Draining The Swamp
POSTED BY: SHINYGOODGUY
UPDATED: Friday, June 13, 2025 02:56
VIEWED: 32933
PAGE 1 of 3
I must admit I did not think that Donald J. Trump would ever reach the White House. Never in a million years would I have ever guessed it. Well, it shows how dumb I am.
I mostly loathe the Salamander-in-Chief, mainly because he's a slimebag, but personal feelings aside, he has done a masterful job at keeping his campaign promises. He's done so well in most, whoop-de-doo! but I would like to focus your attention to the topic of the thread at hand, namely:
Draining the Swamp.
Tom Price, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, lovely man and rotten scumbag:
Wasting taxpayer's money - uses PRIVATE JETS to fly about the country at the cost of an estimated $400,000 in five months. His predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, in 8 years in office, took one such flight to visit 3 remote villages in Alaska. Price took one such trip from D.C. to Philly costing $25,000.00 - One flight. Now that is very "swampy."
SGG
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Gary Cohn, now Director of the National Economic Council, Is Giving Goldman Sachs Everything It Ever Wanted From the Trump Administration
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/17/goldman-sachs-gary-cohn-donald-tru
mp-administration/
Trump was dumbfounded. “Is this true?” he asked. Was a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan likely to increase the deficit by a trillion dollars? Confronted by nodding heads, an unhappy president-elect said, “Why did I have to wait to have this guy tell me?”
Goldman Sachs had been a favorite cudgel for candidate Trump — the symbol of a government that favors Wall Street over its citizenry. Trump proclaimed that Hillary Clinton was in the firm’s pockets, as was Ted Cruz. It was Goldman Sachs that Trump singled out when he railed against a system rigged in favor of the global elite — one that “robbed our working class, stripped our country of wealth, and put money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.” Cohn, as president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, had been at the heart of it all. Aggressive and relentless, a former aluminum siding salesman and commodities broker with a nose for making money, Cohn had turned Goldman’s sleepy home loan unit into what a Senate staffer called “one of the largest mortgage trading desks in the world.” There, he aggressively pushed his sales team to sell mortgage-backed securities to unaware investors even as he watched over “the big short,” Goldman’s decision to bet billions of dollars that the market would collapse.
Now Cohn would be coordinating economic policy for the populist president. Cohn ran a giant investment bank with offices in financial capitals around the globe, one deeply committed to a world with few economic borders. Trump’s nationalist campaign contradicted everything Goldman Sachs and its top executives represented on the global stage.
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So are we moving toward: 2% of the people will control 90% of the money?
How did we get here?
How the Right Lost Its Mind and Embraced Donald Trump
http://www.newsweek.com/2017/09/29/right-lost-mind-embraced-donald-tru
mp-668180.html
While I was bemoaning that he'd won the election & was totally
unsuitable, a friend of mine told me that the GOP had gone nuts.
He blamed religion, though.
I feel that DJT will soon offend most of the Republicans.
Conservatives don't like to look so foolish, do they?
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
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LOL... well if we're just going to pretend that one party is the end of days for everybody else and the other party is a symbol of all that is good and right in the world then there is no debate to be had here.
I want to agree with you guys on things. I don't like being in the position of defending the establishment. It's not the side I'm usually on.
You sure don't make it easy though.
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6STRINGJOKER: "...and the other party is a symbol of all that is good and right in the world..."
Obviously, you're not addressing me. I didn't mention "the other party."
If you do address me, please don't try to put words in my mouth
or thoughts in my head. It's both rude & inaccurate.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
6STRINGJOKER: "...and the other party is a symbol of all that is good and right in the world..."
Obviously, you're not addressing me. I didn't mention "the other party."
If you do address me, please don't try to put words in my mouth
or thoughts in my head. It's both rude & inaccurate.
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Really?
Quote:
How did we get here?
The rest of your post then had "the Right", "GOP", "Republicans" and "Conservatives" in it. Stating that they have lost their mind, debating whether or not it was because of religion, and saying somewhat sarcastically that they don't like looking foolish.
Maybe you didn't use the phrase "the other side", but you used every available word for them in just a few short sentences, and you're obviously not on that side.
What exactly do you object to here?
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
LOL... well if we're just going to pretend that one party is the end of days for everybody else and the other party is a symbol of all that is good and right in the world then there is no debate to be had here.
I want to agree with you guys on things. I don't like being in the position of defending the establishment. It's not the side I'm usually on.
You sure don't make it easy though.
On 1st read, I thought "we're" referred to me. But now,
I guess it refers to yourself & like minded friends.
I don't know who "you guys" & "You" refers to, but am I one of them?
But if none of those pronouns refers to me, I'm happy
& will not be offended. It was a misunderstanding. Yes?
Donald J. Trump as PotUS, I consider this a bad mistake. I'd say
the same if he were a libertarian, independent or democrat.
Did you read the article I linked to?
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Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:Quote:
Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
LOL... well if we're just going to pretend that one party is the end of days for everybody else and the other party is a symbol of all that is good and right in the world then there is no debate to be had here.
I want to agree with you guys on things. I don't like being in the position of defending the establishment. It's not the side I'm usually on.
You sure don't make it easy though.
On 1st read, I thought "we're" referred to me. But now,
I guess it refers to yourself & like minded friends.
I don't know who "you guys" & "You" refers to, but am I one of them?
But if none of those pronouns refers to me, I'm happy
& will not be offended. It was a misunderstanding. Yes?
Donald J. Trump as PotUS, I consider this a bad mistake. I'd say
the same if he were a libertarian, independent or democrat.
Did you read the article I linked to?
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"We're" did refer to everybody who had already posted in this thread. My point is that I'm still not happy with how things are going almost a year in and this is around the time I'd like to get in on the action. But I'm not going to be flipping to be with a bunch of people who honestly think that Obama was a good president, Hillary would have made a good president, and the only thing wrong with the world today is Trump.
I tried to read your article, but he lost me at "On June 12, 1987, President Reagan was in West Berlin to deliver a powerful message to the evil empire, the USSR.", when Mr. Sykes unironically used the phrase "evil empire" as if we're living in a Star Wars universe.
Not having any clue who Mr. Sykes is, the whole piece seems to be written by a Democrat who thinks that this is what a Republican would sound like if they turned their back on the Dark Side.
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And now, Price "resigns" under fire. Good riddens, I say......and now on to the other stupid fucks trying to sneak by and do as Trump does.
real smart.
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
I must admit I did not think that Donald J. Trump would ever reach the White House. Never in a million years would I have ever guessed it. Well, it shows how dumb I am.
I mostly loathe the Salamander-in-Chief, mainly because he's a slimebag, but personal feelings aside, he has done a masterful job at keeping his campaign promises. He's done so well in most, whoop-de-doo! but I would like to focus your attention to the topic of the thread at hand, namely:
Draining the Swamp.
Tom Price, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, lovely man and rotten scumbag:
Wasting taxpayer's money - uses PRIVATE JETS to fly about the country at the cost of an estimated $400,000 in five months. His predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, in 8 years in office, took one such flight to visit 3 remote villages in Alaska. Price took one such trip from D.C. to Philly costing $25,000.00 - One flight. Now that is very "swampy."
SGG
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Quote:That guy must have thought it was still the Obamination years, wasting government funds on air travel.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:Quote:And now, Price "resigns" under fire. Good riddens, I say......and now on to the other stupid fucks trying to sneak by and do as Trump does.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
I must admit I did not think that Donald J. Trump would ever reach the White House. Never in a million years would I have ever guessed it. Well, it shows how dumb I am.
I mostly loathe the Salamander-in-Chief, mainly because he's a slimebag, but personal feelings aside, he has done a masterful job at keeping his campaign promises. He's done so well in most, whoop-de-doo! but I would like to focus your attention to the topic of the thread at hand, namely:
Draining the Swamp.
Tom Price, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, lovely man and rotten scumbag:
Wasting taxpayer's money - uses PRIVATE JETS to fly about the country at the cost of an estimated $400,000 in five months. His predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, in 8 years in office, took one such flight to visit 3 remote villages in Alaska. Price took one such trip from D.C. to Philly costing $25,000.00 - One flight. Now that is very "swampy."
SGG
real smart.
SGG
Using government contracted carriers on government approved and bidded travel with government oversight endorsement and recommendation, that is just uncalled for - Obama and Moochelle never stooped to reasonable standards like that!
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Quote:Please don't confuse supporters of lifelong Liberal Democrat Trump with Republicans or conservatives.
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
So are we moving toward: 2% of the people will control 90% of the money?
How did we get here?
How the Right Lost Its Mind and Embraced Donald Trump
http://www.newsweek.com/2017/09/29/right-lost-mind-embraced-donald-tru
mp-668180.html
While I was bemoaning that he'd won the election & was totally
unsuitable, a friend of mine told me that the GOP had gone nuts.
He blamed religion, though.
I feel that DJT will soon offend most of the Republicans.
Conservatives don't like to look so foolish, do they?
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
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Obama, oh I forgot, he's to blame for Hurricane Maria and all the rest...right!
Meanwhile Trump is Making America Great Again, YEAH RIGHT!
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:That guy must have thought it was still the Obamination years, wasting government funds on air travel.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
And now, Price "resigns" under fire. Good riddens, I say......and now on to the other stupid fucks trying to sneak by and do as Trump does.
real smart.
SGGQuote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
I must admit I did not think that Donald J. Trump would ever reach the White House. Never in a million years would I have ever guessed it. Well, it shows how dumb I am.
I mostly loathe the Salamander-in-Chief, mainly because he's a slimebag, but personal feelings aside, he has done a masterful job at keeping his campaign promises. He's done so well in most, whoop-de-doo! but I would like to focus your attention to the topic of the thread at hand, namely:
Draining the Swamp.
Tom Price, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, lovely man and rotten scumbag:
Wasting taxpayer's money - uses PRIVATE JETS to fly about the country at the cost of an estimated $400,000 in five months. His predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, in 8 years in office, took one such flight to visit 3 remote villages in Alaska. Price took one such trip from D.C. to Philly costing $25,000.00 - One flight. Now that is very "swampy."
SGG
Using government contracted carriers on government approved and bidded travel with government oversight endorsement and recommendation, that is just uncalled for - Obama and Moochelle never stooped to reasonable standards like that!
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Quote:Yer sayin Maria is Tom Price's fault?
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Obama, oh I forgot, he's to blame for Hurricane Maria and all the rest...right!
Meanwhile Trump is Making America Great Again, YEAH RIGHT!
SGGQuote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:That guy must have thought it was still the Obamination years, wasting government funds on air travel.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
And now, Price "resigns" under fire. Good riddens, I say......and now on to the other stupid fucks trying to sneak by and do as Trump does.
real smart.
SGGQuote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
I must admit I did not think that Donald J. Trump would ever reach the White House. Never in a million years would I have ever guessed it. Well, it shows how dumb I am.
I mostly loathe the Salamander-in-Chief, mainly because he's a slimebag, but personal feelings aside, he has done a masterful job at keeping his campaign promises. He's done so well in most, whoop-de-doo! but I would like to focus your attention to the topic of the thread at hand, namely:
Draining the Swamp.
Tom Price, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, lovely man and rotten scumbag:
Wasting taxpayer's money - uses PRIVATE JETS to fly about the country at the cost of an estimated $400,000 in five months. His predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, in 8 years in office, took one such flight to visit 3 remote villages in Alaska. Price took one such trip from D.C. to Philly costing $25,000.00 - One flight. Now that is very "swampy."
SGG
Using government contracted carriers on government approved and bidded travel with government oversight endorsement and recommendation, that is just uncalled for - Obama and Moochelle never stooped to reasonable standards like that!
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No.
It's my sad commentary on the state of affairs in the Trump White House. Ya know, he promised to 'drain the swamp' but he's the Ringmaster Supreme to the Three Ring Circus and Funhouse antics of 2017 and beyond.
He's created a new "Swamp" - it's ok, we know. This is tough for me too. (Oh you don't know the half of it).
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:Yer sayin Maria is Tom Price's fault?
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Obama, oh I forgot, he's to blame for Hurricane Maria and all the rest...right!
Meanwhile Trump is Making America Great Again, YEAH RIGHT!
SGGQuote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:That guy must have thought it was still the Obamination years, wasting government funds on air travel.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
And now, Price "resigns" under fire. Good riddens, I say......and now on to the other stupid fucks trying to sneak by and do as Trump does.
real smart.
SGGQuote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
I must admit I did not think that Donald J. Trump would ever reach the White House. Never in a million years would I have ever guessed it. Well, it shows how dumb I am.
I mostly loathe the Salamander-in-Chief, mainly because he's a slimebag, but personal feelings aside, he has done a masterful job at keeping his campaign promises. He's done so well in most, whoop-de-doo! but I would like to focus your attention to the topic of the thread at hand, namely:
Draining the Swamp.
Tom Price, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, lovely man and rotten scumbag:
Wasting taxpayer's money - uses PRIVATE JETS to fly about the country at the cost of an estimated $400,000 in five months. His predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, in 8 years in office, took one such flight to visit 3 remote villages in Alaska. Price took one such trip from D.C. to Philly costing $25,000.00 - One flight. Now that is very "swampy."
SGG
Using government contracted carriers on government approved and bidded travel with government oversight endorsement and recommendation, that is just uncalled for - Obama and Moochelle never stooped to reasonable standards like that!
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“We’re never going to say in advance what the president’s going to do,”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the Friday
news briefing. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
That's understandable. I doubt he knows himself.
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
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I wonder what's worse....
The premeditated destruction of America by the presidents and the administrations of the last couple of decades, or an accidental one now.
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Bob Corker Says Trump’s Recklessness Threatens ‘World War III’
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/us/politics/trump-corker.html
WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged in an interview on Sunday
that President Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,”
with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation
“on the path to World War III.”
Someone in the Republican party finally noticed/said this! Yay!!
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Accidental!? Well, that's a unique way of putting it. And premeditated? How so?
I could see it in Bush's case - WMDs, that was an out and out lie; in order for Cheney to make billions with Halliburton. Anyway, that's done with.
But accidental? Trump promised to Make American Great Again...has he kept his promise? Is he making America great.....again? Wasn't it always great? I don't get it. Wasn't America great when Obama brought us back from the brink of economic collapse? Or when he negotiated with Iran to stop them from developing N-bombs?
Wasn't America great during the Olympics? Or when we got Bin Laden? Or when the car industry came back? Was America that bad off in the last 15 years?
By the way, when are we going to start winning? When will we win so much that we'll say: "Mr. President, please, no more winning." Do you think you would ever say, "no more winning"?
Just a thought!
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
I wonder what's worse....
The premeditated destruction of America by the presidents and the administrations of the last couple of decades, or an accidental one now.
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Quote:wow.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Accidental!? Well, that's a unique way of putting it. And premeditated? How so?
I could see it in Bush's case - WMDs, that was an out and out lie; in order for Cheney to make billions with Halliburton. Anyway, that's done with.
But accidental? Trump promised to Make American Great Again...has he kept his promise? Is he making America great.....again? Wasn't it always great? I don't get it. Wasn't America great when Obama brought us back from the brink of economic collapse? Or when he negotiated with Iran to stop them from developing N-bombs?
Wasn't America great during the Olympics? Or when we got Bin Laden? Or when the car industry came back? Was America that bad off in the last 15 years?
By the way, when are we going to start winning? When will we win so much that we'll say: "Mr. President, please, no more winning." Do you think you would ever say, "no more winning"?
Just a thought!
SGGQuote:
Originally posted by 6stringJoker:
I wonder what's worse....
The premeditated destruction of America by the presidents and the administrations of the last couple of decades, or an accidental one now.
Your media has really good Koolaid.
