Trump General Discussion VI

[shineon]

I did read something that made sense to me and was a bit reassuring. The writer stated that Trump has already made America great again, but not for the reasons you might think. The reason why he's made America great again is that we should have been marching awhile back: when the bankers were bailed out, when we lost our 401k's, when Flint happened. We are belatedly waking up to a national crisis, and we are perhaps a better country for this awakening.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Let's all be clear with these O'Reilly Trump comments. Trump is dismissing Putin being a killer, Putin murders political opponents. Trump is shrugging this Off!

Supporting these sorts of figures has always been a staple of US foreign policy, why would it be any different now?

 

[DaveC]

exactly. putin is exactly the kind of wannabe autocrat the usa has supported everywhere on earth since world war 2 ended. this is not all that new, really.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Let's talk about Erdogan, for instance.

 

[kiwilad]

Ok, it's taken me days to catch up with this thread but I finally have.
Hello bloodysunday. Thanks for explaining your Trump vote. I appreciate the insight.
As BVS has repeated this isn't a gun thread but I want to take you up on a comment made days ago re NZ gun control. Yes, you can own a gun here. With a license. However you can't carry in public places. Cops don't carry. Yes there is gun crime, yes there are massacres. I know of one 20 years ago. Perhaps there have been more since then I've forgotten about.
What you're doing is incredibly conceited. To imply any alternative to the current situation (and your oft-repeated background checks) is terrible is, well, bonkers. To imply what exists in NZ, Australia and other countries is an overreaction is also bonkers. I have zero fear, zero, of gun crime in NZ. That's nit an exaggeration. Zero fear.
I also have zero fear of being eaten by a lion escaped from a zoo. Though I guess it could happen...

Re Trump, my beef is simply priorities. I abhor hatred. Bullying. People being disadvantaged because of race, gender etc. The march towards irradiating such behaviour is more important to me than the things you seem to have voted for Trump for.
Simply put, you have prioritized Trump's slogans as being more important than basic human rights.

Which, no matter how calmly you speak or how measured you write, makes me think very poorly of you.

 

[mama cass]

We would absolutely love for you to come to Canada

hehe thanks i do love Canada, have lots of family there, and visited many years ago as a kid... my son's long-term plan is to move there, so maybe we should just follow him over there anyway haha

there is a big and vibrant french community here in toronto. i'm sure in quebec, even more so. you'd be very welcome here, cass.

that's so lovely! two of our local towns have cultural/education connections with Quebec, and my daughter's university has a student exchange with Quebec, so she is hoping to apply for that in a couple of years... it is so tempting - will really have to look into it...

If you have a job offer in Canada it's not that difficult to get in. Otherwise it's the points system, but the wait is longer if no job offer in hand.

thanks anitram! i worry we might be a bit too old (mid 40s/early 50s) if we went via the points system... but work wise, i work freelance, have an established client base and can work pretty much anywhere as long as i have an internet connection... i will look into self-employment over there - surely can't be as bad as it is in France lol... the thought of a big move, upping sticks and starting again, is pretty daunting though - have done it a fair few times, and finally feels like "home" here, but if the extreme right kick off here, i'm not sure we could stay... so definitely something to think about...

 

[mama cass]

#figurehead

wtf?!

 

[Vincent Vega]

I enjoy sleeping in. The 9th Circuit is a bit of an outlier in its judicial activism. Onto SCOTUS we go.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

Judicial activism. That's an interesting phrasing.
You are sliding into legitimising outright authoritarianism so quickly, you don't even realize it. But you wouldn't be the first to have done so. Countless examples exist, some contemporary, some past. And it works every time again, because too many people are thinking "Not in this time" or "Not in this country", or "Well, he is perfectly right with what he is doing here." And here, and here, and here, and here... until all these single things which seemed so righteous reveal themselves as truly awful not only for those who opposed from the beginning, but also those who initially supported it.



What a lovely fella'

The Post piece—which notes that the Trump administration has decided not to appoint a deputy secretary of state for management, giving the sole remaining deputy an enormous amount of influence over both policy and management issues—observes that Abrams was forced to plead guilty to deliberately misleading Congress regarding his nefarious role in the Iran-contra scandal.

