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Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!
(11-12-2016, 03:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:39 PM)taramarie Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:38 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Democracy is DEAD in America. Get accustomed to it. All that you will get to do is more work -- without getting paid for it.

I want to emigrate.

NZ perhaps?

Sane, beautiful, English-speaking, and relatively uncrowded -- that sounds like a good choice.

Except now it may get more crowded. And anti-immigrant sentiment is growing there, according to the kiwi girl.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(11-12-2016, 03:49 PM)taramarie Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:39 PM)taramarie Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:38 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Democracy is DEAD in America. Get accustomed to it. All that you will get to do is more work -- without getting paid for it.

I want to emigrate.

NZ perhaps?

Sane, beautiful, English-speaking, and relatively uncrowded -- that sounds like a good choice.
And our news is not like it is in America. All political parties are accepting of cultural differences. Far more accepting here. I suppose it would suit you nicely. What are you waiting for? Getcha butt over here. I suggest wellington for affordable housing, travel and business. Oh and healthcare is universal btw. If you end up in a hospital or have to see a specialist you do not have to worry about a bill at the end of the treatment. Paid through taxes.
My state is larger than your country in size and population. My state is composed of Minnesotans who vote on issues strictly relating to Minnesota at the state level. We don't vote on issues relating to the State of Wisconsin or the people of Wisconsin. You keep approaching from more of a state prospective as far as our country is concerned. You have no concept of how large our country is compared to your country. You need a boat or plane to enter and leave your country. You have no concept of people being able to walk over your border and enter you country. You don't understand that America consists of 50 nations that are bound together by a historic piece of paper and a common currency and a common defense. California could have healthcare for all paid for with taxes if it wants to vote to do so. California doesn't need my approval or Republican support at the national level to provide healthcare for all its residents. All California has to do is vote for state funded healthcare at the state level. Of coarse, that may create some issues for California and require some sacrifices as far state services. You keep making comparisons when there's really no comparison to be made between our countries. The only comparison that could be made is a comparison between your country and an American states.
Reply
(11-12-2016, 04:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: It's not hard to see the economically depressed areas created by liberal policies. Now, if you need an education on what was then and what isn't today. I'll take you to the small town that my parents grew up in that I've always considered to be my second home. I'll show you where the smaller manufacturing plants were located that disappeared during the 90's. I'll take you to the trailer parks where the primary source of income is crime. How do you fix problems with clueless liberals standing in the way of progress?

Amazing statement. The virtue of being educated, includes not having ideas like this that are so opposed to reality. When you said economically depressed areas created by liberal policies, I thought you meant the big inner urban cities. But then you took us to a small town. Liberal policies are the only way to fix these problems. Conservative policies cause these problems, the ones you voted for in the 80s and 90s, and that caused the manufacturing plants to disappear. Free trade and free commerce with no responsibility imposed on the big business owners who run the economy. We've had clueless conservatives standing in the way of progress since 1980. Over and over again. Liberals haven't been able to do anything, much less stand in the way of anything. Tuesday, you just voted for more of the same. I don't understand how you can think that more of the same policies from the 80s and 90s will bring these small town industries back. But then, what's to understand? With Trump, it's all emotion.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(11-12-2016, 06:16 PM)taramarie Wrote: Of course I know it varies state by state. That has been explained to me. I was just telling Pbrower some differences on certain issues that may be different. I do not know which state he lives in nor do I know the exact details of the differences state by state.

Michigan, a state toward the bottom in most social measures.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
The new reactionary cabinet takes shape:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/...pe=article
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
Get ready to wear gas masks. Our new environmental leader

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/scienc...p-epa.html

We know Trump's attitude toward women. But what's not said often enough is that the primary Lady that he wants to fuck with, is Mother Earth.

When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab em by the pussy; anything.

Copperfield, prepare for your beautiful lands in northern Maine to be grabbed. You guys voted for it. No place is safe.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
This goes for any Bernie or Stein voter who thinks (s)he can get something from Drumpf:

Opinion
If you voted for Trump because he’s ‘anti-establishment,’ guess what: You got conned
By Paul Waldman November 11
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plu...ot-conned/

The greatest trick Donald Trump pulled was convincing voters he’d be “anti-establishment.”

Well, maybe not the greatest trick. But in a campaign full of cons, it has to rank close to the top. This was near the heart of Trump’s appeal to the disaffected and disempowered: Send me to Washington, and that “establishment” you’ve been hearing so much about? We’ll blow it up, send it packing, punch it right in the face, and when it’s over the government will finally be working for you again. And the people who voted for Trump bought it. After all, he’s no politician, right? He’s an outsider, a glass-breaker, a guy who can cut out the bull and get things done. Right?

But the idea that he would do this was based on a profound misunderstanding of what the establishment actually is, and who Donald Trump is.

Here’s a report on Trump’s transition from Eric Lipton of the New York Times:

President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests, is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists…

Mr. Trump was swept to power in large part by white working-class voters who responded to his vow to restore the voices of forgotten people, ones drowned out by big business and Wall Street. But in his transition to power, some of the most prominent voices will be those of advisers who come from the same industries for which they are being asked to help set the regulatory groundwork.

An organizational chart of Trump’s transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists, representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is positively salivating over all the new opportunities they’ll have to deliver goodies to their clients in the Trump era. Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?

The answer is, anyone who was paying attention. Look at the people Trump is considering for his Cabinet, and you won’t find any outside-the-box thinkers burning to work for the little guy. It’s a collection of Republican politicians and corporate plutocrats — not much different from who you’d find in any Republican administration.

