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

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  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    edited February 2017 Posts: 17,801

    This is pretty much treason IMO. They wanted Trump in there for a reason; this is it.
  • I don't usually just cut & paste The Rude Pundit because, y'know, usually he's too rude to do that. This time, well, let's see...I HAVE made a few discrete edits for decency's sake, but everything else in this post is the work of His Rudeness. Hide the children...

    2/02/2017

    Democrats Should Resist, But Everything That Happens Is on Republicans
    Let's get rid of one part of this in short order: Democrats in Congress should be resisting Trump every step of the way. That includes pushing hearings to crisis levels of antagonism, voting against every unqualified candidate, and, of course, filibustering his Supreme Court picks. It shouldn't even be up for discussion. They will lose and lose, but Democratic House and Senate members would be fundamentally misreading their marching, chanting, raging voters if they fail. As for the fear that Republicans in the Senate will get rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, you can be sure that the moment that Democrats do refuse to allow a vote on whatever right-wing nutzoid Trump tries to shove down America's throat, skeevy powermonger Mitch McConnell is gonna change the rules with his disturbing semi-grin that's a middle finger to his opponents. It's a question of when, not "if" on the filibuster.

    Democrats can spin this easily. They could say they won't vote on things until the Muslim ban is halted. They could say that they won't vote for Trump's Supreme Court picks because a majority of Americans don't think he should be able to do so. They could stand up for the judiciary as Trump keeps ignoring court orders.

    Democratic voters are already fighting. They are mightily insulted and want active rejection of all things Trump. These are flames that should be fanned by Democrats in Congress until Republicans start to feel the residual heat and are afraid of getting burned.

    That's because, on some level, many Republicans realize that they own this presidency and its actions. Oh, sure, sure, they're fine going along with a great deal of dirt that Trump does. Except for the pathetic, neutered goat bleatings of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and a handful of others, Republicans are either conspicuously silent or hee-hawing in support of the Muslim ban, and they're drooling at the prospect of getting Scalia II on the court. But we're now just two weeks into the Trump administration (insert your own retching sound), and we've got a Benghazi and multiple foreign crises. There's only so long that you can keep your head in the sand until you just suffocate.

    Actually, it's unfair to compare the disastrous raid on al-Qaeda in Yemen to Benghazi. What happened at the consulate in Libya was an unexpected event. The Yemen raid was an American plan that had been rejected by the Obama administration and then approved by Trump despite the lack of intelligence that might have prevented all the deaths that occurred, including a Navy SEAL and several children. In other words, Trump's first military test was a clusterf*** of fail. And not a single hearing has been scheduled nor have you heard a peep from Republicans.

    And you might not, ever. You might not hear them say how utterly absurd it is that Trump is treating the president of Mexico like he's a gardener who cut a shrub at Mar-a-Lago too short. You might not hear them even whisper that agitating China is just dumb. You might not hear them wonder why the hell Trump is pissing on our relationship with Australia, one of our most reliable allies in the world. You might hear them cheering on another useless war, this time with Iran, because that'd just fulfill a dream they've had since 1979. You will hear them c****ing themselves over any threat that's Muslimish while clamming up over domestic terrorists like white supremacists and Breitbart's staff.

    Still, we know that not only are Republicans cowards, but they're liars and hypocrites who would dance on the corpses of dead children rather than admit their ideology has failed. They'd rather learn to breathe sand than lift their heads and walk upright because they're gonna get to kick sick people off health insurance, discriminate against LGBT Americans, and force women into back alley abortions, the trifecta of quotidian cruelty they're begging to inflict.

    So how do we get through to them? Because, see, we don't have two years to wait for the congressional midterms. Hell, all we need is one terrorist event in the United States, and Trump will declare martial law because he's too dumb and deranged to know any other way to handle it.

    Two plans: the first is already happening. Inundate the offices and phone lines, especially of GOP representatives. Make their lives miserable with people registering how angry they are. The reps, even in gerrymandered districts, are more vulnerable than most senators. We gotta get people running against them. Put these a$$holes out on the curb. And make the rest beg for mercy.

