy shit I still can't believe we ended up with Trump good God.) and exploring a happy medium with regulations vs production to allow innovation to grow. I'm OK with that. So mostly I like his energy policies. I don't know how he feels about fraking which is a biggie no for me, I'm sure he's all for it, so we're a miss there, but again, we're talking by and large, and understanding he was not my first pick, this is a hypothetical.

Finally, building off the last point, he really does seem to care about innovation and pushing for technological growth, which is also pivotal in improving our world.

What else, I think those are the big ones. He and I don't agree on a lot, but overall, I'm OK with a lot of his smaller government plans, because he seems to have great support ideas in place to ensure the states can provide for their people on a smaller more personal scale, while also giving support and guidance necessary to make sure the people are taken care of.

The end. (I wrote all of this on my phone and wanted to kill something by the end)
I don't have time to read through this whole thing at the moment but I want to first say that I appreciate the thoroughness of your response. Will follow up later.
 
There are now daily reports of refugees crossing the border into Canada in the middle of winter. Over 20 in a Manitoba border town, more in Winnipeg (their centres say they have no more capacity), some 40+ into Quebec. It's -20Celsius, these people are walking through miles of fields with knee- or ass-deep snow. One man (I think from Ghana?) lost all his fingers except the thumbs due to frostbite.

It seems that part of the reason they aren't using official crossings is the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement. Wonder if that will be amended.
 
I like this comment from somebody on that article:

Nothing screams 'man of the people' like decamping to an expensive dining room filled with people who paid six figures to be there, at a palatial resort that you own.

Seriously, can people quit with this "Trump's a man of the people" bullshit already? He's proven time and again how blatantly untrue that is.

Add in the chilling reminder on John Oliver's show last night that Trump is totally ignorant about all things related to nuclear warheads and that makes that article even more disturbing.

Just once I would love to hear one of the Trump supporters here actually acknowledge these issues, and either explain why we shouldn't be concerned, since they seem to think he's doing such a great job, or better yet, actually admit that, yes, this is a massively stupid and risky thing Trump is doing. I'd love to hear them actually acknowledge he's doing something wrong. But sadly, I'm not going to hold my breath on that.

On that note, saw this op-ed online earlier, and it seems a fitting tie-in:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/...version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

But let me not be too hard on the Tweeter-in-chief: disdain for expertise is general in his party. For example, the most influential Republican economists aren’t serious academics with a conservative bent, of whom there are many; they’re known hacks who literally can’t get a number right.

Or consider the current G.O.P. panic over health care. Many in the party seem shocked to learn that repealing any major part of Obamacare will cause tens of millions to lose insurance. Anyone who studied the issue could have told them years ago how the pieces of health reform fit together, and why. In fact, many of us did, repeatedly. But competent analysis wasn’t wanted.

And that is, of course, the point. Competent lawyers might tell you that your Muslim ban is unconstitutional; competent scientists that climate change is real; competent economists that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves; competent voting experts that there weren’t millions of illegal ballots; competent diplomats that the Iran deal makes sense, and Putin is not your friend. So competence must be excluded.

At this point, someone is bound to say, “If they’re so dumb, how come they won?” Part of the answer is that disdain for experts — sorry, “so-called” experts — resonates with an important part of the electorate. Bigotry wasn’t the only dark force at work in the election; so was anti-intellectualism, hostility toward “elites” who claim that opinions should be based on careful study and thought.

Also, campaigning is very different from governing. This is especially true when the news media spend far more time obsessing over your opponent’s pseudo-scandals than they do on all actual policy issues combined.
 
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I thought this was interesting. I think the title might indicate a harsher piece than it actually comes off. I do not like to tell women their business, nor do I like to make broad statements about groups of people, so I think it is appropriate for this article to be written by a woman about other women.

https://newrepublic.com/article/140248/failures-mainstream-feminism-misogyny-doom-hillary-clinton

The root of the problem is that feminism has abandoned its core insight. Radical feminists traditionally believed that the patriarchy was inextricably intertwined with capitalism: that the entire structure of our society was based on the exploitation of the poor, women, and nonwhite races. The liberation of women entailed nothing less than the overthrow of old systems based on competition, greed, and power.

There is still a radical wing in feminism. Every day, activists and organizers are working to improve women’s access to family planning services, mounting nonprofit efforts to counteract the steady rollback of the welfare state, and combating the neoliberal policy consensus that consigns women—and men and children—to acute conditions of inequality and precariousness. But all that slow, thankless work has been eclipsed by the more prominent voices of mainstream feminism.

To reclaim the truly radical spirit of American feminism, we should call mainstream feminists something more anodyne: “pro-woman.” The designation seems fitting, since mainstream feminists work to shore up the status quo, seeking equal access to the system of oppression.
 
PhilsFan - that's a very interesting article and probably deserves a thread of its own. It's nothing groundbreaking or new, I've had this discussion many times with fellow professional women and it's something that will continue to be an issue. Lots of loaded content there but the basic premise does make sense and does bear out in reality.
 
[tweet]830789017507610624[/tweet]

Weird interview, the guy's a robot.
Don't know if the videos showing, sorry I'm posting this on my phone.
 
Just a blue collar billionaire, with a 5th grade vocabulary, and the emotional intellect of a 7 year old :up:

Children make things great all the time, I have some macaroni art on my fridge to prove it.
 
Weird interview, the guy's a robot.

These guys take the whole "repeat a falsehood enough and people will think it's true" thing to a whole new level. And plenty of people are eating it up, nodding their intellectually lazy heads along in perfect sync, unaware that they're being played for fools.
 
Kellyann: 7 million illegal activist judges were bussed into Bowling Green to vote for the massacre. No one denies this.

Oregoropa: I think she just forgot a word.
 
I saw a relative comment on someone's FB thing with something along the lines of "... and they continue to deny voter fraud exists!"

UGH.

Okay. It exists. Yes, people commit voter fraud. BUT a) not nearly on the scale the GOP would have you believe; and b) those who do commit voter fraud aren't all voting democrat. (See recent example of deported undocumented woman who voted red.)

It drives me up the wall.
 
[tweet]830789017507610624[/tweet]

Weird interview, the guy's a robot.
Don't know if the videos showing, sorry I'm posting this on my phone.



not weird, terrifying. it's what happens when thugs and zealots and those unbothered by the responsibilities of thought and reason take over. it's why i freaked out about torture so many years ago -- when thugs smell blood in the water, an opening, they take it. and when they gain power they have no other purpose than to increase the power that they have. these are the kinds of people who are attracted to a Trump, who want to work for a Trump, and who view Trump as admirable.

this is lies on an entirely different level than we saw with the Bushes and the Clintons and even Nixon. and it has a point -- when you deny the existence of reality itself, you create paralysis. we must all acknowledge our shared reality, or else liberal democracy will collapse, and more power will be conceded to the thugs now in charge.

it's all so fucking Soviet.
 
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