As assistant secretary of state for human rights, Abrams sought to ensure that General Efraín Ríos Montt, Guatemala’s then-dictator, could carry out “acts of genocide”—those are the legally binding words of Guatemala’s United Nations–backed Commission for Historical Clarification—against the indigenous people in the Ixil region of the department of Quiché, without any pesky interference from human-rights organizations, much less the US government.

As the mass killings were taking place, Abrams fought in Congress for military aid to Ríos Montt’s bloody regime. He credited the murderous dictator with having “brought considerable progress” on human-rights issues. Abrams even went so far as to insist that “the amount of killing of innocent civilians is being reduced step by step” before demanding that Congress provide the regime with advanced arms because its alleged “progress need[ed] to be rewarded and encouraged.”

Promoted to assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, Abrams repeatedly denounced the continued protests by organizations seeking to call attention to the mass murders of both Ríos Montt and the no less bloodthirsty President Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo, who came to power fewer than three years later. In one village during the latter’s reign, “the army herded the entire population into the courthouse, raped the women, beheaded the men, and took the children outside to smash them to death against rocks,” according to Inevitable Revolutions, Walter LaFeber’s classic history of the United States in Central America. At the time, a leader of the Guatemalan Mutual Support Group (an organization of mothers of the disappeared), her brother, and her 3-year-old son were found dead in their wrecked car. Abrams not only supported the nonsensical official explanation (there was “no evidence indicating other than that the deaths were due to an accident”), he also denounced a spokeswoman for the group who demanded an investigation, insisting that she had “no right to call herself a human rights worker.” When The New York Times published an op-ed challenging the official State Department count of the mass murders under way—by a woman who had witnessed a death-squad-style assassination in broad daylight in Guatemala City without ever seeing it mentioned in the press—Abrams lied outright in a letter to the editor, even citing an imaginary story in a nonexistent newspaper to insist that the man’s murder had, in fact, been reported.

https://www.thenation.com/article/a...minal-may-become-our-second-ranking-diplomat/

 

[bloodysunday972]

Let's talk about Erdogan, for instance.

That one is more of an alliance for mutual benefit. He may be a killer but as long as he says he supports our foreign policy we are OK with him.

Kinda funny the way our politics works with other countries. Turkey is one of those I just don't get sometimes.

 

[bloodysunday972]

Ok, it's taken me days to catch up with this thread but I finally have.
Hello bloodysunday. Thanks for explaining your Trump vote. I appreciate the insight.
As BVS has repeated this isn't a gun thread but I want to take you up on a comment made days ago re NZ gun control. Yes, you can own a gun here. With a license. However you can't carry in public places. Cops don't carry. Yes there is gun crime, yes there are massacres. I know of one 20 years ago. Perhaps there have been more since then I've forgotten about.
What you're doing is incredibly conceited. To imply any alternative to the current situation (and your oft-repeated background checks) is terrible is, well, bonkers. To imply what exists in NZ, Australia and other countries is an overreaction is also bonkers. I have zero fear, zero, of gun crime in NZ. That's nit an exaggeration. Zero fear.
I also have zero fear of being eaten by a lion escaped from a zoo. Though I guess it could happen...

Re Trump, my beef is simply priorities. I abhor hatred. Bullying. People being disadvantaged because of race, gender etc. The march towards irradiating such behaviour is more important to me than the things you seem to have voted for Trump for.
Simply put, you have prioritized Trump's slogans as being more important than basic human rights.

Which, no matter how calmly you speak or how measured you write, makes me think very poorly of you.

Kiwi with respect you can think whatever you want of me. That is your opinion. Ironically enough I have another friend who is former NZDF and has a massive gun collection and shoots quite regularly. I've been made fully aware of the laws in NZ and the costs involved......While better than Australia they are still insane.....Still better though. I want to get away from the gun control topic because this isn't the place for it. It came up because I feel the 2nd is important and Trump had a pro 2nd platform unlike Hillary so it was one of the reasons I voted for him.

I've stated why I voted for Trump but I have no problem voting against him in 2020 if he doesn't do a good job. Its a shaky start but he has done some good things as well.

In regards to the judge blocking the order I have a feeling we will see a lot of this because it was part of President Obama's game plan to stack the deck of the lower courts with liberal judges. They would have gone to the Supreme Court but well....That ain't gonna happen now.