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The 12 most damning Bob Corker quotes about Donald Trump
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/politics/trump-corker-quotes/index.html
(CNN) — Bob Corker went off on Donald Trump Sunday night.
For 25 minutes, the Tennessee Republican senator unloaded lots (and lots)
of pent-up frustrations to New York Times' reporter Jonathan Martin. ...
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Well ... yeah!
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Forbes ...
How to be President : the Art of the Deal ... are the same thing for Trump.
Hmmm?
Inside Trump’s Head: An Exclusive Interview With the President,
And The Single Theory That Explains Everything
https://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/exclusive-interview/#1d086ceabdec
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This is turning into a "Trump's Greatest Failures" thread, but we already have one of those http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61905 and I think that title BEST expresses the topic of how people of ALL political persuasions see Trump's greatest failures, so I'm going to put my opinions about Trump's failures in there.
I just want to make a comment to partisans of both stripes here: If you're a partisan - in other words, a die-hard defender of your party, everyone in it, and everything that it does - well I hope that description is enough to make you see the problem with that POV.
But just it case it doesn't, I'm going to beat the point to death a little bit more: You're making the mistake of thinking that just because you think one party is "evil" that must mean that the other party is "good". But these are politicians. I doubt that you can find one honest one in any random set of 100, in either party. I acknowledge that there are a few more "good" politicians in the Democratic Party than in the GOP, but I can name them on the fingers of one hand; they make up a vanishingly small number no matter which party you look at and none of them achieve any significant, systemic, lasting benefit for the average person anyway. You have to judge the party as a whole.
******
In KPO's thread about "The State of Freedom in Russia", he acknowledges that he's completely uninterested in "the state of freedom" in any other nation BESIDES Russia, and that includes the state of freedom in his own nation (Britain) and the state of freedom in the USA.
I asked him what accounted for his laser focus on Russia.
There are a lot of venal answers to that question, but in my view there is only one legitimate answer, only one reason why someone should focus on Russian events and policies, even to the exclusion of events in and policies of your own nation, and that is if you see Russia as such an immediate existential threat that it requires ditching every other concern, to hell with civil liberties, the deficit, and the marketplace! It's "all hands on deck and man battle stations!"
When I look at the threat posed by Russia, I simply don't see the need for that kind of response. The only REAL threat that they pose is de-dollarization (forcing the world off the petrodollar, which has given us an open credit card with the rest of the world since 1973), and even in THAT case, the answer isn't military or political, it should consist of us minding our financial matters better.
In fact, when I look at every single major problem that the USA has, from ...
staggering wealth inequality to
massive private debt to
potentially unstable banks to
the loss of the petrodollar to
a failed health care policy to
environmental collapse to
loss of manufacturing to
completely unbalanced trade to
illegal immigrants to
disunited public to
loss of commonsense values to
unemployment to
loss of civil liberties to
(add more here) ...
every single problem in the USA was caused by our own politicians. Politicians who repeatedly stabbed us in the back, over and over, in favor of endless wars and ever-higher profits and rampant financialization and overconsumption based on debt. All for their corporate lords, who rake in the rewards while we get the shaft.
It wasn't "Russia" who got us to this point, or "Libya" or "Iraq" or any of the phony "enemies" that are constantly being popped up as distractions. It wasn't Trump who got us here, or Obama, or Bush, or Clinton. It wasn't even "terrorism".
It wasn't "Democrats" OR "Republicans", it was BOTH of them. Each party, in its own way, got us to this point of failure. Democrats try to put a sweet syrup on their defections while Republicans champion their actions as rightful
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Signym,
If Trump resigned making Pence president, our situation would
be no better or worse,
If the Democrats win the 2020 election, our situation will be
no better or worse.
Is that what you are telling us?
If so, then things look very bad to me.
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
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As long as "establishment" candidates make it to Congress and the Presidency, IMHO the answer is pretty much "yes".
Oh, the Dems and the Repubs are different flavors, but when it comes to issues that affect the 0.01%, they pretty much sing from the same hymnbook.
Here's how I see the Dem establishment:
WAR
When it comes to making war, the Dems are just as war-mongering as the Repubs. Bush destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq, but Obama managed to destroy Libya and Ukraine, split Sudan, and tried to destroy Syria. BOTH parties moved our NATO forces towards Russia, but the Dems made a critical geopolitical error: They decided to "pivot to Asia" ( 2010 https://thediplomat.com/2017/01/the-pivot-to-asia-was-obamas-biggest-m
istake/) which forced China into the arms of Russia, and then their absurd sanctions and economic warfare against Russia forced Russia into the arms of China.
The difference in flavor? The Dems (Obama, Hillary, Kerry) favored proxy warfare and hybrid warfare, propelled by CIA/ State Department/ NGO/ Saudi-funded terrorist organizations, whereas the Repubs have generally favored the official military and big boots-on-the-ground actions.
FINACIALIZATION
Both the Dems and the Repubs are anxious to meet the desires of the 0.01% Bill Clinton gave up on financial regulation when he repealed Glass Steagall and signed the Commodities Futures Trading Act. The consequences weren't apparent until 2008. Both Bush and Obama tossed money at banks that speculated fraudulently, and despite Dodd-Frank, NEITHER party has reined in the rampant speculation (on credit) since then. And Dodd-Frank, due to its complexity, is preventing smaller banks - like community banks - from opening. There are answers to the problems, but I see no difference between the parties in how they treat financialization. Warren has made some weak-kneed moves towards "consumer protection", Kamala Harris, the up-and-coming CA Senator, caved in by accepting Obama's lack of banker prosecution ... the underlying weakness of the Dem position runs pretty much up and down the party.
The difference in flavor? The Dems are willing to make tiny concessions to "the people" as long as they don't impact the bottom line of the financialists.
TRADE
Both parties have pushed for greater international "free trade", once again favoring the 0.01%. Nixon "opened up China" with a special trade deal. Bill Clinton pushed for, and got, NAFTA, and CAFTA, and awarded China permanent normal trade relations, which helped them achieve acceptance into the WTO. GWB, according to the official website "increas[ed] the number of countries partnered with the U.S. on free trade agreements (FTAs) from three to 16". Obama attempted even broader scope "free trade" agreements with TTIP (Atlantic nations) and TPP (Pacific nations). Only Trump has pushed back on this, and he's being maneuvered into giving up many of his goals here, too.
The difference in flavor? None, as far as I can tell.
Anyway, I have to get busy, but I can give you a much longer disquisition on how I think the parties are the same and where they're flavored differently on issues like the deficit, the economy, and social issues. But overall, on anything that really matters, just plan on being stabbed in the back by both parties.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Your William Blake quote is looking more relevant.
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Just to get back to how very much alike Repubs and Dems are when it comes to the 0.01% ...
WAR
The other flavor difference between Dems and Repubs is that Repubs tend to use military justifications for their wars of choice: Grenada was harboring Cubans (Reagan), Noreiga or Panama was a major drug runner (Bush 1), Afghanistan was harboring Osama bin Laden (Bush 2) and Saddam "had WMD" (Bush 2).
Dems tend to frame their military interventions as "helping"(!) the people. Yanukovich (despite having been elected) was an "undemocratic" leader; Qaddafi was "massacring his own people"; Assad was Massacring his own people"; and the Xtian blacks of southern Sudan were yearning to breathe fee from the Muslim Arabs of northern Sudan.
I find the Republican excuses laughable, but the Dem excuses are downright disgusting. That people believe EITHER of them is scary.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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I see the pattern in your examples, Signym.
Quote:Putin saved my life, says ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Dems tend to frame their military interventions as "helping"(!) the people. Yanukovich (despite having been elected) was an "undemocratic" leader;
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11692593/Vladimir-Put
in-saved-my-life-says-ousted-Ukrainian-president-Viktor-Yanukovych.html
Quote:Why was Putin so visibly distressed by the killing of Gaddafi?
Qaddafi was "massacring his own people";
www.quora.com/Why-was-Putin-so-visibly-distressed-by-the-killing-of-Ga
ddafi
Quote:Why Putin Is So Committed to Keeping Assad in Power
Assad was Massacring his own people";
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/putins-russia-is-wedded-to-bashar-
al-assad-syria-moscow/
Quote:Sudan president to visit Putin in Russia
and the Xtian blacks of southern Sudan were yearning to breathe fee from the Muslim Arabs of northern Sudan.
www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/sudan-president-to-visit-puti
n-in-russia
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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The "pattern" to my examples is the "pattern" established by USA policy which is that under all recent Presidents, whether Dem or Repub, the United States has been knocking over foreign nations like bowling pins in a bowling alley
I noticed a "pattern" in YOUR posts, SECOND.
(1) The only examples of war-mongering that YOU objected to were the examples that occurred under Obama. Well, I hate to tell you this, hon, but "Saint Obama" was just as war-mongery as GWB. That's the truth; deal with it.
(2) When Democratic policy starts to smell, DON'T look at the lies told to get "the people" behind (yet another) war, DON'T acknowledge that Dems have left great smoking swaths of economic and social ruin in their wakes, DON'T admit to failure and corruption .... BLAME PUTIN. Yeah! That's the answer!
That's been the Dem party establishment response for about the past year, and now, with more retro-activity!
Yanno SECOND, YOU should be upset that Dems have caused so much needless death and destruction. I mean, what the hell is wrong with you, that you would object to ANYone looking at the great smoking clusterfucks of instability that Saint Obama created? You DO know that hundreds of thousands of people were killed, yes? That many more were injured, that many women were enslaved, that millions were made refugees, and that the accumulated capital and infrastructure of hundreds of years was destroyed?
Is there something missing from your moral or intellectual code that makes you incapable of even recognizing and acknowledging the pointless pain and suffering that Saint Obama caused?
After all, you spend so much time weeping and wailing about the poor illegal immigrant/ person of color/ insert your victim subgroup of choice here , one would think that you care a great deal about ALL people impacted by USA policy.
But you'll let nothing stand in your way ... not truth, not even-handedness, and CERTAINLY not morals .... of finding one excuse after another for the Dem party.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:Wasn't that the whole point of everything Obama did and wanted to do? And all Democrats, for that matter? They need to destroy, Bush wanted to Liberate, provide Freedom, support progress.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The "pattern" to my examples is the "pattern" established by USA policy which is that under all recent Presidents, whether Dem or Repub, the United States has been knocking over foreign nations like bowling pins in a bowling alley
I noticed a "pattern" in YOUR posts, SECOND.
(1) The only examples of war-mongering that YOU objected to were the examples that occurred under Obama. Well, I hate to tell you this, hon, but "Saint Obama" was just as war-mongery as GWB. That's the truth; deal with it.
(2) When Democratic policy starts to smell, DON'T look at the lies told to get "the people" behind (yet another) war, DON'T acknowledge that Dems have left great smoking swaths of economic and social ruin in their wakes, DON'T admit to failure and corruption .... BLAME PUTIN. Yeah! That's the answer!
That's been the Dem party establishment response for about the past year, and now, with more retro-activity!
Yanno SECOND, YOU should be upset that Dems have caused so much needless death and destruction. I mean, what the hell is wrong with you, that you would object to ANYone looking at the great smoking clusterfucks of instability that Saint Obama created? You DO know that hundreds of thousands of people were killed, yes? That many more were injured, that many women were enslaved, that millions were made refugees, and that the accumulated capital and infrastructure of hundreds of years was destroyed?
Quote:
Is there something missing from your moral or intellectual code that makes you incapable of even recognizing and acknowledging the pointless pain and suffering that Saint Obama caused?
After all, you spend so much time weeping and wailing about the poor illegal immigrant/ person of color/ insert your victim subgroup of choice here , one would think that you care a great deal about ALL people impacted by USA policy.
But you'll let nothing stand in your way ... not truth, not even-handedness, and CERTAINLY not morals .... of finding one excuse after another for the Dem party.
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Quote:Really?
Wasn't that the whole point of everything Obama did and wanted to do? And all Democrats, for that matter? They need to destroy, Bush wanted to Liberate, provide Freedom, support progress.- JSF
As I recall the reason that was pounded in our heads day and night for invading Afghanistan was "Osama bin Laden ... dead or alive .... smoke 'em out".
And the reason for invading Iraq was "yellowcake ... weapons of mass destruction ... Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat ... mushroom cloud ...
Don't you remember that big show that Colin Powell made for the UN where he tried (and failed) to convince the world that Saddam was actively developing and manufacturing WMD?
Please don't rewrite history.
*****
But let's assume that you're correct, that all GWB wanted to do was bring "freedom" and "prosperity" to Afghanistan and Iraq.
As far as Afghanistan was concerned, the USA approach was sardonically referred to as "bombing Afghanistan even further back into the stone age". There was no real attempt at stabilization or development; that was left to the NGO's which lived on embassy row and freely admitted that much of their money went to bribing local officials.
In Iraq, everything about USA policy, from starting with a bombing campaign which also targeted civilian infrastructure (sewage treatment plants, water treatment plants, and electricity generating stations) to Bremer imposing some sort of "privatization" wet-dream onto a foreign, war-torn economy, to de-Ba'athification ... everything that the Bush administration did took Iraq further and further away from both freedom and prosperity.
So in BOTH cases, if leading these nations to freedom and prosperity was the goal, it was an utter failure.
But don't feel TOO bad. The Dems said that THEY wanted to save the people of Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and South Sudan from brutal, murderous dictators. After the tender ministrations of Democratic destabilization, the people of Libya and Syria are overrun with terrorists, all of them are embroiled in civil war, and millions have fled their homelands!
So, are the policymakers and military men serving both Presidents, complete, incompetent boobs? Or was freedom and prosperity never really the goal in the first place?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:
wow.
Your media has really good Koolaid.
That's it. That's all you have to say? Yeah, Rush and Fox & Friends, they don't lead you to the watering trough? No, not them....they would never!
SGG
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That was AWESOME!
Now that he's leaving, he can say what he really thinks, instead of swallowing his pride (and the Kool-Aid)?
As the right reverend Jim Carrey once said (in Liar, Liar) "...and the truth shall set you free."
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
The 12 most damning Bob Corker quotes about Donald Trump
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/politics/trump-corker-quotes/index.html
(CNN) — Bob Corker went off on Donald Trump Sunday night.
For 25 minutes, the Tennessee Republican senator unloaded lots (and lots)
of pent-up frustrations to New York Times' reporter Jonathan Martin. ...
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
Well ... yeah!
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And don't forget the "Fake" Bible he holds up.
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
Forbes ...
How to be President : the Art of the Deal ... are the same thing for Trump.
Hmmm?
Inside Trump’s Head: An Exclusive Interview With the President,
And The Single Theory That Explains Everything
https://www.forbes.com/donald-trump/exclusive-interview/#1d086ceabdec
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
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Quote:You know perfectly well that America spends more on killing than the next dozen countries. Americans might call it "defense", but the weaponry and ammo are for killing, not "defending". Unsurprising to me, many people are killed or maimed and their property destroyed by the Pentagon. It follows as nights follow days. But most Americans don't care about what follows what. That includes the Americans that don't vote, too. You can see the exact same dynamic with guns purchased for "defense" by Americans. The gun murder rate and suicide rate are high because Americans don't care to limit how much is spent on "defending" themselves. Why do Americans not care? It is not the Democratic Party telling them to not care. But the GOP certainly does tell them to not be careful about killing and destroying. Trump is a case-study in Republican indifference to who dies and who is harmed in Korea. Maybe I should mention the great pile of weaponry Trump is purchasing? All that ammo he doesn't use will be available to the Pentagon during the next President's term. The Pentagon will certainly be killing with whatever bullets Trump doesn't fire, no matter what political party is in power. The next President would have to confiscate and destroy those weapons to have any effect on the killing. If a President did that, the GOP would oppose the action more strongly than confiscating guns. Second Amendment right, you know?