    And our activism has to target people who voted for Trump. Yeah, I know, I know, they're loathsome racists or racist-adjacent. But there are a hell of a lot of them who are regretting their votes - the wayward Bernie voters, the "take him seriously, but not literally" idiots, and the ones who realized that maybe getting into a war with Mexico is a little worse than Hillary's emails.

    Mostly, it all depends on the constant action of Democrats and non-aligned progressives. Make sure Republicans know that they will be held to account for what they do, not just Democrats. This is on the GOP. Make them pay.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    GUNS


    Send lawyers, guns, and money
    The shit has hit the fan



  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Rude-y is spot on here.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    Yes, that is interesting and pretty much on target, @Beatles. Good points.

    So here is this, and it is not important in the big scheme of things. Certainly we have major concerns about other things. But still ..... yay! for this ~

  • edited February 2017 Posts: 6,432
    Trump is just a more transparent version of what's been happening for decades looking at the insidious bigger picture. Presidents and prime ministers are window dressing, I gave up on politics years ago because I became aware of the reality of the pointless circuses. If you have watched reality TV shows, you voted Trump in.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited February 2017 Posts: 12,480
    Just something I can relate to a bit:
    A dad writes about the upcoming SuperBowl in the midst of all this turmoil, and underlying genuine worry, in America.

    http://deadspin.com/the-darkest-super-bowl-1791885899
    Says in part (but the first half is a personal incident; worth reading all of this. It is not long. Also, I edited out some words that we cannot post on this forum.)
    *****

    I’ve lived through crisis Super Bowls, most notably back in 1991 when Whitney sang the anthem during the first Iraq War (which had the blessing of most Americans, myself included) and then in 2002 when U2 played the first Super Bowl after 9/11 (and after Operation Enduring Freedom began over in Afghanistan). In both of those instances, the Super Bowl did its job acting as the country’s wintertime July 4th. It unified. It distracted. It put a gauzy, patriotic sheen on political events that deserved a lot more vocal scrutiny. Both games also happened to be fantastic (with Bill Belichick playing a vital role in each!). It made everything feel good and normal.

    That will not happen on Sunday. This game has never been bigger while the nation itself has been so unstable. I have not lived through a Super Bowl being played under such inescapably ominous circumstances. They’re gonna unfurl a big ******* flag out on that field and have bomber jets fly over the stadium and have Luke Bryan sing the anthem and what the **** am I supposed to feel when that happens? Pride? We started off this season with Colin Kaepernick peacefully protesting the anthem, and we end it in the middle of what feels like one huge, cruel, soon-to-be-violent rebuke to that protest.

    I promise you I wanna stick to sports, but I seem to lack that superpower at the moment. Right now, all I get are little breaks in the cloud cover, a precious few moments where I find myself preoccupied with some other shit before remembering, “Oh yeah, this guy is running rampant through the corridors of power.” They’re gonna play that anthem and I’m not gonna feel all groovy and hopeful inside. I’m gonna just be reminded of the 60 million or so Americans who voted for Trump and think “America” means them and no one else.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited February 2017 Posts: 12,480
    Still scaling the heights of stupidity with this travel ban - now the Norwegian former prime minister, who still has a diplomatic passport, was detained. Yes. I don't think she would ever consider it (and I pray not), but if Queen Elizabeth came over to the U.S., what would stop them from detaining her? Hmmm. I'm only slightly exaggerating (if at all).
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,976
    Weren't Republicans absolutely losing their minds when Obama signed EO's at the beginning of his administration? Now Trump is tossing those things out like Skittles, and they seem to love it.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    The Trump is more or less continuing what the Obama did.
  • The Trump is more or less continuing what the Obama did.

    Every time I think, "That's it, that's as low as he can go," you keep finding ways to prove me wrong. Not even true, TF. Not even on the same continent as "True." But thanks for playing...