 

[cobl04]

What really fucking disappoints me about people like Oregoropa is I really thought they had actual principles. I really thought these conservatives were, even if I didn't agree with them, still just that: conservatives.

I may not have agreed with David Cameron, but I think he epitomised what a modern conservative should be: humble, willing to admit when he was wrong, open to new ideas: "I don't support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative, I support gay marriage because I am a conservative".

But so many of them have shown themselves for what they really are: nationalist populists who have a flimsy excuse ready when they're asked if, and why, they support Trump's actions and quotes.

I am very obviously a bleeding heart leftie, but I always did have a begrudging respect for conservatives who were principled. Not prone to or moved by childish hype. At least they are true to themselves.

But nearly every single one of them is now just a Trump echo, acting like schoolgirls when a cute new boy starts at school, falling over themselves to praise Trump, to use his phrases.

I thought you guys had your principles. It's really fucking sad to learn that's not the case. You all put up a facade and as soon as Trump came along we learned who you really are.

 

[Babydoll]

I'd like it if you responded to my posts on the previous page, bloodysunday. I like a good, intellectual debate.

 

[BVS]

In regards to the judge blocking the order I have a feeling we will see a lot of this because it was part of President Obama's game plan to stack the deck of the lower courts with liberal judges. They would have gone to the Supreme Court but well....That ain't gonna happen now.

Nice try. It was a Bush appointed judge.

But don't let facts get in the way, it's obvious you're going to do anything to justify and normalize this administration. Pathetic.

 

[BVS]

judicial activism. That's an interesting phrasing.

You are sliding into legitimising outright authoritarianism so quickly, you don't even realize it. But you wouldn't be the first to have done so. Countless examples exist, some contemporary, some past. And it works every time again, because too many people are thinking "not in this time" or "not in this country", or "well, he is perfectly right with what he is doing here." and here, and here, and here, and here... Until all these single things which seemed so righteous reveal themselves as truly awful not only for those who opposed from the beginning, but also those who initially supported it.

this

 

[BVS]

I've noticed recently the disturbing lengths Trump supporters are going to to normalize and legitimize his behavior and Bannon's agenda.

We've seen in here a rewriting of everything Orwellian so that it can't apply to the right. Then I saw recently they are blaming Google for rewriting the definition of fascism to include 'far right' in its meaning. They're completely redefining the political spectrum. And now we are seeing people who's educational extent of the law is having watched an episode of Law & Order attacking the legislative branch as a whole.

It's scary. I think for some they've just fallen in line, others I think may see it on a subconscious level, and others have always wanted this.

 

[Salome]

We've seen in here a rewriting of everything Orwellian so that it can't apply to the right.

Speaking of Orwell. This is a very good read:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...ves-to-death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley

 

[BVS]

If I don't like it, it's fake:

 

[BVS]

Speaking of Orwell. This is a very good read:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...ves-to-death-neil-postman-trump-orwell-huxley

Excellent.

 

[Salome]

If I don't like it, it's fake:

View attachment 11081

Come on BVS
Bow to your all-knowing leader

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I've noticed recently the disturbing lengths Trump supporters are going to to normalize and legitimize his behavior and Bannon's agenda.

We've seen in here a rewriting of everything Orwellian so that it can't apply to the right. Then I saw recently they are blaming Google for rewriting the definition of fascism to include 'far right' in its meaning. They're completely redefining the political spectrum. And now we are seeing people who's educational extent of the law is having watched an episode of Law & Order attacking the legislative branch as a whole.

It's scary. I think for some they've just fallen in line, others I think may see it on a subconscious level, and others have always wanted this.

It feels like there's been a clear further drift to the right, with a normalisation of political stances that wouldn't have been as 'open' in the fairly recent past.

 

[BVS]

What really fucking disappoints me about people like Oregoropa is I really thought they had actual principles. I really thought these conservatives were, even if I didn't agree with them, still just that: conservatives.

I may not have agreed with David Cameron, but I think he epitomised what a modern conservative should be: humble, willing to admit when he was wrong, open to new ideas: "I don't support gay marriage in spite of being a conservative, I support gay marriage because I am a conservative".

But so many of them have shown themselves for what they really are: nationalist populists who have a flimsy excuse ready when they're asked if, and why, they support Trump's actions and quotes.