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yanno SECOND, YOU should be upset that Dems have caused so much needless death and destruction. I mean, what the hell is wrong with you, that you would object to ANYone looking at the great smoking clusterfucks of instability that Saint Obama created? You DO know that hundreds of thousands of people were killed, yes? That many more were injured, that many women were enslaved, that millions were made refugees, and that the accumulated capital and infrastructure of hundreds of years was destroyed?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Nice deflection SECOND.
Why do Americans not care?
But I wasn't talking about "Americans", I was talking about YOU. Why don't YOU care about the victims of the Dem party?
After all, you care about the victims of the Repub Party, yessiree! Gays, blacks, illegal immigrants ... If the Repubs done it, you're all on it like white on rice. But if the Dems done it .... *crickets*
Quote:Of course it is! Which Dem party leader vowed to stop supporting terrorists in the mideast and to stop toppling governments left and right? Is there even one?
It is not the Democratic Party telling them to not care.
Despite the Dem part whining and crying about the poor downtrodden people in the Yanukovich/ Qaddafi/ Assad/ al Bashir "regimes", do you hear anything now from the Dem party about the even worse trodding- down of those very same peoples by the forces of destruction that the Dems themselves let loose?
Any sober assessment of the results of their nation-topplings? Any comparison of their stated goals (to "help" the peoples of their target nation) with the actual results? Any assumption of responsibility? Any plans to change their actions in future? Or do they blame Republicans, Trump, and Russia for the failures of their own party, in one GIANT deflection of masterful denial/ alternate blame-laying?
And are their partisan fanatics ever-so-willing to go along with the leadership, never to take an actual look at what the Dem party has done, but to remain forever in denial?
YOU, SECOND. YOU. Will YOU endlessly drag the GOP and Trump and the Russian red herrings thru every criticism of the Dem Party?
Yanno, that doesn't wash with me because I've picked pretty hard on Republicans .... you're not about to get me defending the GOP. Russia is simply not to blame for Dem fuckups, and Trump is too recent to be blamed for Dem policies.
I am certainly not saying that the Dems were wrong but the GOP was right. But every time someone criticizes the Dem party, you turn this into an either/or question. Well, can't they BOTH be evil?
BTW, I made a bet with hubs that you will keep squirming and deflecting in order to keep denying that the Dem part was ever wrong about .... well, anything important. You said you were raised as a Jehovah's witness. Well, assuming that's true, you might have left that PARTICULAR religion, but you apparently just transferred your religiosity to the Dem party.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:Do you see war protesters marching in the streets of America? No. Do you see American war veterans demanding peace? No. That is why the Democratic party and the GOP are constantly spending to go to war with the world. The Democrats less than the GOP, but neither are a peace party. If the Democrats were a peace party, the GOP would use its demagoguery skills to make Democrats appear to be soft, weak, appeasers and Americans would respond by voting even more overwhelmingly Republican.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Nice deflection SECOND.
Why do Americans not care?
YOU, SECOND. YOU. Will you endlessly drag the GOP and Trump and the Russian red herrings thru every criticism of the Dem Party?
Why would I care to join a peace movement? I do NOT fit the description of a peaceful person, although I do vote for Democrats. I really ought to vote for what is best for me as a one percenter, a vet with a bad temper, and a gun owner. That would be Republican, but I've got a different background from once upon a time being a Jehovah's Witness. I was young, but some of it stayed with me. I'd make a terrible Witness, but I still do despise those people who would treat Witnesses badly. That would be the GOP and every Republican I've ever come across. There is a Jehovah's Witness story https://qz.com/1102238 about President Bush and Trump oppressing people who don't pledge their allegiance. I am on the side of the Witnesses and against Republicans on that issue and a thousand others. Trumpcare, for one very real example.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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We got it. Ages ago. You despise republicans.
But why does that blind you to the ironically-named democratic party faults?
You can be anti-republican and still be critical of the things democrats are doing that are self-destructively wrong (such as manipulating the process to shoe-horn in a candidate with historic net negative ratings).
Trump is not the problem. He set himself against the Deep State's agenda. And the Deep State's been heading for WWIII for years.
As for you, you're just a Deep State useful idiot, furthering its agenda. So I hope you enjoy cesium in your coffee. You've earned it.
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I think that for partisans, no amount of so-called 'democratic' misdeeds will change their minds about the party.
And no volume of disproven anti-Trump hysteria
Quote:will reveal to them the impoverished nature of that approach.
Evidence: So where are we now(II) ?
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61935
But for others - not so much. The hysteria is seen as the insubstantial fluff that is is.
So while Trump's approval rating is at 35%, the republican party favorability rating remains at 39% - and the democratic party favorability rating has DROPPED to 40%.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/217346/trump-job-approval-stabilizing-lowe
r-level.aspx?g_source=position1&g_medium=related&g_campaign=tiles
http://news.gallup.com/poll/210725/democratic-party-image-dips-gop-rat
ings-stable.aspx
This STILL reflects the presidential race, where BOTH Trump AND Hillary went in with historic overall disapproval ratings.
DEMOCRATS - gibbering endlessly about Trump while failing to be an actual alternative is not how you win friends and influence people. MAKE YOUR OBJECTIONS SUBSTANTIVE AND PROVABLE. AND MAKE YOURSELVES A VIABLE MAJORITY ALTERNATIVE. And while this has segued to
Quote:I wanted to make that point here.
A thread for Democrats Only
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=61954
Trump is not the problem. He set himself against the Deep State's agenda. And the Deep State's been heading for WWIII for years.
As for you, you're just a Deep State useful idiot, furthering its agenda. So I hope you enjoy cesium in your coffee. You've earned it.
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None of what you said is true. Nothing that you advise works. That are many substantive and provable objections and those get no traction with Americans that include many Dem, Rep, Independent and Not-voting-because-I-am-disquieted-by-both-parties. Poll numbers might drop randomly based on real world events, but soon enough all is forgotten and the only thing remembered clearly is that one party makes all the promises and the other party won’t. The party of won’t, won’t get elected because it won’t claim it can go all the way to goals that are mathematically proven to be out of reach. At this point you won’t follow the link if you are the typical no-traction-American because you don’t want to know, you only want to be persuaded. The art of persuasion is to get suckers to buy from con men.
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/lies-lies-lies-lies-lies-
lies-lies-lies-lies-lies/
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
We got it. Ages ago. You despise republicans.
But why does that blind you to the ironically-named democratic party faults?
You can be anti-republican and still be critical of the things democrats are doing that are self-destructively wrong (such as manipulating the process to shoe-horn in a candidate with historic net negative ratings).
DEMOCRATS - gibbering endlessly about Trump while failing to be an actual alternative is not how you win friends and influence people. MAKE YOUR OBJECTIONS SUBSTANTIVE AND PROVABLE. AND MAKE YOURSELVES A VIABLE MAJORITY ALTERNATIVE.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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ANOTHER deflection SECOND.
Quote:I was asking about YOUR personal moral judgment, not about "the [stupid] American people" whom you constantly hide behind at the same time that you berate them.
Why do Americans not care? - SECOND
Nice deflection SECOND. YOU, SECOND. YOU. Will you endlessly drag the GOP and Trump and the Russian red herrings thru every criticism of the Dem Party?0 SIGNY
Do you see war protesters marching in the streets of America? No. Do you see American war veterans demanding peace? No. That is why the Democratic party and the GOP are constantly spending to go to war with the world. The Democrats less than the GOP, but neither are a peace party. If the Democrats were a peace party, the GOP would use its demagoguery skills to make Democrats appear to be soft, weak, appeasers and Americans would respond by voting even more overwhelmingly Republican. Why would I care to join a peace movement? I do NOT fit the description of a peaceful person, although I do vote for Democrats.- SECOND
So, let's keep this simple: Do you approve or disapprove of Democrats destroying nations abroad, with the result that those nations become more tyrannical and less prosperous than before?
Why, or why not?
I have other comments about that post, but I want to keep this focused on your moral choices.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:I don't care. I picked that attitude up from the Jehovah's Witnesses. The world is all Satan's, all the time, and why should I care since Jehovah will very soon annihilate the wicked in Armageddon? (Hasn't happened, but maybe God overslept?) Jehovah's Witnesses saw all political parties and nations controlled by the devil.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
ANOTHER deflection SECOND.
Nice deflection SECOND. YOU, SECOND. YOU. Will you endlessly drag the GOP and Trump and the Russian red herrings thru every criticism of the Dem Party?
I was asking about YOUR personal moral judgment, not about "the [stupid] American people" whom you constantly hide behind at the same time that you berate them.
So, let's keep this simple: Do you approve or disapprove of Democrats destroying nations abroad, with the result that those nations become more tyrannical and less prosperous than before?
Why, or why not?
I have other comments about that post, but I want to keep this focused on your moral choices.
And as a fact it is not the Democrats destroying. It is American generals in the Pentagon. And they are Republicans, which is not odd in the least, especially if you have listened to Trump's bellicose attitude toward Iran and N Korea and using A-bombs on "terrorists". Congress keeps force-feeding the Pentagon with too much ammo and the Pentagon uses the excess ammo violently. There is always another shipment coming next month of hellfire missiles and the Generals need to either find new targets or build new warehouses to store the excess missiles. The choice comes down to either new targets or shutdown the hellfire factory. http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/05/does-the-military-vote-really-lea
n-republican/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:More deflection.
And as a fact it is not the Democrats destroying.-SECOND
Are you saying that President Obama had nothing to do with destroying Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and Sudan?
That Presidents are just along for the ride?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:Yes, I am. When was the last time America had a declaration of War? 1942. No declarations since then. That would not be how a country runs when the people at the very top are actually making the topmost decisions.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:More deflection.
And as a fact it is not the Democrats destroying.-SECOND
Are you saying that President Obama had nothing to do with destroying Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and Sudan?
That Presidents are just along for the ride?
www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/WarDecl
arationsbyCongress.htm
And are you saying Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and Sudan are not Putin projects?
Why was Putin so visibly distressed by the killing of Gaddafi?
www.quora.com/Why-was-Putin-so-visibly-distressed-by-the-killing-of-Ga
ddafi
Putin saved my life, says ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11692593/Vladimir-Put
in-saved-my-life-says-ousted-Ukrainian-president-Viktor-Yanukovych.html
Sudan president to visit Putin in Russia
www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/sudan-president-to-visit-puti
n-in-russia
Why Putin Is So Committed to Keeping Assad in Power
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/07/putins-russia-is-wedded-to-bashar-
al-assad-syria-moscow/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
I don't care. I picked that attitude up from the Jehovah's Witnesses. The world is all Satan's, all the time, and why should I care since Jehovah will very soon annihilate the wicked in Armageddon? (Hasn't happened, but maybe God overslept?) Jehovah's Witnesses saw all political parties and nations controlled by the devil. - SECOND
Are you saying that "you don't care" that Democrats destroyed nations because the world is an evil place anyway?
If that's so, then why would you care about even lesser transgressions, like booting illegal aliens out of the country?
Quote:Well, all you've shown by THIS statement is that CONGRESS isn't doing its job, but is instead relying on the PRESIDENT (who is, after all COMMANDER IN CHIEF) to handle military actions.
And as a fact it is not the Democrats destroying.-SECOND
More deflection.
Are you saying that President Obama had nothing to do with destroying Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and Sudan?
Rhat Presidents are just along for the ride? - SIGNY
Yes, I am. When was the last time America had a declaration of War? 1942. No declarations since then. That would not be how a country runs when the people at the very top are actually making the topmost decisions.
So, you haven't carved out any space for Obama with this argument. In fact, all you've done is throw even more responsibility onto his shoulders. Also, this is counterfactual to known events, like Obama personally handling the secret drone "kill list" and agitating to destroy Libya.
Quote:Are you a complete lunatic? Was it Putin who destroyed these nations?
And are you saying Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and Sudan are not Putin projects?- SECOND
SECOND, here's a thought on your twisted logic: If Presidents are just along for the ride, then GWB can be forgiven for destroying Afghanistan and Iraq.
And if the world is an evil place anyway, why get upset about lesser evils and not greater ones?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Well, all you've shown by THIS statement is that CONGRESS isn't doing its job, but is instead relying on the PRESIDENT (who is, after all COMMANDER IN CHIEF) to handle military actions.
So, you haven't carved out any space for Obama with this argument. In fact, all you've done is throw even more responsibility onto his shoulders. Also, this is counterfactual to known events, like Obama personally handling the secret drone "kill list" and agitating to destroy Libya.Quote:Are you a complete lunatic? Was it Putin who destroyed these nations?
And are you saying Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and Sudan are not Putin projects?- SECOND
All the Pentagon has to do is say the word "appeasement" and a weak-minded President is off to war. That strategy has worked for the Pentagon since Truman.
www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2017/10/the_stigma
_around_appeasement_is_raising_the_risk_of_conflict_with_north.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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So every President, from Truman through Trump, is a pawn of the Pentagon.
What about the CIA? Are Presidents pawns of the CIA?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:If you had read the link, you would have seen that JFK did not fall for the nonsense spouted from the mouth of Air Force General Curtis LeMay during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as just one example. If you knew any American history, you'd know that Eisenhower did not fall for his Generals' empty headed nonsense, either. If you had watched the Vietnam War on PBS a couple weeks ago you would see LBJ and Nixon as morons anxiously waiting for their lying Generals to give them the promised victories. If you knew anything about Congress, you'd know that 90% of them always fall right in line whenever the Pentagon says that negotiation is appeasement. You can find hundreds of aggressive actions the USA has taken where the people at the top (Congress, White House) let the Pentagon decide what needs to be done because they don't have the self-confidence to rudely tell the Generals to shut the fuck up.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So every President, from Truman through Trump, is a pawn of the Pentagon.
What about the CIA? Are Presidents pawns of the CIA?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Why is the Washington Swamp's default position always to blowup another country or, when that seems too excessive, call the CIA? It is the way the Swamp makes decisions that is at fault.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So every President, from Truman through Trump, is a pawn of the Pentagon.
What about the CIA? Are Presidents pawns of the CIA?
A General recommends a military strike to the President to solve a little terror problem that popped like a pimple, but the General is unconcerned about alternatives because it is really the President's responsibility to decide. The President leans toward a wait and see response, but that General is very persuasive, completely confident in the USA's firepower, and has 30 years experience, while the President is not confident enough to wait when there is an instant solution with a hellfire missile. Then Congress will not make a declaration of war, but most of the individual Congressmen would not make a public stand against war, either. Then the electorate is fearful and wants to see action now, now, now. And then where is a Peace movement anywhere in the USA? If it is out there, it certainly keeps quiet.
If you run a meeting properly in the White House, a group decision can be wiser than the decision by anyone in the meeting. But Americans don't know how to run meetings properly, do they? Especially meetings about defense. Americans have made hundreds of bad decisions since WWII about when to use the military. I don't expect America to stop itself and start again thinking clearer. The Swamp keeps changing Presidents, but the same old faulty methods of making decisions are staying unchanged. I must remark that some Presidents use the methods worse than others:
Trump’s chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, is acknowledging the president’s incompetence. At a White House briefing on Thursday, Kelly tried to reassure the press and the public about his boss. Instead, Kelly inadvertently confirmed that he and other aides are struggling to protect Trump from himself.
Here are three key moments from the briefing. (The following is actually a joke made about the briefing, but the real article has real examples.)
Reporter: "Mr. Kelly, is your job hard?" John Kelly: "Remember that movie where a monkey is playing with a detonator and the horrified people are trying to convince the monkey to give it back without pressing the button?”
