Analyzing the Transition of Power After The U.S. Election and Beyond Into Future Global Politics

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  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    edited February 2017 Posts: 40,976
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-welcomes-us-idea-drug-cartels-fund-wall-210517396.html

    Maybe when Trump is done magically getting the narcos to fund the entire border wall, he can get them to come pay off my student loans and deposit a few million into my bank account.

    http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/317337-trump-frederick-douglass-has-done-an-amazing-job

    He obviously has no idea who Frederick Douglass is. Astounding.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited February 2017 Posts: 12,480
    Yes, @Creasy47 ... our president. He will continue to be an embarrassment to our country as long as he is in office; that is the only sure bet about him.

    Basically, some kind of wall (and who knows how long it will end up being) will be built at U.S. taxpayers' expense. It is not a deterrent, it is merely a crumb thrown to his core base who want "the wall". He had already walked back on it being built - then he and Bannon decided to change tactics and go full bore. Angering and deriding Mexico, who is a major importer to the U.S., oh and is an ally, is anything but smart. Trump just continues to make our country look bad. Isolationism and bigotry at the forefront. With dollops or impractical ideas and Keystone Cops ability to roll out new laws and regulations.

    Black History month and he turns it into another rant about ... himself.


    And while Trump is ripping funds from the Nat'l Endowment for the Arts, let's keep this in mind, too:

    Those are not small things ... with this administration bent on dismantling our democracy and systems and institutions, we have to take note of all they are doing. But some things are more dangerous, or more odious, than others.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,976
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    T is for Tillerson. T Rex.
  • From the Department of Self-Fulfilling Propecies: back in March of 2016, speaking on his own radio show, Steve Bannon stated that there was "no doubt" the US would be at war with China within the next 5-to-10 years. I'd say the odds are improving all the time... https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/01/trumps-chief-strategist-steve-bannon-no-doubt-the-us-will-be/21704928/
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    You all think I'm exaggerating with the Elliot Carver thing now?
  • Give the people what they want!
  • Posts: 1,631
    But this one is further right than Scalia.
    Women's rights & more would be under greater threat with Gorsuch.
    See graph on this front page. https://www.nytimes.com/
    " ... would be a reliable conservative, “voting to limit gay rights, uphold restrictions on abortion and invalidate affirmative action programs.”

    So I think we should oppose (and yes, esp. because of the GOP not even considering Garland.) Still we are stuck with Trump and must consider each choice.. But I am considering what you've said, @dalton.

    Sessions - yes, that is very important to block and not confirm and needs to be on the front burner.

    I am truly not in the mind to give the GOP anything, any carrot. They will happily try to kill filabusters anyway at some point. This administration, with GOP still complicit so far, are giving the American people little in the way of moderation. Trump's executive orders are still just beginning of what Trump (Bannon & Miller) want to actually achieve.

    Sorry for the late response on this. Was going to reply last night but there were some circumstances that kept me from doing so.

    I do see the merit in the arguments of both sides of the Democratic party as they debate on how to approach this. While I do happen to go along with those that want to pass on this particular nomination fight in order to live to fight another day, I can't help but also feel like there's a pretty good rationale behind wanting to fight the GOP using their own tactics from the last time.

    At some point, though, one party is going to have to decide to be the big boys in the room and act like it. We all know that's not going to happen with "President" Trump occupying the White House, so it's not going to be the GOP. While this Gorsuch individual may end up being worse in the minds of liberals than Scalia, he's still only got the one vote, and the balance of the court will remain what it was before. Just in terms of tactics, I think that they could get some mileage out of playing nice now and hopefully keeping the filibuster option on the table for the next time, all while perhaps quietly urging some of the aging justices to hold out until 2020 before trying to retire, when we'll almost certainly be electing a Democrat into the presidency.

    But, even with all of that said, the GOP couldn't very well complain, and would certainly have it coming to them, if the Democrats turned right around and did to them what they did for the past year. Even as someone who typically votes for the GOP, I found that in particular to be a disgraceful dereliction of duty, not voting on Justice Garland. Their behavior over the past six or however many years it has been has been downright disgraceful, to say the least, so I couldn't fault Senator Schumer and his people for wanting to fight back in kind.