I am very obviously a bleeding heart leftie, but I always did have a begrudging respect for conservatives who were principled. Not prone to or moved by childish hype. At least they are true to themselves.

But nearly every single one of them is now just a Trump echo, acting like schoolgirls when a cute new boy starts at school, falling over themselves to praise Trump, to use his phrases.

I thought you guys had your principles. It's really fucking sad to learn that's not the case. You all put up a facade and as soon as Trump came along we learned who you really are.

I agree and as I've said several times, Trump has made the last 8 years of Tea Partiers screaming "conservative principles" completely null and void. It's as if the tea party never happened, they voted for someone who IS everything they accused Obama of, on top of that they've all forgot that they protested. They remember accepting Obama and giving him a chance. So apparently they were all just drunk for 8 years, and this is their hangover.

And I do think this disappointment applies to some in here, I don't think this applies to Oregoropa. And this isn't meant as an attack, I'm not calling him unprincipled. I could be wrong, but I don't remember him pretending to be 'a return to conservative principles' tea party type. I think he's just a Republican through and through that got swept up in the populist bs.

 

[PhilsFan]

I was away for a few days so I'm kind of digging back into something here, but I wanted to address something.

What does my race have to do with it? You know your statement about America first being similar to Nazi slogans? When you ask me my race you do know you are being racist by your statement? It doesn't need to be dragged down to that level. Although it doesn't matter I am of Polish & Irish descent.

"You're being the real racist" is laughable. Grow up.

The reason I knew you were a white man after that post was because only white men can "give a chance" to someone like Trump without it being that big of a deal. Your rights are not in danger. Women are in danger of losing rights. So are minority races. The only ones who Trump won't come for are white men.

You say "give him a chance" and if it doesn't work someone else will get to vote, as if him being the wrong pick doesn't have a very real, last impact over the next four years. But white men can get away with thinking like that because they're the one group who will go largely unaffected under Trump.

That's why I brought it up. And it's not dragging the discourse down or being racist to you to point that out. It's called white privilege, and if you deny its existence, you are simply misinformed.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

@realDonaldTrump: I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!

Somebody's being a cranky baby over the Bannon reports.

 

[anitram]

Judicial activism = judges making rulings you disagree with.

bloodysunday's completely false and absurd claim that the reason this judge voted against Trump was because Obama stacked the courts with liberal justices is a great example of total ignorance and parroting what he probably heard from his media sources. When the judge was a George W. Bush appointee (must have been that flaming communist Dick Cheney who had a hand in this). It's just so embarrassing and worse yet is the absolute lack of shame in saying such ignorant things.

Trump is definitely coming unhinged over the Bannon thing. He should be pounded on this day in and day out. He can't take it.

 

[PhilsFan]

Somebody's being a cranky baby over the Bannon reports.

His tweets like this are usually direct responses to morning news reports. Sure enough, MSNBC had a report this morning questioning if Bannon was "calling the shots" for Trump.

 

[anitram]

Yes, he's made it perfectly clear he likes to watch MSNBC in the morning (particularly Morning Joe).

I saw a bit of that moron Congressman Chris Collins on CNN early this morning. I guess he's the only one available to shill for Trump before sunlight. Even he seemed mentally constipated over having to defend Trump's commentary about American killers and his line of reasoning was predictable yet funny - that the unfair media pushes and pushes and pushes the Donald until he's unable to take it anymore and then he blurts out something that maybe isn't elegant. When asked if this was a gotcha interview, he said well maybe that part was a gotcha piece. So there you have it, Bill O'Reilly of Fox News is now doing gotcha pieces on the president. Brilliant.

 

[TheFox]

The stupid thing about his latest Twitter rant is the nationwide election polls were generally correct, Clinton won by around 2-3%.
He's mentally unravelling and at this rate won't last 4years, his lack of self awareness for a 70 year old man is also incredible.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i have no doubt that yes, he can last 4 years like this - because he's lasted 70 years like this.

this is who he is.

 

[TheFox]

i have no doubt that yes, he can last 4 years like this - because he's lasted 70 years like this.

this is who he is.

Not as president though. The negative pressure clearly is driving him mad.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Yeah, he just likes the power and fame that comes with being president. He sure as hell doesn't seem interested in actually doing or understanding all the work that comes with it.