More on John Kelly accidentally telling the Truth about Trump at
www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/10/john_kelly_a
ccidentally_told_the_truth_about_trump.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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And another thing: you give lots of rhetoric but nothing in terms of facts, numbers. How much did the Obama Administration spend on air travel from day one until the end of his administration? Do you have any factual information? Or are you just gonna give the usual InfoWars bullshit response?
Before you give me any of that Fake News crap, Price never denied that he didn't have those expenditures. But he did offer to pay for his "seat" on those jet planes that he chartered, which is really ridiculous. It's like ordering the best dinner at your daughter's wedding and making everyone pay, but the father of the bride offers to pay just for his plate.
Oh, and tell me the Alt-Right will travel by bicycle because they are not part of the "establishment" (what a load of crock).
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:That guy must have thought it was still the Obamination years, wasting government funds on air travel.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:Quote:And now, Price "resigns" under fire. Good riddens, I say......and now on to the other stupid fucks trying to sneak by and do as Trump does.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
I must admit I did not think that Donald J. Trump would ever reach the White House. Never in a million years would I have ever guessed it. Well, it shows how dumb I am.
I mostly loathe the Salamander-in-Chief, mainly because he's a slimebag, but personal feelings aside, he has done a masterful job at keeping his campaign promises. He's done so well in most, whoop-de-doo! but I would like to focus your attention to the topic of the thread at hand, namely:
Draining the Swamp.
Tom Price, the head of the Health and Human Services Department, lovely man and rotten scumbag:
Wasting taxpayer's money - uses PRIVATE JETS to fly about the country at the cost of an estimated $400,000 in five months. His predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, in 8 years in office, took one such flight to visit 3 remote villages in Alaska. Price took one such trip from D.C. to Philly costing $25,000.00 - One flight. Now that is very "swampy."
SGG
real smart.
SGG
Using government contracted carriers on government approved and bidded travel with government oversight endorsement and recommendation, that is just uncalled for - Obama and Moochelle never stooped to reasonable standards like that!
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Before I answer your veiled attempt at "high-jacking" this thread, I want to ask you and your cohort something:
You guys keep saying "establishment" this and "establishment" that....I know it's code for something; would you care to explain exactly what you guys mean by "establishment" candidates (for example). My definition might be slightly different than yours.
I ask because it seems to be a major sticking point.
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
As long as "establishment" candidates make it to Congress and the Presidency, IMHO the answer is pretty much "yes".
Oh, the Dems and the Repubs are different flavors, but when it comes to issues that affect the 0.01%, they pretty much sing from the same hymnbook.
Here's how I see the Dem establishment:
WAR
When it comes to making war, the Dems are just as war-mongering as the Repubs. Bush destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq, but Obama managed to destroy Libya and Ukraine, split Sudan, and tried to destroy Syria. BOTH parties moved our NATO forces towards Russia, but the Dems made a critical geopolitical error: They decided to "pivot to Asia" ( 2010 https://thediplomat.com/2017/01/the-pivot-to-asia-was-obamas-biggest-m
istake/) which forced China into the arms of Russia, and then their absurd sanctions and economic warfare against Russia forced Russia into the arms of China.
The difference in flavor? The Dems (Obama, Hillary, Kerry) favored proxy warfare and hybrid warfare, propelled by CIA/ State Department/ NGO/ Saudi-funded terrorist organizations, whereas the Repubs have generally favored the official military and big boots-on-the-ground actions.
FINACIALIZATION
Both the Dems and the Repubs are anxious to meet the desires of the 0.01% Bill Clinton gave up on financial regulation when he repealed Glass Steagall and signed the Commodities Futures Trading Act. The consequences weren't apparent until 2008. Both Bush and Obama tossed money at banks that speculated fraudulently, and despite Dodd-Frank, NEITHER party has reined in the rampant speculation (on credit) since then. And Dodd-Frank, due to its complexity, is preventing smaller banks - like community banks - from opening. There are answers to the problems, but I see no difference between the parties in how they treat financialization. Warren has made some weak-kneed moves towards "consumer protection", Kamala Harris, the up-and-coming CA Senator, caved in by accepting Obama's lack of banker prosecution ... the underlying weakness of the Dem position runs pretty much up and down the party.
The difference in flavor? The Dems are willing to make tiny concessions to "the people" as long as they don't impact the bottom line of the financialists.
TRADE
Both parties have pushed for greater international "free trade", once again favoring the 0.01%. Nixon "opened up China" with a special trade deal. Bill Clinton pushed for, and got, NAFTA, and CAFTA, and awarded China permanent normal trade relations, which helped them achieve acceptance into the WTO. GWB, according to the official website "increas[ed] the number of countries partnered with the U.S. on free trade agreements (FTAs) from three to 16". Obama attempted even broader scope "free trade" agreements with TTIP (Atlantic nations) and TPP (Pacific nations). Only Trump has pushed back on this, and he's being maneuvered into giving up many of his goals here, too.
The difference in flavor? None, as far as I can tell.
Anyway, I have to get busy, but I can give you a much longer disquisition on how I think the parties are the same and where they're flavored differently on issues like the deficit, the economy, and social issues. But overall, on anything that really matters, just plan on being stabbed in the back by both parties.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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There might be those who think along the lines that one party is the root of all evil. I think that person or persons should be dealt with on an individual basis.
But to try and high-jack a thread because you don't agree with a person's POV; or YOU feel that it doesn't fairly bring into question, or fairly deal, with the topic at hand.....well, I suggest that if it offends your sensibilities to that degree, then, by all means, do not contribute to the thread in question. Boycott the thread, if you will, in protest.
Several here have made contributions that I would consider off-topic, but I have not asked them to leave or refrain from offering responses. Might I suggest that if you feel a response/contribution to this thread is off-topic/not to your liking; then, don't respond to that particular response. That person or persons will get the hint and choose to either stay on topic, or not offer up a response. Again, it is only a suggestion. You can do whatever floats your boat. Actually, I'll change my response in mid-answer: Go ahead, suggest away! Although I don't agree with you that this has become a Greatest Failures TrumpFest; you have every right to try and divert contributions to another thread. FEEL FREE TO DO SO!!!
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is turning into a "Trump's Greatest Failures" thread, but we already have one of those http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61905 and I think that title BEST expresses the topic of how people of ALL political persuasions see Trump's greatest failures, so I'm going to put my opinions about Trump's failures in there.
I just want to make a comment to partisans of both stripes here: If you're a partisan - in other words, a die-hard defender of your party, everyone in it, and everything that it does - well I hope that description is enough to make you see the problem with that POV.
But just it case it doesn't, I'm going to beat the point to death a little bit more: You're making the mistake of thinking that just because you think one party is "evil" that must mean that the other party is "good". But these are politicians. I doubt that you can find one honest one in any random set of 100, in either party. I acknowledge that there are a few more "good" politicians in the Democratic Party than in the GOP, but I can name them on the fingers of one hand; they make up a vanishingly small number no matter which party you look at and none of them achieve any significant, systemic, lasting benefit for the average person anyway. You have to judge the party as a whole.
******
In KPO's thread about "The State of Freedom in Russia", he acknowledges that he's completely uninterested in "the state of freedom" in any other nation BESIDES Russia, and that includes the state of freedom in his own nation (Britain) and the state of freedom in the USA.
I asked him what accounted for his laser focus on Russia.
There are a lot of venal answers to that question, but in my view there is only one legitimate answer, only one reason why someone should focus on Russian events and policies, even to the exclusion of events in and policies of your own nation, and that is if you see Russia as such an immediate existential threat that it requires ditching every other concern, to hell with civil liberties, the deficit, and the marketplace! It's "all hands on deck and man battle stations!"
When I look at the threat posed by Russia, I simply don't see the need for that kind of response. The only REAL threat that they pose is de-dollarization (forcing the world off the petrodollar, which has given us an open credit card with the rest of the world since 1973), and even in THAT case, the answer isn't military or political, it should consist of us minding our financial matters better.
In fact, when I look at every single major problem that the USA
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Quote:I had conjured "Draining the Swamp" translated to "Trump's Greatest Achievements" and "Trump's Greatest Failures" was the opposite.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:Quote:There might be those who think along the lines that one party is the root of all evil. I think that person or persons should be dealt with on an individual basis.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is turning into a "Trump's Greatest Failures" thread, but we already have one of those http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61905 and I think that title BEST expresses the topic of how people of ALL political persuasions see Trump's greatest failures, so I'm going to put my opinions about Trump's failures in there.
I just want to make a comment to partisans of both stripes here: If you're a partisan - in other words, a die-hard defender of your party, everyone in it, and everything that it does - well I hope that description is enough to make you see the problem with that POV.
But just it case it doesn't, I'm going to beat the point to death a little bit more: You're making the mistake of thinking that just because you think one party is "evil" that must mean that the other party is "good". But these are politicians. I doubt that you can find one honest one in any random set of 100, in either party. I acknowledge that there are a few more "good" politicians in the Democratic Party than in the GOP, but I can name them on the fingers of one hand; they make up a vanishingly small number no matter which party you look at and none of them achieve any significant, systemic, lasting benefit for the average person anyway. You have to judge the party as a whole.
***
In fact, when I look at every single major problem that the USA has, from ...
staggering wealth inequality to
massive private debt to
potentially unstable banks to
the loss of the petrodollar to
a failed health care policy to
environmental collapse to
loss of manufacturing to
completely unbalanced trade to
illegal immigrants to
disunited public to
loss of commonsense values to
unemployment to
loss of civil liberties to
(add more here) ...
every single problem in the USA was caused by our own politicians.
It wasn't "Democrats" OR "Republicans", it was BOTH of them. Each party, in its own way, got us to this point of failure. Democrats try to put a sweet syrup on their defections while Republicans champion their actions as rightful policy, but in the end it took the combined effort of both parties, working for decades and decades, to get us to this point.
At least, that's how I see it.
But to try and high-jack a thread because you don't agree with a person's POV; or YOU feel that it doesn't fairly bring into question, or fairly deal, with the topic at hand.....well, I suggest that if it offends your sensibilities to that degree, then, by all means, do not contribute to the thread in question. Boycott the thread, if you will, in protest.
Several here have made contributions that I would consider off-topic, but I have not asked them to leave or refrain from offering responses. Might I suggest that if you feel a response/contribution to this thread is off-topic/not to your liking; then, don't respond to that particular response. That person or persons will get the hint and choose to either stay on topic, or not offer up a response. Again, it is only a suggestion. You can do whatever floats your boat. Actually, I'll change my response in mid-answer: Go ahead, suggest away! Although I don't agree with you that this has become a Greatest Failures TrumpFest; you have every right to try and divert contributions to another thread. FEEL FREE TO DO SO!!!
SGG
I am interested in your definition of Establishment, and why you feel it a sticking point. I'm lost about your viewpoint.
I also think that you
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Of course, Trump is the best president ever.
Establishment in terms of government is simply foundations, and tried and true formation of public institutions. As to why I feel it is a sticking point - just from the many times I read the word in responses and comments by various individuals with quote marks.
Plus the response by some in the news talking also using quote marks in their rhetoric - as though established norms within our society are negative enemies of the people at large. Yes, there are those that take advantage of the system and use the masses as so much guinea pigs. But, like in any society, there are good and bad actors.
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
There might be those who think along the lines that one party is the root of all evil. I think that person or persons should be dealt with on an individual basis.
But to try and high-jack a thread because you don't agree with a person's POV; or YOU feel that it doesn't fairly bring into question, or fairly deal, with the topic at hand.....well, I suggest that if it offends your sensibilities to that degree, then, by all means, do not contribute to the thread in question. Boycott the thread, if you will, in protest.
Several here have made contributions that I would consider off-topic, but I have not asked them to leave or refrain from offering responses. Might I suggest that if you feel a response/contribution to this thread is off-topic/not to your liking; then, don't respond to that particular response. That person or persons will get the hint and choose to either stay on topic, or not offer up a response. Again, it is only a suggestion. You can do whatever floats your boat. Actually, I'll change my response in mid-answer: Go ahead, suggest away! Although I don't agree with you that this has become a Greatest Failures TrumpFest; you have every right to try and divert contributions to another thread. FEEL FREE TO DO SO!!!
SGGQuote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is turning into a "Trump's Greatest Failures" thread, but we already have one of those http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61905 and I think that title BEST expresses the topic of how people of ALL political persuasions see Trump's greatest failures, so I'm going to put my opinions about Trump's failures in there.
I just want to make a comment to partisans of both stripes here: If you're a partisan - in other words, a die-hard defender of your party, everyone in it, and everything that it does - well I hope that description is enough to make you see the problem with that POV.
But just it case it doesn't, I'm going to beat the point to death a little bit more: You're making the mistake of thinking that just because you think one party is "evil" that must mean that the other party is "good". But these are politicians. I doubt that you can find one honest one in any random set of 100, in either party. I acknowledge that there are a few more "good" politicians in the Democratic Party than in the GOP, but I can name them on the fingers of one hand; they make up a vanishingly small number no matter which party you look at and none of them achieve any significant, systemic, lasting benefit for the average person anyway. You have to judge the party as a whole.
******
In KPO's thread about "The State of Freedom in Russia", he acknowledges that he's completely uninterested in "the state of freedom" in any other nation BESIDES Russia, and that includes the state of freedom in his own nation (Britain) and the state of freedom in the USA.
I asked him what accounted for his laser focus on Russia.
There are a lot of venal answers to that question, but in my view there is only one legitimate answer, only one reason why someone should focus on Russian events and policies, even to the exclusion of events in and
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Quote:Here is a court knocking down a Trump-based idea used by his Justice Department in a case: "If excludable aliens were not protected by even the substantive component of constitutional due process, as the government appears to argue, we do not see why the United States government could not torture or summarily execute them. … [W]e do not believe that our Constitution could permit persons living in the United States—whether they can be admitted for permanent residence or not—to be subjected to any government action without limit."
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Plus the response by some in the news talking also using quote marks in their rhetoric - as though established norms within our society are negative enemies of the people at large.
www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/10/the_jus
tice_department_s_radical_new_anti_abortion_stance_echoes_dred_scott.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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George W. Bush comes out of retirement to deliver a veiled rebuke of Trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/george-w-bush-comes-out-of-ret
irement-to-deliver-a-veiled-rebuke-of-trump/2017/10/19/3b7881ea-b4ec-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.4c7b337a92d3
Former president George W. Bush on Thursday delivered a rare political
speech in which he warned of threats to American democracy and a decay
of civic engagement, a message that was interpreted as a rebuke of
President Trump’s divisive leadership style.
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
Well, we elected a man who isn't a politician/statesman, who is seriously
ignorant about governance, & doesn't want to learn. We did it. We elected
him while I'm sure most of us knew he was grossly unqualified for the job.
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SHINY, you wrote a number of comments on what you perceive is my attempted "hijacking" of this thread.
Quote:And BTW neither did I.
Before I answer your veiled attempt at "high-jacking" this thread, I want to ask you and your cohort something .... But to try and high-jack a thread because you don't agree with a person's POV; or YOU feel that it doesn't fairly bring into question, or fairly deal, with the topic at hand ... Several here have made contributions that I would consider off-topic, but I have not asked them to leave or refrain from offering responses.
I was simply reacting to some posts that had to do with Trump and not with "Draining The Swamp", specifically
Quote:and
Forbes ... How to be President : the Art of the Deal ... are the same thing for Trump. Hmmm?
Quote:which I felt really belonged in a thread about Trump's failings, not about "draining the swamp"
The 12 most damning Bob Corker quotes about Donald Trump http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/politics/trump-corker-quotes/index.html
(CNN) — Bob Corker went off on Donald Trump Sunday night. For 25 minutes, the Tennessee Republican senator unloaded lots (and lots) of pent-up frustrations to New York Times' reporter Jonathan Martin. ...