  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    @dalton, pretty even, thoughtful post- thanks.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited February 2017 Posts: 17,801
    Okay, back to UNeven... regardless of what bondjames says on his thread, these guys are NUTS. Not as in "I vehemently disagree with your politics/views on economy/women's rights etc." More like sociopathic deconstructionism on a WWIII level. Only small plus to all this is all those white trash Trump voters will thin out pretty fast after food stamps get slashed.*

    *Satire- I wish no children to go hungry, ever. But sadly they will....
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    I suggest we stay out of their safe space echo chamber. ;)
  • edited February 2017 Posts: 572
    For some reason I'm mildly amused by everyone's hyperreaction to what's going on. It reminds me a LOT like 2008. I'll grab my popcorn and watch the Dems keep following the GOP's footsteps and eventually they'll get to the White House...in 2024. :P
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    JamesStock wrote: »
    For some reason I'm mildly amused by everyone's hyperreaction to what's going on. It reminds me a LOT like 2008. I'll grab my popcorn and watch the Dems keep following the GOP's footsteps and eventually they'll get to the White House...in 2024. :P
    Oh man. I hope you're right here.
  • chrisisall wrote: »
    JamesStock wrote: »
    For some reason I'm mildly amused by everyone's hyperreaction to what's going on. It reminds me a LOT like 2008. I'll grab my popcorn and watch the Dems keep following the GOP's footsteps and eventually they'll get to the White House...in 2024. :P
    Oh man. I hope you're right here.
    Seriously, we have a two party system...it's pretty easy to observe the pendulum pattern of the political system, given the hypersentive era that we live in.

    The thing is that time will eventually shine through all the current hype and cataclysmic predictions and quite frankly, numb voters to it and question credibility. Meanwhile the dem base will get fired up as they now have a common goal. It's going to be a fun 4 years (and probably 8) because some people really just need reality to whack them in the face after getting comfy from their 8-year high.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    JamesStock wrote: »
    It's going to be a fun 4 years (and probably 8) because some people really just need reality to whack them in the face after getting comfy from their 8-year high.
    I didn't have an 8 year high... it was more like an 8 year *meh*. Still, better than what came before or what is now...
  • TripAcesTripAces Universal Exports
    Posts: 4,585
    JamesStock wrote: »
    For some reason I'm mildly amused by everyone's hyperreaction to what's going on. It reminds me a LOT like 2008. I'll grab my popcorn and watch the Dems keep following the GOP's footsteps and eventually they'll get to the White House...in 2024. :P

    There's one big BIG difference. Obama was voted in, winning the popular vote and majority vote. His agenda had a full mandate.

    Trump did NOT win the popular vote; most Americans wanted someone else. In other words, the majority of Americans reject this agenda...and yet it's being shoved down their throats. That's the reason for the intensity of the backlash.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited February 2017 Posts: 12,480
    We do not have four years, let's be clear on that. We don't.
    This is in NO way normal party politics as usual. It isn't. That reasoning, that hope will not work now. It would work if this were usual, like in the past, when your choice was not elected. This situation is radically different and not the same scenario. So regular political thinking won't work, won't resolve anything.

    But we need to think clearly, do the best we can, hope that legal steps are being taken by those in govt. So stay focused, no matter what is happening, and keep speaking up to our representatives. Get involved with your own local politics. Don't sit back and wait for things to escalate ... or give up and let things go. Just each of us do our best, on a daily basis. Because the events, the words, the actions will get worse. We can do it, we need to stay strong and keep doing what we can.

    Americans don't take things lying down easily, and after our initial shock of this administration's early days (not even 2 full weeks) - we'll buckle up for the ride, no matter how bumpy, and do our best. That does not mean accepting we have 4 years and get another president. It means taking civil, calm, and strong action now. Speak up when there is bigotry and injustice. I am encouraged by many Americans these days, just not the ones in the White House.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    G'Day, Australia and yeah, we're sorry about that phone call ...


    Apparently Trump was fatigued, so don't take it personally or anything.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Apparently Trump was fatigued, so don't take it personally or anything.
    Sorry about that nuke China, it was after a long day and the President was fatigued...
  • edited February 2017 Posts: 1,009
    According to the last news I've listened, he wasn't that "fatigued". It looks like he's quite proud of his feat... They try to cover his ass and in several hours he wipes it with their work?!

    What kind of a sociopath is he?

  • Murdock wrote: »
    I suggest we stay out of their safe space echo chamber. ;)

    But where will I go to get my regular doses of walrus abuse?
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,351
    Murdock wrote: »
    I suggest we stay out of their safe space echo chamber. ;)

    But where will I go to get my regular doses of walrus abuse?

    Watch Gregory Beam in QOS. =))
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited February 2017 Posts: 24,183
    These past few days I have heard a few people praise Trump for "defending the Christian world" against "other religions" since "ours" is clearly the "only true religion". Apart from the fact that Trump's motivations are strictly electoral and strategic, his cheap demagoguery is flawed even at the surface of things.