  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    The Trump is more or less continuing what the Obama did.

    Every time I think, "That's it, that's as low as he can go," you keep finding ways to prove me wrong. Not even true, TF. Not even on the same continent as "True." But thanks for playing...
    TF said "more or less." So he's not wrong; it's less.
  • Here's the thing: this false equivalency game (Democrats are the same as Republicans, this guy's bad acts are ROUGHLY the same as that guy's bad acts, etc.) are part of what brought us here. It's time to reject false equivalency as strongly as we reject the genuine evil of the Trump administration. Obama did some stuff that I could (and did) object to, but on balance, he was easily the best president the US has had in this century. Trump is still looking like all four horsemen of the coming apocalypse. The two are in no way equivalent.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Here's the thing: this false equivalency game (Democrats are the same as Republicans, this guy's bad acts are ROUGHLY the same as that guy's bad acts, etc.) are part of what brought us here. It's time to reject false equivalency as strongly as we reject the genuine evil of the Trump administration. Obama did some stuff that I could (and did) object to, but on balance, he was easily the best president the US has had in this century. Trump is still looking like all four horsemen of the coming apocalypse. The two are in no way equivalent.
    I was trying to be funny- of course you are 100% correct here.
    Senator Warren speaks the truth!
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    You are right. Obama was slightly worse.
  • Posts: 7,653
    You are right. Obama was slightly worse.

    Time will tell.

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,183
    @BeatlesSansEarmuffs, Truer words were never spoken! Of course no president has the power to do good for literally everyone, but Obama made sense and Trump does not. Obama understood the 21st Century, Trump is scared of it. Obama wanted to take America a few steps forward, Trump merely seeks to go back in time, to the comfort of a dogmatic, Medieval leadership. Obama will always be the one shining light between the warmongering of Bush Jr. and the fascism of Trump.
  • Thanks for the kind words, @DarthDimi and @chrisisall. And keep on dancin' @4Ever. In times like these we all need to keep each other nearby... in one way or another.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    You are right. Obama was slightly worse.
    In what ways you cannot fully articulate without invoking your FoxNews Amendment rights.

    :P
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Eric's trips tagged at $100,000 a pop, $400,000 a day for Trump tower security, Trump's getaway 3 mill, 15 bill for the great wall, this admin is just hemorrhaging cash... cutting food stamps will pay for .002% of this. :-?
  • The very fact that we have two topics in here, one more pro-Trump, and one more anti-Trump, shows that the USA is heading towards unchartered waters. Wait no, it's heading towards more well-known waters: A situation that draws some parallels with the American Civil War. There was already lots of polarization and division in the USA, but Trump has exponentially increased that polarization and division in a matter of two weeks.

    It scares the hell out of me. It's one of the reasons I post a bit less in these topics. But Trump still scares me. And today, another hot decision creates more and more polarization and division: The rightful decision to halt the immigrant ban of 7 nations. I fully agree with it, but day after day these decisions are tearing the USA apart :-(. Steve Bannon should be happy. This is what he wants. To destroy the USA and create a 'new USA'. But it makes me sad and makes me cry :-(.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited February 2017 Posts: 12,480
    Re the Muslim travel ban, the way it was rolled out, and the court order halting it ~
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/us/visa-ban-legal-challenge.html?_r=0
    In part:
    Because the court fights so far have centered on whether judges should impose and keep in place temporary restraining orders, the legal arguments in the last few days have centered on the government’s contention that there is “no potential irreparable harm” to justify keeping the extraordinary orders in place pending fuller briefing and arguments.

    But Bob Ferguson, the Washington attorney general, who opposed the Trump administration in the Seattle case, said the decision Friday “shuts down the executive order nationwide and immediately.”