Now, about "draining the swamp". What IS "the swamp", anyway? IMHO it's those who represent a particular industry, rotating in and out of government, industry leadership positions, and lobbying. Those who excessively take into account the wishes of the 0.01% over the rest. Those who keep secrets from people so that they don't have a chance of evaluating the policy options before them, and so directing their representatives in government appropriately. in other words, those who do other than honestly and fairly representing/ working for the people who voted for them. SECOND was heading in that direction by suggesting that Presidents come and go, but the Pentagon (and its interests) always remain.
Quote:I agree with one statement and disagree with other.
There might be those who think along the lines that one party is the root of all evil. I think that person or persons should be dealt with on an individual basis. -SHINY
Quote:
I am interested in your definition of Establishment, and why you feel it a sticking point. I'm lost about your viewpoint.
The reason why I call it "the establishment" is because the parties have "established" power structures. Each has a central committee thru which flows official party support in the form of ad campaigns, vote rigging, strategic planning, "get out the vote" efforts etc. But these official party structures depend on reliable sources of MONEY, and that's why they end up supporting the 0.01%. ("Dirty") Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the party establishment was funded by campaign contributions from Soros, big pharma, intl banks etc, and Hillary was a big contribution-getter.
But don't get me wrong: the RNC is just as corrupt as the DNC, they just represent a different sector of the moneyed class: Koch bros etc.
Quote:See above. The party does its best to engineer which of their candidates make it thru the primaries. Occasionally an actual honest representative makes it thru, but usually because they can garner a lot of small contributions from across the USA and forgo establishment party support.
SIG's assertion that Party must be evaluated as a whole and not look at select goals and achievements of leaders within the Party is where she loses me, and seems to me to contribute to the Establishment problem.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Decidedly so.
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
George W. Bush comes out of retirement to deliver a veiled rebuke of Trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/george-w-bush-comes-out-of-ret
irement-to-deliver-a-veiled-rebuke-of-trump/2017/10/19/3b7881ea-b4ec-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.4c7b337a92d3
Former president George W. Bush on Thursday delivered a rare political
speech in which he warned of threats to American democracy and a decay
of civic engagement, a message that was interpreted as a rebuke of
President Trump’s divisive leadership style.
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
Well, we elected a man who isn't a politician/statesman, who is seriously
ignorant about governance, & doesn't want to learn. We did it. We elected
him while I'm sure most of us knew he was grossly unqualified for the job.
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Quote:SGG, have you visited the Bladerunner thread?
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Decidedly so.
SGG
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Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:Quote:Of course, Trump is the best president ever.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:I am interested in your definition of Establishment, and why you feel it a sticking point. I'm lost about your viewpoint.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
There might be those who think along the lines that one party is the root of all evil. I think that person or persons should be dealt with on an individual basis.
But to try and high-jack a thread because you don't agree with a person's POV; or YOU feel that it doesn't fairly bring into question, or fairly deal, with the topic at hand.....well, I suggest that if it offends your sensibilities to that degree, then, by all means, do not contribute to the thread in question. Boycott the thread, if you will, in protest.
Several here have made contributions that I would consider off-topic, but I have not asked them to leave or refrain from offering responses. Might I suggest that if you feel a response/contribution to this thread is off-topic/not to your liking; then, don't respond to that particular response. That person or persons will get the hint and choose to either stay on topic, or not offer up a response. Again, it is only a suggestion. You can do whatever floats your boat. Actually, I'll change my response in mid-answer: Go ahead, suggest away! Although I don't agree with you that this has become a Greatest Failures TrumpFest; you have every right to try and divert contributions to another thread. FEEL FREE TO DO SO!!!
SGG
Establishment in terms of government is simply foundations, and tried and true formation of public institutions. As to why I feel it is a sticking point - just from the many times I read the word in responses and comments by various individuals with quote marks.
Plus the response by some in the news talking also using quote marks in their rhetoric - as though established norms within our society are negative enemies of the people at large. Yes, there are those that take advantage of the system and use the masses as so much guinea pigs. But, like in any society, there are good and bad actors.
SGG
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Exactly, in terms of what constitutes "the swamp," my point exactly
Quote:
Now, about "draining the swamp". What IS "the swamp", anyway? IMHO it's those who represent a particular industry, rotating in and out of government, industry leadership positions, and lobbying. Those who excessively take into account the wishes of the 0.01% over the rest. Those who keep secrets from people so that they don't have a chance of evaluating the policy options before them, and so directing their representatives in government appropriately. in other words, those who do other than honestly and fairly representing/ working for the people who voted for them. SECOND was heading in that direction by suggesting that Presidents come and go, but the Pentagon (and its interests) always remain.
It is my contention that Trump and his cohort, have managed to create their own "swamp" by doing almost exactly what you describe above:
The representation of a "precious" few and misrepresenting themselves as the will of the people. "Rotating" positions much like a game of 3-Card Monte, the old "shell" game where you have to follow the pea and guess under which cup it is; meanwhile, as you stand in the crowd gawking at the shells being craftily manipulated, a pickpocket is going about the crowd slithering in and out of pockets.
..."who represent a particular industry" or group, or way of thinking; always pointing fingers and asigning blame for the woes of that group or "industry." I see the formation of a new "swamp" one that redirects the flow of information, wealth and power - Fake News, Propaganda, the disoulation of the present power grid and the birth of a new sinister and vile corrupt elite. Yes, I fully understand that there exists a power grid that the masses are manipulated by; but the newness of that "new" power structure does not shield it from complete and utter corruption. You are, in effect, rotating out the old and replacing it with the new power base.
A rose by any other name still smells...to borrow a phrase from the Bard.
It is this irony that compelled me to propose this thread. Imagine that Hillary had won. What would you be saying? Pretty much what you said above:
About the evils of her admministration manipulating the very institutions
you describe above. So what, IYHO, has changed? Apply those very elements to the "new" power grid that is looking to replace the old. Ask the question with each item you accurately depict in your staement.
Start at the top. The president, it doesn't get much more "top" than that. And what has he done? He's replaced the "establishment" with "his" people, has he not? And what, pray tell, have they done to dismantle the "establishment?" They have appointed people that favor "the cause" - to make America Great Again...which we all know means for it to lean a certain way (I attribute that anxious bit of business to the prediction that by 2050, the good ole USA will be more than 50 percent people of color; or what is now known as the minorities - black, Hispanic, Asian, India etc)
That "Wall" should have been built the moment the first Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. It will not work, merely because this land is too big, plus there's the Canadian border and all the ships at sea (how do you think the Chinese get here to our teaming shores?)
My comment was refering to the swapping out of the "establishment" (rather the old establishment) for the "new establishment" which Bannon and company are looking to secure spots for the future of "his people." Plus he wants, along with those like-minded people, to ensure that things get done the "right way." Of course, all this is mere speculation on my part, what the hell do I know.
So, go ahead, ask yourself those very questions, the one that you pose in the quoted statement above:
ind
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Yes, I have posted there.
SGG
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JSF,
Let me say this; as I tend to fly by the seat of my pants as I write, I formulated an idea and midstream I realized a completely different response that I did not think of when I began writing.
It ocurred to me that the very thing I was protesting against, I was asking others to do. Namely, to post elsewhere becuase I did not agree with their POV or suggestions within their post. It was strange, because it came to me as I was writing (which happens to me on rare ocassions).
So, my philosophy is "live and let live." If someone cares to post something completely off track from the theme of the thread....Let it be! This site was buiilt becuase we believed in an ideal, a universe, if you will, where one could be free from constricting rules and regs contrary to our pioneering roots.
"Go West, young man"
I am all for continuity, but sometimes, especially if the comment is close to that of the thread, you just have to let it be...
Post to your heart's content, post negative, positive, it doesn't matter. It will all come to a middle at some point. Should you wish to divert attention away, go ahead, it doesn't matter. Each of us will get our moment in the sun and feel accomplishment.
So, if you feel a comment is misplaced or misguided, FEEL FREE...it's all good!
SGG
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
There might be those who think along the lines that one party is the root of all evil. I think that person or persons should be dealt with on an individual basis.
But to try and high-jack a thread because you don't agree with a person's POV; or YOU feel that it doesn't fairly bring into question, or fairly deal, with the topic at hand.....well, I suggest that if it offends your sensibilities to that degree, then, by all means, do not contribute to the thread in question. Boycott the thread, if you will, in protest.
Several here have made contributions that I would consider off-topic, but I have not asked them to leave or refrain from offering responses. Might I suggest that if you feel a response/contribution to this thread is off-topic/not to your liking; then, don't respond to that particular response. That person or persons will get the hint and choose to either stay on topic, or not offer up a response. Again, it is only a suggestion. You can do whatever floats your boat. Actually, I'll change my response in mid-answer: Go ahead, suggest away! Although I don't agree with you that this has become a Greatest Failures TrumpFest; you have every right to try and divert contributions to another thread. FEEL FREE TO DO SO!!!
SGGQuote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is turning into a "Trump's Greatest Failures" thread, but we already have one of those http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61905 and I think that title BEST expresses the topic of how people of ALL political persuasions see Trump's greatest failures, so I'm going to put my opinions about Trump's failures in there.
I just want to make a comment to partisans of both stripes here: If you're a partisan - in other words, a die-hard defender of your party, everyone in it, and everything that it does - well I hope that description is enough to make you see the problem with that POV.
But just it case it doesn't, I'm going to beat the point to death a little bit more: You're making the mistake of thinking that just because you think one party is "evil" that must mean that the other party is "good". But these are politicians. I doubt that you can find one honest one in any random set of 100, in either party. I acknowledge that there are a few more "good" politicians in the Democratic Party than in the GOP, but I can name them on the fingers of one hand; they make up a vanishingly small number no matter which party you look at and none of them achieve any significant, systemic, lasting benefit for th
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Quote:Hell just froze over. Again!
Now, about "draining the swamp". What IS "the swamp", anyway? IMHO it's those who represent a particular industry, rotating in and out of government, industry leadership positions, and lobbying. Those who excessively take into account the wishes of the 0.01% over the rest. Those who keep secrets from people so that they don't have a chance of evaluating the policy options before them, and so directing their representatives in government appropriately. in other words, those who do other than honestly and fairly representing/ working for the people who voted for them. SECOND was heading in that direction by suggesting that Presidents come and go, but the Pentagon (and its interests) always remain.- SIGNY
Exactly, in terms of what constitutes "the swamp," my point exactly.
It is my contention that Trump and his cohort, have managed to create their own "swamp" by doing almost exactly what you describe above:
The representation of a "precious" few and misrepresenting themselves as the will of the people. "Rotating" positions much like a game of 3-Card Monte, the old "shell" game where you have to follow the pea and guess under which cup it is; meanwhile, as you stand in the crowd gawking at the shells being craftily manipulated, a pickpocket is going about the crowd slithering in and out of pockets. - SHINY
Quote:I must have a completely cynical view of politics. Trump brings how own swamp with him. BUT. If you looked carefully at the election process, he had to fight the RNC AS WELL AS THE DNC. "Establishment" Republicans were just as reluctant to allow Trump to the ascendancy as Democrats. Even now, the support that Trump has from the GOP is grudging, and Dems downright hate him: he's a DC outsider, an interloper.
..."who represent a particular industry" or group, or way of thinking; always pointing fingers and assigning blame for the woes of that group or "industry." I see the formation of a new "swamp" one that redirects the flow of information, wealth and power - Fake News, Propaganda, the disoulation of the present power grid and the birth of a new sinister and vile corrupt elite. Yes, I fully understand that there exists a power grid that the masses are manipulated by; but the newness of that "new" power structure does not shield it from complete and utter corruption. You are, in effect, rotating out the old and replacing it with the new power base.- SINY
I don't view Trump as an honest, or even competent, politician. But when you bring your own swamp with you, the OLD swampers don't let go of power without a fight.
And what you've been seeing in the press is a huge catfight between the "internationalists" ....
the swamp-creatures who make their money off transnational dealings (who don't have USA interests at heart; they make their $ elsewhere) and those Federal Departments that support them, such as
Banks, hedge-funds, money-laundering banks such Mossack Fonseca, banks of convenience like the Caymans Islands, and other international financial institutions
Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, which depend heavily on the petrodollar
Intellectual property (patent and copyright) companies like the tech sector, big pharma, agribusiness GMOs, and the entertainment/recording sector
Transnational manufacturing and companies like Walmart and Apple who distribute Chinese goods made by Foxconn etc.
The secret security state - the CIA, NSA, and State Department - which have spent several lifetimes advancing and protecting the international interests of the wealthy elite
Most of the corporate media, which is owned mostly by foreigners
... versus Trump.
Quote:
A rose by any other name still smells...to borrow a phrase from the Bard.
It is this irony that compelled me to propose this thread. Imagine that Hillary had won. What would you be saying? Pretty much what you said
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Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:I had conjured "Draining the Swamp" translated to "Trump's Greatest Achievements" and "Trump's Greatest Failures" was the opposite.
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:Quote:There might be those who think along the lines that one party is the root of all evil. I think that person or persons should be dealt with on an individual basis.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
This is turning into a "Trump's Greatest Failures" thread, but we already have one of those http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61905 and I think that title BEST expresses the topic of how people of ALL political persuasions see Trump's greatest failures, so I'm going to put my opinions about Trump's failures in there.
I just want to make a comment to partisans of both stripes here: If you're a partisan - in other words, a die-hard defender of your party, everyone in it, and everything that it does - well I hope that description is enough to make you see the problem with that POV.
But just it case it doesn't, I'm going to beat the point to death a little bit more: You're making the mistake of thinking that just because you think one party is "evil" that must mean that the other party is "good". But these are politicians. I doubt that you can find one honest one in any random set of 100, in either party. I acknowledge that there are a few more "good" politicians in the Democratic Party than in the GOP, but I can name them on the fingers of one hand; they make up a vanishingly small number no matter which party you look at and none of them achieve any significant, systemic, lasting benefit for the average person anyway. You have to judge the party as a whole.
***
In fact, when I look at every single major problem that the USA has, from ...
staggering wealth inequality to
massive private debt to
potentially unstable banks to
the loss of the petrodollar to
a failed health care policy to
environmental collapse to
loss of manufacturing to
completely unbalanced trade to
illegal immigrants to
disunited public to
loss of commonsense values to
unemployment to
loss of civil liberties to
(add more here) ...
every single problem in the USA was caused by our own politicians.
It wasn't "Democrats" OR "Republicans", it was BOTH of them. Each party, in its own way, got us to this point of failure. Democrats try to put a sweet syrup on their defections while Republicans champion their actions as rightful policy, but in the end it took the combined effort of both parties, working for decades and decades, to get us to this point.
At least, that's how I see it.
But to try and high-jack a thread because you don't agree with a person's POV; or YOU feel that it doesn't fairly bring into question, or fairly deal, with the topic at hand.....well, I suggest that if it offends your sensibilities to that degree, then, by all means, do not contribute to the thread in question. Boycott the thread, if you will, in protest.
Several here have made contributions that I would consider off-topic, but I have not asked them to leave or refrain from offering responses. Might I suggest that if you feel a response/contribution to this thread is off-topic/not to your liking; then, don't respond to that particular response. That person or persons will get the hint and choose to either stay on topic, or not offer up a response. Again, it is only a suggestion. You can do whatever floats your boat. Actually, I'll change my response in mid-answer: Go ahead, suggest away! Although I don't agree with you that this has become a Greatest Failures TrumpFest; you have every right to try and divert contributions to another thread. FEEL FREE TO DO SO!!!