    Let's consider the five major religions, of which Christianity and Islam are but two. Obviously at most one of them can be the "correct" religion. Who says Christianity is that hypothetical "correct" religion? A few exceptions tossed aside, most religious people have furthermore adopted that religion which holds sway of the immediate environment in which they were born and raised. Being a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, ... has thus become a matter of chance and shouldn't induce any illusion of divine predestination. "Us, Christians" may very well have been "us, Muslims" if you had been born to a different mother and father.

    One can of course commit to feeling superior to other religion-heavy cultures when assessing each culture's habits, morals and practices, and concluding that one's own culture is by far the "best" in every way. Of course every religious person is most likely to crown his own religion and culture as the superior one. Here again we have no readily available objective test to determine whose culture is superior or inferior. "Our Christian world" may be worth defending for thousands of reasons, but is it truly superior to the point where it must be shielded from the cultural "pollution" of other religions? In the end, the only true schism exists between people of faith and secular folks, who generally oppose every religious system and none less than another. Muslims and Christians should rather team up to discuss the ever increasing evidence against the notion of a divine Creator and plan how to save themselves from coming off as total lunatics when scientific progress - the only true form of progress our society knows anymore - continues to be made, laying waste to almost every single religious idea without even trying.

    In the end, Christians and Muslims, both splintered off into various fractions, nevertheless cling to an organised religion which draws its "wisdom" from dogma's and is leaded by a few sinisterly appointed authority figures, appointed through anything but a democratic system. Its teachings typically involve nothing that can be empirically verified, nor does it leave any room for constructive criticism, scepticism or dissident thinking. When left unchecked, it would terrorise our educational system by exercising control over nearly every subject taught in school; science classes would fall victim to a system that filters their contents and eliminates views, despite having successfully passed rigid sets of tests, if they oppose the teachings of holy scripture.

    The sad part is that this form of religious power abuse actually exists in America, as well as in several Muslim countries. The Christian world is no less dangerous than the Muslim world in many respects, even if the obvious "suicide bomber" cases seem more prevalent on Islamic side than on Christian side. I don't want an Islamic "invasion" anymore than the average Trump voter does, but neither do I want an expansion of the Christian world. In fact, I want both to disappear as quickly as possible since both are essentially making the same mistakes. They deprive people of the one thing that separates us from most dumb animals: the power of reason. Trump won because America has allowed its population to be a programmable, easily frightened group of mindless slaves. This very thing was predicted by the likes of Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan decades ago. By encouraging (too) many Americans to render themselves at the mercy of superstition, magical thinking and religious devotion, schools will in several parts of the country replace evolutionary biology with Creationism, powerful people will consult fortune tellers and priests right before they impose radical changes in whatever affairs they have going but which influence us all, and mad men like Trump will be allowed to rise to power because they spout dangerous ideas but which sound good, address people's basic fears and are almost always backed up by god's infallible blessing.

    America is ill. Xenophobia, war fever, greed, superstition ... they are all cancers which will corrupt the country from the inside. The election of Donald Trump was the first clear sign of ultimate doom for the country. Most of all, America is losing grip with reality; to say that its Christian identity must be preserved while Muslims must be shunned is similar to a heroin addict saying cocaine is not good for you.
  • Murdock wrote: »
    Murdock wrote: »
    I suggest we stay out of their safe space echo chamber. ;)

    But where will I go to get my regular doses of walrus abuse?

    Watch Gregory Beam in QOS. =))

    Yeah, you're right, Felix -- we should only talk to the good guys.....
  • This explains everything! Trump's been taking a drug associated with mental deterioration -- all so he can keep that beautiful head of hair! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-propecia-haiir-loss_us_58936376e4b06f344e4058a6?d1ytoscyigpqtzkt9&;
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited February 2017 Posts: 17,801
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    The election of Donald Trump was the first clear sign of ultimate doom for the country.
    Yes, a tipping point has been reached. The triggers were the 1% hoarding wealth in the face of economic globalization causing a further slide downward for the lower middle class & poor, and the intentional mediocrity of the quality of education due to planned budget cuts (keep 'em stupid so societal control & manipulation is easy). These two actions that have long been in play might just create an America that the rich & powerful will not like. A world in which their children may not always be safe...
    "There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child."
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited February 2017 Posts: 12,480
  • Donald Trump is God's way of saying to America: "Watch out what you ask for, because you just might get it..."
  • Agent007391Agent007391 Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start
    edited February 2017 Posts: 7,854
    Considering he lost the popular vote, I'd say it's more a case of "Watch out what the other guy asked for".
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