    “I hope the federal government will understand what they did was unconstitutional and unlawful,” he said
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/news/important-announcement.html
    In part:

    The Department of State had, under the Executive Order, provisionally revoked all valid visas of nationals of those seven countries, with limited exceptions. That provisional revocation is now lifted, and those visas are now valid for travel to the United States, if the holder is otherwise eligible. Individuals whose visas are expired, or were physically cancelled, must apply for a new visa at a U.S. embassy or consulate, absent a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) decision to grant parole or waive the visa requirement at the port of entry. We are looking further into this issue and will revise this site with any updates.

    We are working closely with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and we will provide further updates as soon as information is available.
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    Posts: 12,480
    Maybe we need one ... ? ;) For presidents ...
  • edited February 2017 Posts: 572
    I don't usually just cut & paste The Rude Pundit because, y'know, usually he's too rude to do that. This time, well, let's see...I HAVE made a few discrete edits for decency's sake, but everything else in this post is the work of His Rudeness. Hide the children...

    2/02/2017

    Democrats Should Resist, But Everything That Happens Is on Republicans
    Let's get rid of one part of this in short order: Democrats in Congress should be resisting Trump every step of the way. That includes pushing hearings to crisis levels of antagonism, voting against every unqualified candidate, and, of course, filibustering his Supreme Court picks. It shouldn't even be up for discussion. They will lose and lose, but Democratic House and Senate members would be fundamentally misreading their marching, chanting, raging voters if they fail. As for the fear that Republicans in the Senate will get rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, you can be sure that the moment that Democrats do refuse to allow a vote on whatever right-wing nutzoid Trump tries to shove down America's throat, skeevy powermonger Mitch McConnell is gonna change the rules with his disturbing semi-grin that's a middle finger to his opponents. It's a question of when, not "if" on the filibuster.

    Democrats can spin this easily. They could say they won't vote on things until the Muslim ban is halted. They could say that they won't vote for Trump's Supreme Court picks because a majority of Americans don't think he should be able to do so. They could stand up for the judiciary as Trump keeps ignoring court orders.

    Democratic voters are already fighting. They are mightily insulted and want active rejection of all things Trump. These are flames that should be fanned by Democrats in Congress until Republicans start to feel the residual heat and are afraid of getting burned.

    That's because, on some level, many Republicans realize that they own this presidency and its actions. Oh, sure, sure, they're fine going along with a great deal of dirt that Trump does. Except for the pathetic, neutered goat bleatings of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and a handful of others, Republicans are either conspicuously silent or hee-hawing in support of the Muslim ban, and they're drooling at the prospect of getting Scalia II on the court. But we're now just two weeks into the Trump administration (insert your own retching sound), and we've got a Benghazi and multiple foreign crises. There's only so long that you can keep your head in the sand until you just suffocate.

    Actually, it's unfair to compare the disastrous raid on al-Qaeda in Yemen to Benghazi. What happened at the consulate in Libya was an unexpected event. The Yemen raid was an American plan that had been rejected by the Obama administration and then approved by Trump despite the lack of intelligence that might have prevented all the deaths that occurred, including a Navy SEAL and several children. In other words, Trump's first military test was a clusterf*** of fail. And not a single hearing has been scheduled nor have you heard a peep from Republicans.

    And you might not, ever. You might not hear them say how utterly absurd it is that Trump is treating the president of Mexico like he's a gardener who cut a shrub at Mar-a-Lago too short. You might not hear them even whisper that agitating China is just dumb. You might not hear them wonder why the hell Trump is pissing on our relationship with Australia, one of our most reliable allies in the world. You might hear them cheering on another useless war, this time with Iran, because that'd just fulfill a dream they've had since 1979. You will hear them c****ing themselves over any threat that's Muslimish while clamming up over domestic terrorists like white supremacists and Breitbart's staff.

    Still, we know that not only are Republicans cowards, but they're liars and hypocrites who would dance on the corpses of dead children rather than admit their ideology has failed. They'd rather learn to breathe sand than lift their heads and walk upright because they're gonna get to kick sick people off health insurance, discriminate against LGBT Americans, and force women into back alley abortions, the trifecta of quotidian cruelty they're begging to inflict.