SGG
I am interested in your definition of Establishment, an
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Quote:You missed a person: Kevin Hassett, the White House’s chief economist, is highly competent and Hassett/Trump's plan to increase wages by $4,000 to $9,000 per worker per year is certain to make America great once tax reform passes. On further inspection that is not true:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But as a disruptive force against the status quo swamp, he's an EXCELLENT choice, and some of his appointees - Tillerson and Mnuchin (who is a business turnaround expert; he took several failing USA steel companies to success) are even better choices, and I have to give him credit for picking those people.
Trump wants a cut in corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 20 percent, which would cost slightly less than $200 billion a year. Trump’s claim, backed up by his phony economist, is that workers would benefit by $600 billion — or 300 percent of the tax cut! That is $4,000 each for 150 million workers. According to Trump’s man, it could be as much as $1,350 billion gain for workers, or $9,000 each, if everything goes well! (No, it can’t. The only estimate that is correct is the $200 billion a year for Trump and his people.) It is fraud on a grand scale by Trump to increase his personal wealth by lowering his taxes. Criminal fraud cases can be pursued even if the fraud is not successful and nobody is actually harmed. For example, Trump might not get this tax law passed, but the way he goes about his work is criminal fraud.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/10/17/lawrence-summers-trumps
-top-economists-tax-analysis-isnt-just-wrong-its-dishonest/
www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/10/20/16506256/cea-report-corporate-taxe
s-wages-boost-job-growth
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Quote:Apparently the only way you can shoehorn
You missed a person: Kevin Hassett, the White House’s chief economist,- SECONDHAND
You might want to get some counseling for that.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Hello, Signym! Are you aware that Trump picked Trump's chief economist? It is also Trump that picked Trump's Secretary of State and Trump's Secretary of Treasury, two that you happen to know the names, but they are no different than his other hundreds of appointees. And Trump's economist and secretaries are doing as Trump would have them do: placing money into Trump's pockets and getting him reelected so that Trump will have 8 years (not just 4) of putting federal money into Trump's pockets. Trump's economist's false promises of an income increase of $9,000 per worker per year is just a scheme to get Trump's business a tax cut. Trump's Treasurer's false promises of a national boom if only the inheritance tax ends is just a different scheme to get Trump's estate into Trump Junior's pockets without paying taxes.
Quote:Tillerson's function is to make sure that Trump's words (which are only for domestic consumption by Trump voters to get him reelected) aren't believed by foreign powers. Trump's mouth starting a war would prevent Trump from being reelected.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Apparently the only way you can shoehorn
You missed a person: Kevin Hassett, the White House’s chief economist,- SECONDHANDyoursomeone else's opinion into the discussion is to put words in my mouth. You've got a major obsession going, don't you?
You might want to get some counseling for that.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Hello SECOND!
Originally posted by second:
Hello, Signym! Are you aware that Trump picked Trump's chief economist?
Yeah, I knew, but SO WHAT?
What does that have to do with anything I posted? I already acceded to the fact that Trump brings his own swamp to DC. I've already posted that I didn't expect Trump to be an honest, or even competent, politician. I called him a "loose cannon" many times BEFORE the election, and said that his morals were about on-par with Hillary's (whom, you might have noticed, I despise). There is very little that you could post about Trump that would change my opinion of him because my expectations were already pretty low.
So given all that, why would anyone vote for Trump? I've explained my POV already, so I'll just leave you with that thought.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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You’re wishing death and destruction on America, Signym. A loose cannon bumping back and forth in a storm will smash wooden hull ships and crush the crew. And your complete indifference to Trump's economist and his Treasury Secretary, who you praised in a previous post, spreading lies to support a tax change that benefits Trump is very telling about you.
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Hello SECOND!
Originally posted by second:
Hello, Signym! Are you aware that Trump picked Trump's chief economist?
Yeah, I knew, but SO WHAT?
What does that have to do with anything I posted? I already acceded to the fact that Trump brings his own swamp to DC. I've already posted that I didn't expect Trump to be an honest, or even competent, politician. I called him a "loose cannon" many times BEFORE the election, and said that his morals were about on-par with Hillary's (whom, you might have noticed, I despise). There is very little that you could post about Trump that would change my opinion of him because my expectations were already pretty low.
So given all that, why would anyone vote for Trump? I've explained my POV already, so I'll just leave you with that thought.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:It all depends on how happy you were with the status quo, and how healthy - or dangerous- you thought it was for the USA's future.
You’re wishing death and destruction on America, Signym.
Quote:I'm not completely indifferent to what Trump is doing.
And your complete indifference to Trump's economist and his Treasury Secretary, who you praised in a previous post, spreading lies to support a tax change that benefits Trump is very telling about you.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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A close, personal relative says,
"He certainly deserves to be impeached, but then
a president Mike Pence would be just as bad."
I don't know Pence.
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
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Quote:A close, personal relative?
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
A close, personal relative says,
"He certainly deserves to be impeached, but then
a president Mike Pence would be just as bad."
I don't know Pence.
OONJ, does your "close personal relative" understand the grounds for impeachment? Because this person can't possibly know whether or not anyone "deserves" impeachment unless they know the standards against which the office-holder is being judged.
Quote:
The Constitution sets specific grounds for impeachment. They are “treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” To be impeached and removed from office, the House and Senate must find that the official committed one of these acts.
The Constitution defines treason in Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Constitution does not define bribery. It is a crime that has long existed in English and American common law. It takes place when a person gives an official money or gifts to influence the official’s behavior in office. For example, if defendant Smith pays federal Judge Jones $10,000 to find Smith not guilty, the crime of bribery has occurred.
... In all the articles of impeachment that the House has drawn, no official has been charged with treason. (The closest to a charge of treason was one federal judge who was impeached and convicted for siding with the South and taking a position as a Confederate judge during the Civil War.) Two officials have been charged with bribery. The remaining charges against all the other officials fall under the category of “high crimes and misdemeanors [against the State].”
... The convention adopted “high crimes and misdemeanors” with little discussion. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since 1386, the English parliament had used “high crimes and misdemeanors” as one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve.
... In Federalist No. 65, Hamilton explained impeachment. He defined impeachable offenses as “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”
For the more than 200 years since the Constitution was adopted, Congress has seriously considered impeachment only 18 times. Thirteen of these cases involved federal judges. The “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the House charged against these judges included being habitually drunk, showing favoritism on the bench, using judicial power unlawfully, using the office for financial gain, unlawfully punishing people for contempt of court, submitting false expense accounts, getting special deals from parties appearing before the court, bullying people in open court, filing false income tax returns, making false statements while under oath, and disclosing confidential information.
Only three of the 18 impeachment cases ha
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There are alternative views to Signym’s burn the swamp and then the internationalists will leave America, with Trump’s role as flame-thrower and assassin.
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/opinion/sunday/democrats-alabama-doug-jones
.html
Some voters pulled the lever twice for Obama, and then voted Trump in part because of anxieties about recent immigration. So are the Democrats trying to dispel the impression that their party favors open borders? No, quite the opposite: As Vox’s Dara Lind pointed out this week, in the Trump era, no less than the Obama era, the Democrats are rejecting enforcement proposals many of them would have championed a decade ago.
A clear majority of Americans, women as well as men, favor banning abortion after 20 weeks. It might behoove liberals to try to imagine voters believe that at least some abortions are tantamount to baby-killing. And I mean really make the imaginative leap: Imagine that whenever a Democratic politician says, “There shouldn’t be any restrictions on the right to choose,” you hear, “I think infanticide should be legal in America.”
Would you vote for a candidate who said that? I submit that you probably would not — and you might not even if his Republican opponent were also terrible in various ways. At the very least you would be weighing evils, and that weighing process — “bigot or infanticide advocate? bigot or infanticide advocate?” — might plausibly induce you to put a bigot in the Senate.
Democrats claiming to be standing alone against Trump’s existential threat to the republic should be willing to move somewhat, to compromise somehow, to bring into the Democratic fold a few of the voters who have lifted the G.O.P. to its largely undeserved political successes.
Instead, the Democrats are still relying on arc-of-history beliefs and long-term demographic trends. But those trends do them no political good if they move left faster than does a leftward-moving country. In 2004 they had an agenda well-suited to the American electorate of 2016; having moved leftward since, they now have an agenda well-suited to the American electorate of 2030.
As much as the country needs a conservatism with some idea of what it’s doing, some theory of the common good, it needs a liberalism that stops marinating in its own self-righteousness long enough to compete effectively for rural, Southern and Midwestern votes.
I see that the Democrats, Saturday, are charging down the self-destructive and self-righteous path: The Democratic National Committee voted Saturday to ban donations from certain corporate political action committees — including those tied to tobacco companies, gun makers and payday lenders — that “conflict” with the party’s platform.
The move is an effort to bridge the gap between committee members who want to ban all (yes, that's correct, all) corporate and lobbyist contributions to the committee, and those who believe the party can’t unilaterally disarm its fundraising efforts as Republicans collect millions of dollars from corporations and lobbyists.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-21/democratic-committee-to-ban
-funds-from-donors-that-conflict
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original NYTimes article without SECOND's editing
|The Democrats in Their Labyrinth
Ross Douthat OCT. 21, 2017
America has two political parties, but only one of them has a reasonably coherent political vision, a leadership that isn’t under the thumb of an erratic reality television star, and a worldview that implies a policy agenda rather than just a litany of grievances.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, their vision and leaders and agenda also sometimes leave the impression that they never want to win another tossup Senate seat, and that they would prefer Donald Trump be re-elected if the alternative requires wooing Americans who voted for him.
Consider recent developments in the state of Alabama, where the Republican Party has nominated a Senate candidate manifestly unfit for office, a bigot hostile to the rule of law and entranced with authoritarianism.
And who have the Democrats put up against him? An accomplished former prosecutor, the very model of a mainstream Democrat — and a man who told an interviewer after his nomination that he favors legal abortion, without restriction, right up until the baby emerges blue and flailing from the womb.
I know that certain of my readers may not consider this an extreme position, and imagine that people who do consider it extreme are also fitting out their wives with the lovely blue dresses from Hulu’s adaptation of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Continue reading the main story
But given that a clear majority of Americans, women as well as men, favor banning abortion after 20 weeks, it might behoove liberals to bracket the Gilead scenario for a moment, and try to imagine what it’s like to believe that at least some abortions are tantamount to baby-killing. And I mean really make the imaginative leap: Imagine that whenever a politician says, “There shouldn’t be any restrictions on the right to choose,” you hear, “I think infanticide should be legal in America.”
Would you vote for a candidate who said that? I submit that you probably would not — and you might not even if his opponent were also terrible in various ways. At the very least you would be weighing evils, and that weighing process — “bigot or infanticide advocate? bigot or infanticide advocate?” — might plausibly induce you to put a bigot in the Senate.
If the Democratic Party intends to be competitive again in the South, a region where many of its own partisans call themselves pro-life, it needs to take the imaginative leap on abortion more often — as it did in recruiting candidates who helped build its last House majority way back in the misty years of 2006-2008.
But maybe Democrats do not want to be competitive in the Bible Belt. No retreat on feticide, no compromise with Gilead! Fair enough. Then presumably they should want to make up ground with more secular voters somewhere else — among all the lapsed Catholics and former Mainline Protestants scattered around the Midwest, for instance.
Some of these voters pulled the lever not once but twice for Barack Obama, and then voted Trump in part because of anxieties about recent immigration. So are the Democrats trying to dispel the impression that their party favors open borders? No, quite the opposite: As Vox’s Dara Lind pointed out this week, in the Trump era, no less than the Obama era, the Democrats are rejecting enforcement proposals many of them would have championed a decade ago — again, not coincidentally, the last period when they had control of Congress. Wooing immigration-wary Midwestern voters, like doing outreach to pro-life moderates in Alabama, is apparently not worth the compromises required.
Now I am a cultural conservative, so naturally issues like abortion and immigration are the places where I would like the Democratic Party to move closer to the center. One could argue instead that Democrats should stick with progressive orthodoxy on social issues and choose Bill-Clintonian economics over single-payer flirtations, to expand their recent gains among the culturally libertarian and fiscally conservative.
But th
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original Bloomberg article without SECOND's editing
Ban Funds From Donors That ‘Conflict’
By
Jennifer Epstein
Sat 21 Oct 2017 03:06:47 PM PDT
Tobacco, guns, payday lenders among PACs to be shunned
Proposal opposed by those who say Democrats need the money
The Democratic National Committee voted to ban donations from certain corporate political action committees -- including those tied to tobacco companies, gun makers and payday lenders -- that “conflict” with the party’s platform.
DNC members approved the measure on Saturday in a voice vote at their meeting in Las Vegas. The committee’s leadership “will implement it going forward,” said DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa. It’s not legally binding, though, giving the DNC some leeway on how to put it in place.
The move is an effort to bridge the gap between DNC members who want to ban all corporate and lobbyist contributions to the committee, and those who believe the party can’t unilaterally disarm its fund-raising efforts as Republicans rake in millions of dollars from corporate and lobbyist sources.
“The American people are looking to Democrats to promote people-powered politics in this era of resistance, revival, and reform,” reads the measure, authored by California DNC member Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and a long-time advocate for reducing the corporate and lobbyist influence on the party. The DNC, she said, should “walk our talk.”
Screening Donors
As the Democratic nominee in 2008, Barack Obama put in place a complete ban on the DNC accepting donations from lobbyists and corporate PACs. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz ended that policy in early 2016 as the committee determined it needed money from those sources so it would “have the resources and infrastructure in place to bes support whoever emerges as our eventual nominee,” a spokesman said at the time. Hillary Clinton hadn’t yet become the party’s nominee, but it was seen as the approach she favored on corporate money.
Pelosi said she hopes the new ban will be executed by the DNC in the same manner as the previous one, with the DNC’s finance team evaluating contributions as they come in to determine if they originated with appropriate donors.
The resolution also includes language encouraging state Democratic parties and candidates to draw clear lines around the money they will and won’t accept. “It’s just taking two or three steps to make sure there’s internal consistency,” Pelosi said. “You try to do what you can and I think that matters to voters.”
At its February meeting, at which former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez was elected party chair, the DNC considered a measure that would have been slightly narrower than the Obama ban, barring donations from corporate PACs. “It is not something new. We operated this way for seven years,” Stuart Appelbaum, a New York DNC member who co-sponsored the resolution, said then. The proposal failed after other DNC members argued that the party needed the money.
Trump is not the problem. He set himself against the Deep State's agenda. And the Deep State's been heading for WWIII for years.
As for you, you're just a Deep State useful idiot, furthering its agenda. So I hope you enjoy cesium in your coffee. You've earned it.
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Quote:You failed to include the quotes at the each of those original articles saying that 1kiki and Signym's international conspiracy theories are big bags of make-believe shit. Shame on you. It is as if you don't want the people to know.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
original NYTimes article without SECOND's editing
|The Democrats in Their Labyrinth
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:No such quote appears in my pageview. So SECONDRATE, why don't you BRING THAT QUOTE HERE so that we can ALL see it? Unless, of course, you're lying again.
You failed to include the quotes at the each of those original articles saying that 1kiki and Signym's international conspiracy theories are big bags of make-believe shit. Shame on you. It is as if you don't want the people to know. =SECONDRATE
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:Signym, you're every bit as smart and attentive to details as Trump. Analyze this for errors that only exist inside your head:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
No such quote appears in my pageview. So SECONDRATE, why don't you BRING THAT QUOTE HERE so that we can ALL see it? Unless, of course, you're lying again.
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/23/16522456/trump-bartiromo-tr
anscript
Over the course of the interview, Trump also claims to be working on a major infrastructure bill, a major welfare reform bill, and an unspecified economic development bill of some kind.
Under almost any other past president, that kind of thing would be considered a huge news-making get for an interviewer. But even Fox didn’t tout Bartiromo’s big scoops on Trump’s legislative agenda, because 10 months into the Trump presidency, nobody is so foolish as to believe that him saying, “We’re doing a big infrastructure bill,” means that the Trump administration is, in fact, doing a big infrastructure bill. The president just mouths off at turns ignorantly and dishonestly, and nobody pays much attention to it unless he says something unusually inflammatory.
On some level, it’s a little bit funny.
Perhaps it will all work out for the best, and someday we’ll look back and chuckle about the time when we had a president who didn’t know anything about anything that was happening and could never be counted on to make coherent, factual statements on any subject. But traditionally, we haven’t elected presidents like that — for what have always seemed like pretty good reasons — and the risks of compounding disaster are still very much out there.
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So, you admit you lied about articles you linked.
Again.
No surprise there.
Trump is not the problem. He set himself against the Deep State's agenda. And the Deep State's been heading for WWIII for years.
As for you, you're just a Deep State useful idiot, furthering its agenda. So I hope you enjoy cesium in your coffee. You've earned it.
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This brings me to the problems with the ironically-named 'democratic' party.
If it wants to be a viable alternative, it needs to stop the insane blather about stoopid things, as exemplified by SECOND. It needs to make its case against Trump relevant, vital, and more importantly, provable - unless it wants to look like the party of impotent whiny children.
The OTHER thing it needs to do is make itself a viable majority alternative, and not a party of special-victimhood.
One of the ways it can do that is to make itself the party of economic justice. That means not only promising economic equality - because what the fuck good is equally if it means we're all in the Roman arena equally, fighting for our lives by killing the others - but economic prosperity.
And yet, the ironically-named 'democratic' party and its dingleberry apologists like SECOND can't seem to go there. THEY'RE banking on prejudice. THEY'RE banking on the idea that people will disavow economic opportunity and security for themselves just to spite others.
It's the ironically-named 'democratic' party and its dingleberry apologists who are the racists, who believe that the way to win is to pit one side against the other, and, not coincidentally, benefit the corporations.
HAS IT NOT OCCURRED TO YOU BY NOW THAT IF YOU HAVE TO RESORT TO LOGICAL FALLACIES AND TROLLING YOUR SO-CALLED ARGUMENTS ARE LIES?
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Quote:I do not admit to lying and are 1kiki and Signym a team now, sitting in adjacent desks? You're either a pair of Russian trolls or a pair of American nuts. 1kiki, you've given up the pretense that you were ever a Bernie supporter, haven't you? Or are you a replacement for the "1kiki" of last year, the one who was so supportive of Democrat Bernie? As Russian trolls, I can admire that you serve your country, earn a living, and write well. If you live in America, well, I still admire that you write well; 1kiki and Signym could give Trump lessons about staying on message and remaining focused:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
So, you admit you lied about articles you linked.
Again.
No surprise there.
Trump keeps getting distracted by his desire to tell a name-dropping story about the owner of the New England Patriots. He forgets what is false and misleading about his tax cuts. Indeed, the swamp is in Trump's brain:
BARTIROMO: If the top earners pay 80 percent of the taxes, why are you so afraid to cut taxes on the top earners?
TRUMP: I think this, look, you know, I am very happy with the way I’ve done part of this in my civilian life, all right.
BARTIROMO: Of course. This is not about —
TRUMP: Other people — well, it’s about me representing rich people.
BARTIROMO: Okay.
TRUMP: Representing — being representative of rich people. Very interesting to me Bob Kraft was down. He was very nice. He owns the Patriots. He gave me a Super Bowl ring a month ago. And he —
BARTIROMO: Well, Putin took his —
TRUMP: Which was very nice. That’s right. But he left this beautiful ring, and I immediately give it to the White House and they put it some place, and that’s the way it is.
BARTIROMO: That’s great.
TRUMP: He said to me — he’s a good man. He said to me you have to do us all a favor, give the tax decrease to the middle class, we don’t need it. We don’t need it. We don’t want it. Give it to the middle class. And, I’ve had many people, very wealthy people, tell me the very same thing. I’ve had very few say I want more, I want more.
Then Trump meanders off message and admits that what he’s really backing is a huge tax cut for rich business owners:
TRUMP: So that’s a big factor, but we have so many things that are going to be so great; bringing the corporate tax down maybe is the most important. And we have a lot of most important, but bringing it down from 35 down to 20 percent, that’s a massive — that’s the biggest that we’ve ever done.
BARTIROMO: It’s a big deal in the corporate rate for sure.
TRUMP: That’s a big deal for companies; that’s a big deal for investment. I think one of the other ones is expensing, you know when you write something off in one year as opposed to, you know, over many years, I think that’s going to be tremendous.
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/23/16522456/trump-bartiromo-tr
anscript
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:more trolling
Originally posted by second:
... and are 1kiki and Signym a team now, sitting in adjacent desks?
Quote:more trolling
You're either a pair of Russian trolls
Quote:more trolling
or a pair of American nuts.
Quote:more trolling
1kiki, you've given up the pretense that you were ever a Bernie supporter, haven't you?
I've always been a self-avowed never Hillary supporter, I voted as a never Hillary supporter, and since Hillary lost, my never Hillary side won.
And your repeated attempts to claim otherwise are just ... more trolling.
Troll.
HAS IT NOT OCCURRED TO YOU BY NOW THAT IF YOU HAVE TO RESORT TO LOGICAL FALLACIES AND TROLLING YOUR SO-CALLED ARGUMENTS ARE LIES?
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Meanwhile, SLOPPY-SECONDS' attempt to deflect from the utter failure of the ironically-named 'democratic' party to be a genuine majority alternative, and his inability to actually address my post are noted.
It's obvious SLOPPY-SECONDS is a troll.
HAS IT NOT OCCURRED TO YOU BY NOW THAT IF YOU HAVE TO RESORT TO LOGICAL FALLACIES AND TROLLING YOUR SO-CALLED ARGUMENTS ARE LIES?
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Quote:I don't quite get how you derailed so much to avoid a simple and coherent answer to a reasonable question - or even repeated question, yet at the same time go on a rant which might be tangential at best.
Originally posted by second:Quote:Signym, you're every bit as smart and attentive to details as Trump. Analyze this for errors that only exist inside your head:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
No such quote appears in my pageview. So SECONDRATE, why don't you BRING THAT QUOTE HERE so that we can ALL see it? Unless, of course, you're lying again.
www.vox.com/policy-and-pol
itics/2017/10/23/16522456/trump-bartiromo-transcript
Over the course of the interview, Trump also claims to be working on a major infrastructure bill, a major welfare reform bill, and an unspecified economic development bill of some kind.
Under almost any other past president, that kind of thing would be considered a huge news-making get for an interviewer. But even Fox didn’t tout Bartiromo’s big scoops on Trump’s legislative agenda, because 10 months into the Trump presidency, nobody is so foolish as to believe that him saying, “We’re doing a big infrastructure bill,” means that the Trump administration is, in fact, doing a big infrastructure bill. The president just mouths off at turns ignorantly and dishonestly, and nobody pays much attention to it unless he says something unusually inflammatory.
On some level, it’s a little bit funny.
Perhaps it will all work out for the best, and someday we’ll look back and chuckle about the time when we had a president who didn’t know anything about anything that was happening and could never be counted on to make coherent, factual statements on any subject. But traditionally, we haven’t elected presidents like that — for what have always seemed like pretty good reasons — and the risks of compounding disaster are still very much out there.
Are you off your meds?
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Edited for readability:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I do not admit to lying and are 1kiki and Signym a team now, sitting in adjacent desks? You're either a pair of Russian trolls or a pair of American nuts. 1kiki, you've given up the pretense that you were ever a Bernie supporter, haven't you? Or are you a replacement for the "1kiki" of last year, the one who was so supportive of Democrat Bernie? As Russian trolls, I can admire that you serve your country, earn a living, and write well. If you live in America, well, I still admire that you write well; 1kiki and Signym could give Trump lessons about staying on message and remaining focused:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
So, you admit you lied about articles you linked.
Again.
No surprise there.
Trump keeps getting distracted by his desire to tell a name-dropping story about the owner of the New England Patriots. He forgets what is false and misleading about his tax cuts. Indeed, the swamp is in Trump's brain:
BARTIROMO: If the top earners pay 80 percent of the taxes, why are you so afraid to cut taxes on the top earners?
TRUMP: I think this, look, you know, I am very happy with the way I’ve done part of this in my civilian life, all right.
BARTIROMO: Of course. This is not about —
TRUMP: Other people — well, it’s about me representing rich people.
BARTIROMO: Okay.
TRUMP: Representing — being representative of rich people. Very interesting to me Bob Kraft was down. He was very nice. He owns the Patriots. He gave me a Super Bowl ring a month ago. And he —
BARTIROMO: Well, Putin took his —
TRUMP: Which was very nice. That’s right. But he left this beautiful ring, and I immediately give it to the White House and they put it some place, and that’s the way it is.
BARTIROMO: That’s great.
TRUMP: He said to me — he’s a good man. He said to me you have to do us all a favor, give the tax decrease to the middle class, we don’t need it. We don’t need it. We don’t want it. Give it to the middle class. And, I’ve had many people, very wealthy people, tell me the very same thing. I’ve had very few say I want more, I want more.
Then Trump meanders off message and admits that what he’s really backing is a huge tax cut for rich business owners:
TRUMP: So that’s a big factor, but we have so many things that are going to be so great; bringing the corporate tax down maybe is the most important. And we have a lot of most important, but bringing it down from 35 down to 20 percent, that’s a massive — that’s the biggest that we’ve ever done.
BARTIROMO: It’s a big deal in the corporate rate for sure.
TRUMP: That’s a big deal for companies; that’s a big deal for investment. I think one of the other ones is expensing, you know when you write something off in one year as opposed to, you know, over many years, I think that’s going to be tremendous.
www.vox.com/policy-and-poli
tics/2017/10/23/16522456/trump-bartiromo-transcript
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I'm going to need time to unpack this......whatever you call it, response.
But I felt the need to comment, however briefly, on a few things...
And what exactly does this mean:
Quote:
Hell just froze over. Again!
Quote:
I don't view Trump as an honest, or even competent, politician.
I agree except, I think Trump is the worst of politicians. At least the parts he plays at.
Quote:
But when you bring your own swamp with you, the OLD swampers don't let go of power without a fight.
I agree. Hell now will freeze over.
Quote:
Establishment" Republicans were just as reluctant to allow Trump to the ascendancy as Democrats. Even now, the support that Trump has from the GOP is grudging, and Dems downright hate him: he's a DC outsider, an interloper.
An interloper he is, an outsider he's not. Interloper because nobody wanted him; for good reason...He's an idiot. He's made money in business, but he's a destroyer. He uses the system to "steal" his millions through chicanery and intimidation. It's a whole new ballgame when it comes to politics; of which he knows little, but he has pursued the presidency and has played the game (poorly, but he's played). He even said so himself; while addressing the US Coast Guard Academy recently - "No politician has been treated worse"
in regards to the media attention(May 17, 2017).
More to come....I gotta go!
End of Part 1
SGG
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Quote:It means that you agreed with me, and I agreed with you, again. For a second time. That doesn't happen very often!
I'm going to need time to unpack this......whatever you call it, response.
But I felt the need to comment, however briefly, on a few things...
And what exactly does this mean:Quote:
Hell just froze over. Again!
Quote:So, you prefer politicians say all the usual soothing things and who convince you that it's for you own good as they jam you with a stick? 'Cause I agree, Trump sucks at that part!
I don't view Trump as an honest, or even competent, politician.- SIGNY
I agree except, I think Trump is the worst of politicians. At least the parts he plays at. - SHINY
Quote:Again!
But when you bring your own swamp with you, the OLD swampers don't let go of power without a fight.- SIGNY
I agree. Hell now will freeze over.- SHINY
Quote:You're saying so many things in the comment, each one needs to be addressed independently.
Establishment" Republicans were just as reluctant to allow Trump to the ascendancy as Democrats. Even now, the support that Trump has from the GOP is grudging, and Dems downright hate him: he's a DC outsider, an interloper. - SIGNY
An interloper he is, an outsider he's not. Interloper because nobody wanted him; for good reason...He's an idiot. He's made money in business, but he's a destroyer. He uses the system to "steal" his millions through chicanery and intimidation. It's a whole new ballgame when it comes to politics; of which he knows little, but he has pursued the presidency and has played the game (poorly, but he's played). He even said so himself; while addressing the US Coast Guard Academy recently - "No politician has been treated worse" in regards to the media attention(May 17, 2017).- SHINY
Quote:
... nobody wanted him; for good reason...He's an idiot.
The swamp didn't want Trump because he's an idiot?
Baloney.
Trump could be a blithering idiot, like brain-burned GWB or pre-dementia Reagan, but ONLY if Trump didn't mind having someone's hand up his ass turning him into a sock-puppet ... like Cheney did to Bush II, and Bush I did to Reagan. If Trump allowed himself to be the human skin of the swamp, the swamp wouldn't mind HOW stupid he was! In fact, really stupid Presidents are more conveniently manipulated. IDIOCY is not the problem.
Quote:Unlike the Clintons, who apparently used every office they ever had to enrich themselves, leaving an unlikely trail of dead bodies behind them; finally using the State Department and the Clinton Foundation in a pay-to-play scheme whereby the Clintons stole BILLIONS from their "charity"?
He uses the system to "steal" his millions through chicanery and intimidation.
Quote:Therefore, he's an outsider' you just said so yourself. Which do you prefer, SHINY: the person who smoothly convinces you that it's for your own good, as you get butt-fucked? Or the person who doesn't know how to whisper sweet nothings in your ear?
It's a whole new ballgame when it comes to politics; of which he knows little
Quote:This is probably true, but being treated badly by the press is not a reflection of ANY person's moral character, since the press is a duplicitous lying sack of corporate interest. The fact that the Press printed so many lies about Trump .... which btw is slowly coming to light .... tells me more about the press than about Trump. One thing it tell me is that one should NEVER trust the press!
"No politician has been treated worse" in regards to the media attention
In all of your comments so far, you quite obviously have not hit on the ones that I consider to be the most concerning.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:Today's Dilbert Comic covered this situation: http://dilbert.com/strip/2017-10-24
Originally posted by 1kiki:
And your repeated attempts to claim otherwise are just ... more trolling.
Troll.
That stupid online troll is insulting me again on social media! I keep defending myself, but instead of agreeing with me, he keeps calling me “defensive” and “pathetic”.
Maybe you could stop engaging with him?
I’m not a quitter!
The creator of Dilbert did endorse Trump over Hillary
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/150919416661/why-i-switched-my-endorsemen
t-from-clinton-to
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:Do you remember Trump's campaign? What American lacks, as Trump himself used to say on the campaign trail, is a reasonable distribution of economic resources, world-class infrastructure, affordable health care, and affordable child care. Investing resources in creating the things Trump said he would create, rather than in kowtowing to the transnational financial elites he said he was fighting, would improve middle-class people’s lives in a direct and tangible way.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
I don't quite get how you derailed so much to avoid a simple and coherent answer to a reasonable question - or even repeated question, yet at the same time go on a rant which might be tangential at best.
Are you off your meds?
But rather than craft policies to do any of that, Trumpism is proving to be an enormous bait-and-switch whose strategy for boosting the economy is to recapitulate George W. Bush’s agenda of cutting taxes for the rich and hoping for the best.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Do you remember Obama's campaigns? How he was going to revive the middle class, make government transparent, change the way DC was run, end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, close Gitmo, restrict warrantless wiretaps, stop the government-to-lobbyist revolving door, etc? And then, in an orgy of deflection and blame-shifting, attempt to blame Hillary's loss on "Russia"? (Does everyone at this point realize how ridiculous that concept is? If you think that Trump is intemperate in his foreign policy, just imagine how short-sighted the deep-state Democrats were when they decided that could thwart Trump's envisioned detente with Russia and taint him with the Russian bogeyman, poisoning relations with Russia for the foreseeable future, all for a short-sighted political gain.)