    So how do we get through to them? Because, see, we don't have two years to wait for the congressional midterms. Hell, all we need is one terrorist event in the United States, and Trump will declare martial law because he's too dumb and deranged to know any other way to handle it.

    Two plans: the first is already happening. Inundate the offices and phone lines, especially of GOP representatives. Make their lives miserable with people registering how angry they are. The reps, even in gerrymandered districts, are more vulnerable than most senators. We gotta get people running against them. Put these a$$holes out on the curb. And make the rest beg for mercy.

    And our activism has to target people who voted for Trump. Yeah, I know, I know, they're loathsome racists or racist-adjacent. But there are a hell of a lot of them who are regretting their votes - the wayward Bernie voters, the "take him seriously, but not literally" idiots, and the ones who realized that maybe getting into a war with Mexico is a little worse than Hillary's emails.

    Mostly, it all depends on the constant action of Democrats and non-aligned progressives. Make sure Republicans know that they will be held to account for what they do, not just Democrats. This is on the GOP. Make them pay.
    Whoo...butthurt much?

    I hope you guys spewing this anger realize how extreme you sound...
  • TripAcesTripAces Universal Exports
    Posts: 4,585
    Just something I can relate to a bit:
    A dad writes about the upcoming SuperBowl in the midst of all this turmoil, and underlying genuine worry, in America.

    http://deadspin.com/the-darkest-super-bowl-1791885899
    Says in part (but the first half is a personal incident; worth reading all of this. It is not long. Also, I edited out some words that we cannot post on this forum.)
    *****

    I’ve lived through crisis Super Bowls, most notably back in 1991 when Whitney sang the anthem during the first Iraq War (which had the blessing of most Americans, myself included) and then in 2002 when U2 played the first Super Bowl after 9/11 (and after Operation Enduring Freedom began over in Afghanistan). In both of those instances, the Super Bowl did its job acting as the country’s wintertime July 4th. It unified. It distracted. It put a gauzy, patriotic sheen on political events that deserved a lot more vocal scrutiny. Both games also happened to be fantastic (with Bill Belichick playing a vital role in each!). It made everything feel good and normal.

    That will not happen on Sunday. This game has never been bigger while the nation itself has been so unstable. I have not lived through a Super Bowl being played under such inescapably ominous circumstances. They’re gonna unfurl a big ******* flag out on that field and have bomber jets fly over the stadium and have Luke Bryan sing the anthem and what the **** am I supposed to feel when that happens? Pride? We started off this season with Colin Kaepernick peacefully protesting the anthem, and we end it in the middle of what feels like one huge, cruel, soon-to-be-violent rebuke to that protest.

    I promise you I wanna stick to sports, but I seem to lack that superpower at the moment. Right now, all I get are little breaks in the cloud cover, a precious few moments where I find myself preoccupied with some other shit before remembering, “Oh yeah, this guy is running rampant through the corridors of power.” They’re gonna play that anthem and I’m not gonna feel all groovy and hopeful inside. I’m gonna just be reminded of the 60 million or so Americans who voted for Trump and think “America” means them and no one else.

    I wanna try out the chili
  • 4EverBonded4EverBonded the Ballrooms of Mars
    edited February 2017 Posts: 12,480
    So mature, JamesStock. And a stock "Trumper" expression from you to boot. Bonus points for choosing that phrase. More Trump fans have moved past that one, but (or should I say "butt") maybe it's a favorite of yours. ;)

    Well, fortunately this thread is mostly not filled with anger or spam. But really, anger is not our core feeling. Concern, yes, and trying to share news is, and voicing our concerns. Definitely.

    So continuing along, Trump stays on his own path, own talking points, no surprise really.


    scroll down, video and other info here

    and



    Just fyi, a Trump lawyer in action:


    Bingo. ("some", not all ...)
This discussion has been closed.