I bring this up, not to excuse Trump but to remind you that BOTH party candidates make promises that they don't keep. For as awful as you keep saying Trump is, Obama has done some really horrible things to the average American. He was a smooth talker, so I'm not sure the full understanding of how he (and the DNC) have betrayed the average American will ever catch up with reality, but instead of your complete one-sided bitching and griping, why don't you take a realistic look at both parties and insist on something better?
Just remember, SECOND, if there was a swamp in DC, Obama was part of it. And so was Hillary.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:You remind me of the Jehovah's Witnesses and their complaints about government. Their faith is the wicked die in Armageddon and God shall rule perfectly forever after. That is why I quit them. I don't want perfect or even pretty good. Trump is enough if he'd make his old income tax returns public knowledge, as he promised many, many times. Just that information would keep him within the boundary of reasonable behavior. And placing his businesses into an actual blind trust, instead of his make-believe trust, would go even further. Another promise not kept, and unlike Obama, Trump has no possible way to blame Congress for Trump not keeping those promises.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I bring this up, not to excuse Trump but to remind you that BOTH party candidates make promises that they don't keep. . . . why don't you take a realistic look at both parties and insist on something better?
Just remember, SECOND, if there was a swamp in DC, Obama was part of it. And so was Hillary.
Today, Dilbert has a comment on what Signym and second are doing:
http://dilbert.com/strip/2017-10-25
Watch me win this debate on twitter by providing facts and logic. Now we wait for everyone in the world to change their minds.
How’s the first minute going?
What is wrong with these monsters!
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:huh? I'm telling you to get off your fat arse and be something other than a swamp-defender and virtue-signaller. I'm sure not advocating that you leave this to Jehovah. What the hell are you smoking?
You remind me of the Jehovah's Witnesses and their complaints about government. Their faith is the wicked die in Armageddon and God shall rule perfectly forever after. That is why I quit them.
Quote:Judging by the amount and triviality of the criticism that you've heaped on Trump on this board, NONE of that would satisfy you!
I don't want perfect or even pretty good. Trump is enough if he'd make his old income tax returns public knowledge, as he promised many, many times. Just that information would keep him within the boundary of reasonable behavior. And placing his businesses into an actual blind trust, instead of his make-believe trust, would go even further. Another promise not kept, and unlike Obama, Trump has no possible way to blame Congress for Trump not keeping those promises.
You seem to think that just because I criticize Obama, Hillary, and the DNC shills who're running the deep state's shit-show that I'm defending Trump. I'm not.
You also seem to think that if I criticize your (deep state) criticism of Trump, I'm defending Trump. I'm not. But clearly you still don't recognize how enmeshed the deep state - the swamp, if you will- is with the DNC, and the DNC is with the deep state.
Why do you still think the Dems are going to rescue you?
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:I'll keep it really simple for you. I'll give you a non-trivial criticism of Trump. And in this particular case, Democrats want the opposite of what Trump wants. Out of necessity, the Republicans are cleverly yet falsely claiming that their tax cut will go to higher wages for workers.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Judging by the amount and triviality of the criticism that you've heaped on Trump on this board, NONE of that would satisfy you! . . . clearly you still don't recognize how enmeshed the deep state - the swamp, if you will- is with the DNC, and the DNC is with the dee . . .
The core of the Trump tax plan, to the extent we know what’s in it, is a huge cut in corporate taxes — about $2 trillion over the next 10 years, according to TPC’s best estimates. The administration would like you to believe that all of that tax cut will be passed on to higher wages, but this is overwhelmingly unlikely, especially in the short to medium run. In fact, the bulk of that tax cut will almost surely accrue to stockholders.
Unlike the situation in previous tax reforms, we now live in a world where investment holdings are diversified across countries. Specifically, around 35 percent of U.S. equity is owned by foreign residents. So of that $2 trillion windfall, $700 billion goes to foreigners. Make non-US investors great again!
It is Trump’s $700 Billion Foreign Aid Program. Trump can’t say that he only cares about global welfare, not U.S. parochial issues — not under an administration that has adopted America First as its slogan.
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/trumps-700-billion-foreig
n-aid-program/
To repeat: 35% of US equity is foreign owned, therefore 700 billion dollars of the 2 trillion dollar Trump tax windfall goes to foreigners. The 1,300 billion dollars of the tax cut which is staying in America will NOT raise wages, despite what Trump says, but will instead increase the wealth of the rich. That is a substantive criticism of Trump and you can't blame the Democrats for what Trump intends to do because the Democrats are opposed.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Here's a non-trivial criticism of Obama:
As banks were failing, he force-fed somewhere in the realm of $13+ trillion (that's with a "T") on them, refusing to allow "too big to fail" banks to fail. He signed onto the very first bail-in agreement with the Bank of England, which allows systemically important (international) banks to touch your account to make themselves whole, then signed on to the expanded version of "bail in" during the G20 meeting in Australia.
He refused to prosecute bankers who write fraudulent loans or sold fraudulent investment products based on subprime loans https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/23/untouchables-wal
l-street-prosecutions-obama https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/how-wall-streets-
bankers-stayed-out-of-jail/399368/ and arm-twisted the States Attorney General (including Kamala Harris [watch out for that snake] an up-and-coming Dem who sold her soul for political gain)
During his reign, at least 85% (if not more) of the "recovery" went to the top 1%. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/upshot/gains-from-economic-recovery
-still-limited-to-top-one-percent.html I have not found a totalized value for that gain in wealth disparity except that it is acknowledged to be in the $trillions (that's with a "T"). If I decide to pursue this research further I'll to let you know.
Do you REALLY think Saint Obama did anything for the average American? I refer you once again to the chart which shows the increasing wealth disparity to continue along the same trajectory under Obama as under GWB. I predict that the trajectory will be unchanged under Trump, too.
Yanno what your problem is, SECOND? Among other things, you focus on "feelings" and "motivations" like someone who's taken just a few too many psychology classes, leaving you incapable of analyzing anything with numbers attached, like financialism and economics.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Signym, if you want to bring down the wealth of the top 1%, then your ideal Trump would be raising taxes on the 1%. But he's not. He seeks to lower them. What Trump is doing is the opposite of what any Democrat would do.
Signym, if you want to improve the health of the bottom 99%, then your ideal Trump would have an ideal Trumpcare plan. But he doesn't have a plan. What Trump is doing is the opposite of what any Democrat would do.
And a final generalized complaint about Trump doing what no Democrat would do. (I chose the wall only as an example; choose a better project closer to your heart):
Signym, if you want the Texas/Mexico wall built, then your ideal Trump would not have deliberately alienated Senators Flake and Corker. Flake and Corker will be in office until January 2019. That’s an eternity in politics. There could be more Republican Senators who haven't announced their antipathy to Trump because they are not resigning. Remember, Republicans only have a two-seat majority in the Senate. Your ideal Trump needs their votes in 2017 and 2018 to build that wall. If you don't care about the wall, there must be a few other things Signym might want passed that can't pass because Trump is too good at making the wrong kind of enemies.
Good luck, Signym, with your hopes for Trump.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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SECOND, you STILL don't get it, do you?
I fully acknowledge that Trump is doing some things that are horrible for the middle class. There is nothing you can tell me that would change my view of Trump. I KNOW he's bringing his swamp with him. I KNOW that he represents a segment of the elite- what I call the "national" capitalists. In fact, I will tell you .... since you're into "motivations" and "feelings" ... that like many wealthy, he probably doesn't see any difference between what benefits him and what benefits America because ... well, hell, he and people like him ARE America. L'etat. cest moi. I suspect that he truly believes in trickle-down; that once capitalists like him (national ones) are allowed a bigger piece of the pie, then the economy will blossom and everyone's boat will be lifted. Yes, I think that Trump is self-referencing and fatuous enough to actually believe that. I also thought he would be a loose cannon. And morally, I thought that he and Hillary were about on-par, altho I did give Trump a slight edge. I think I said most of this even BEFORE the election. I even said that there was no way in hell that Trump could revive the economy.
And knowing all this, I still thought Hillary was a worse choice. And looking into the future from now, I still say that the Dems would stab Americans in the back ....again ... just as badly or worse, but in a different way. Because they HAVE stabbed Americans in the back already.
So, what were you going to say about Trump that was going to change my mind?
Stop recycling your old arguments ad nauseam. Give it your best shot, hon, because so far you haven't touched me. 
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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I'll hit you with one more for the day: Trump made a big show of saving jobs at Carrier in Indiana. He hasn't done that again. There are thousands of factories he could show up at to save jobs from being exported. But he hasn't done it because that's work, the work is not fun for Trump, and he never meant what he said about saving factory jobs in the first place. It was all about creating a show for Trump's amusement. Trump didn't do another Carrier because V.P. Pence, ex-governor of Indiana, did all the real work for Trump. Since Pence didn't have a second Indiana factory ready to save, Trump never saved another.
I was under the impression that factory jobs was an important part of Trump's appeal to Signym. Sorry if I remember that wrong about you, but Trump is demonstrating that his enthusiasm for creating factory jobs is no greater than Obama's was and Hillary's would have been. As far as jobs, Trump has let the country fly on automatic pilot, following the last compass heading from when Obama was the pilot.
www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/business/economy/jobs-report-unemployment.h
tml
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, you STILL don't get it, do you?
I fully acknowledge that Trump is doing some things that are horrible for the middle class. There is nothing you can tell me that would change my view of Trump. I KNOW he's bringing his swamp with him. I KNOW that he represents a segment of the elite- what I call the "national" capitalists. In fact, I will tell you .... since you're into "motivations" and "feelings" ... that like many wealthy, he probably doesn't see any difference between what benefits him and what benefits America because ... well, hell, he and people like him ARE America. L'etat. cest moi. I suspect that he truly believes in trickle-down; that once capitalists like him (national ones) are allowed a bigger piece of the pie, then the economy will blossom and everyone's boat will be lifted. Yes, I think that Trump is self-referencing and fatuous enough to actually believe that. I also thought he would be a loose cannon. And morally, I thought that he and Hillary were about on-par, altho I did give Trump a slight edge. I think I said most of this even BEFORE the election. I even said that there was no way in hell that Trump could revive the economy.
And knowing all this, I still thought Hillary was a worse choice. And looking into the future from now, I still say that the Dems would stab Americans in the back ....again ... just as badly or worse, but in a different way. Because they HAVE stabbed Americans in the back already.
So, what were you going to say about Trump that was going to change my mind?
Stop recycling your old arguments ad nauseam. Give it your best shot, hon, because so far you haven't touched me.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Trump shows his brilliance in this quote about Chinese President Xi Jinping: "He’s a powerful man. I happen to think he’s a very good person. Now with that being said, he represents China, I represent the USA, so, you know, there’s going to always be conflict. But we have a very good relationship. People say we have the best relationship of any president-president, because he’s called president also.
Now some people might call him the king of China. But he’s called president. But we have a very good relationship and that’s a positive thing. And it would be good to have that relationship with Russia and other countries, too."
Trump is unpopular around the world. That makes it difficult for democratically elected leaders to engage in the same level of Trump flattery as the dictators in China and Russia, which may have given Trump a poor impression of the various prime ministers of Europe and the Commonwealth.
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/26/16552362/lou-dobbs-trump-tr
anscript
Replacement-level Republicanism, minus competence
The truly striking thing about Trump, nine months in, is not the awe-inspiring scale of accomplishments that Dobbs claims to see.
It’s that after an extraordinarily contentious primary season in which Trump put forward many profoundly heterodox policy ideas, we have a president in the White House whose strongest performance comes when giving a decent rendition of Chamber of Commerce talking points on one aspect of a corporate income tax cut.
There’s no actual plan here to cut prescription drug prices. There isn’t even any talk any more of “terrific” health insurance programs that will “cover everyone.” Trump’s not pretending any more than he’s going to raise taxes on the rich, he’s not talking about $1 trillion infrastructure investments, and he’s certainly not burning the midnight oil coming up with a Trumpian policy agenda.
He’s just kind of bopping along with more vulgarity and corruption and less discipline and policy knowledge than a normal president.
Meanwhile, a Republican Party that’s no longer really divided on policy is tearing itself apart between a faction that can see the plain reality in front of them and a majority group that, like Dobbs, insists on pretending that their party’s unpopular and not-very-able leader is in fact a leader of world-historical proportions.
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Quote:Trump might seem to be bumbling around, but those who voted for him seem to be happier with him than they would have been with Hilliary. The far lesser of 2 evils, Trump is not even the same league of evil as her.
Originally posted by second:
Trump shows his brilliance in this quote about Chinese President Xi Jinping: "He’s a powerful man. I happen to think he’s a very good person. Now with that being said, he represents China, I represent the USA, so, you know, there’s going to always be conflict. But we have a very good relationship. People say we have the best relationship of any president-president, because he’s called president also.
Now some people might call him the king of China. But he’s called president. But we have a very good relationship and that’s a positive thing. And it would be good to have that relationship with Russia and other countries, too."
Trump is unpopular around the world. That makes it difficult for democratically elected leaders to engage in the same level of Trump flattery as the dictators in China and Russia, which may have given Trump a poor impression of the various prime ministers of Europe and the Commonwealth.
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/26/16552362/lou-dobbs-trump-tr
anscript
Replacement-level Republicanism, minus competence
The truly striking thing about Trump, nine months in, is not the awe-inspiring scale of accomplishments that Dobbs claims to see.
It’s that after an extraordinarily contentious primary season in which Trump put forward many profoundly heterodox policy ideas, we have a president in the White House whose strongest performance comes when giving a decent rendition of Chamber of Commerce talking points on one aspect of a corporate income tax cut.
There’s no actual plan here to cut prescription drug prices. There isn’t even any talk any more of “terrific” health insurance programs that will “cover everyone.” Trump’s not pretending any more than he’s going to raise taxes on the rich, he’s not talking about $1 trillion infrastructure investments, and he’s certainly not burning the midnight oil coming up with a Trumpian policy agenda.
He’s just kind of bopping along with more vulgarity and corruption and less discipline and policy knowledge than a normal president.
Meanwhile, a Republican Party that’s no longer really divided on policy is tearing itself apart between a faction that can see the plain reality in front of them and a majority group that, like Dobbs, insists on pretending that their party’s unpopular and not-very-able leader is in fact a leader of world-historical proportions.
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Quote:How would you plan to raise taxes on the most wealthy 1% anyhow?
Originally posted by second:
Signym, if you want to bring down the wealth of the top 1%, then your ideal Trump would be raising taxes on the 1%. But he's not. He seeks to lower them. What Trump is doing is the opposite of what any Democrat would do.
Signym, if you want to improve the health of the bottom 99%, then your ideal Trump would have an ideal Trumpcare plan. But he doesn't have a plan. What Trump is doing is the opposite of what any Democrat would do.
And a final generalized complaint about Trump doing what no Democrat would do. (I chose the wall only as an example; choose a better project closer to your heart):
Signym, if you want the Texas/Mexico wall built, then your ideal Trump would not have deliberately alienated Senators Flake and Corker. Flake and Corker will be in office until January 2019. That’s an eternity in politics. There could be more Republican Senators who haven't announced their antipathy to Trump because they are not resigning. Remember, Republicans only have a two-seat majority in the Senate. Your ideal Trump needs their votes in 2017 and 2018 to build that wall. If you don't care about the wall, there must be a few other things Signym might want passed that can't pass because Trump is too good at making the wrong kind of enemies.
Good luck, Signym, with your hopes for Trump.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Are you a proponent of Consumption Tax?
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