And it isn’t just personnel. What are the priorities Trump and the Republican Congress will be pursuing right out of the gate? There’s the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, of course. “Take that, establishment!”, 20 million people can say when they lose their health coverage. Next on the list is that eternal Republican priority, cutting taxes. If you’re waiting for your fat rebate from the government once the establishment has been sent packing, you’re in for a shock. It won’t actually be Trump’s plan precisely that will pass Congress and he’ll sign, it will be some combination of what he wanted and what congressional Republicans want. But the two share a driving principle in common, and you may want to sit down while I tell you that helping regular folks is most definitely not it.

No, their commitment is to be of service to that most oppressed and forgotten group of Americans, the wealthy. Trump’s tax plan would give 47 percent of its benefits to the richest one percent of taxpayers. Paul Ryan’s tax plan is even purer — it gives 76 percent of its cuts to the richest one percent in its first year, and by 2025 would feed 99.6 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent.

Once that’s accomplished, Trump and the Republicans plan to either gut or completely repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, the greatest wish of Wall Street bankers. Can you feel the anti-establishment wind blowing?

So what’s going on here? Most plainly, the voters thinking that Trump would vanquish the establishment were just marks for a con, like those who lost their life savings at Trump University. But it was made possible by the vagueness of the idea of the “establishment” — and some related ideas — and the way people could pour all their dissatisfaction into it and elect they guy promising to destroy it when he had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

You see, in Washington we think of the establishment as something specific to this city: the people who hold certain kinds of institutional positions and certain kinds of ideas about what should be done. We tend to think that, say, internal arguments between factions of the Republican Party represent a genuine threat to the establishment.

But for most voters it’s much bigger than that, and this is what Donald Trump recognized. By now we should understand that while Trump is an ignorant buffoon in some ways and an outright moron in others, he’s also a savant of hatred and resentment. He not only identifies the ugliest feelings that portions of the electorate have — that’s the easy part, and all of his primary opponents knew equally well what those feelings were — he finds just the right way to reach in and goose them. And he grasped that people were ready to sign on with an attack on all sectors of established power, in Washington or anywhere else.

That attack was politically potent because to those who heard it, it was about much more than politics. They didn’t really care whether the House Majority Whip is one guy or a different guy. What Trump tapped into was their sense of powerlessness, that unseen forces are pulling the strings and manipulating “the system” for their own benefit. That “system” encompasses everything from politics to the economy to their local schools to culture. The system made that factory leave town. The system lets immigrants come in and speak a language other than English. Everywhere you look you’re being held down by the system.

So when Trump complained that anything that didn’t go his way meant the system was “rigged” against him, they nodded in agreement and said, “Yep, it’s rigged against me, too.” And of course, the horror of the establishment (both Democratic and Republican) at Trump only reinforced the belief that once he was elected he’d change everything.

Now to be clear, the fact that in some ways — hiring lobbyists, cutting taxes for the wealthy, gutting regulations — Trump is going to be little different from any other Republican president doesn’t mean that he isn’t uniquely dangerous. He’s reckless, impulsive, vindictive, hateful, and authoritarian, and his presidency is going to be somewhere between disastrous and cataclysmic, likely in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

But one thing it will not be is a threat to the establishment, or the system, or whatever you want to call it. The wealthy and powerful will have more wealth and power when he’s done, not less. There’s a lot that Trump will upend, but if you’re a little guy who thinks Trump was going to upend things on your behalf or in order to serve your interests, guess what: you got suckered.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(11-12-2016, 07:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The new reactionary cabinet takes shape:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/...pe=article

Sickening. A real rogue's gallery.

Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Interior?

Get me my passport and plane tickets now!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(11-12-2016, 06:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:49 PM)taramarie Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:39 PM)taramarie Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:38 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Democracy is DEAD in America. Get accustomed to it. All that you will get to do is more work -- without getting paid for it.

I want to emigrate.

NZ perhaps?

Sane, beautiful, English-speaking, and relatively uncrowded -- that sounds like a good choice.
And our news is not like it is in America. All political parties are accepting of cultural differences. Far more accepting here. I suppose it would suit you nicely. What are you waiting for? Getcha butt over here. I suggest wellington for affordable housing, travel and business. Oh and healthcare is universal btw. If you end up in a hospital or have to see a specialist you do not have to worry about a bill at the end of the treatment. Paid through taxes.
My state is larger than your country in size and population. My state is composed of Minnesotans who vote on issues strictly relating to Minnesota at the state level. We don't vote on issues relating to the State of Wisconsin or the people of Wisconsin. You keep approaching from more of a state prospective as far as our country is concerned. You have no concept of how large our country is compared to your country. You need a boat or plane to enter and leave your country. You have no concept of people being able to walk over your border and enter you country. You don't understand that America consists of 50 nations that are bound together by a historic piece of paper and a common currency and a common defense. California could have healthcare for all paid for with taxes if it wants to vote to do so. California doesn't need my approval or Republican support at the national level to provide healthcare for all its residents. All California has to do is vote for state funded healthcare at the state level. Of coarse, that may create some issues for California  and require some sacrifices as far state services. You keep making comparisons when there's really no comparison to be made between our countries. The only comparison that could be made is a comparison between your country and an American states.

I'd add another valid comparison:  between the United States and the British Commonwealth.

The U.S. would be a lot better off if the states had the degree of independence that Commonwealth states have.
Reply
(11-12-2016, 06:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 04:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: It's not hard to see the economically depressed areas created by liberal policies. Now, if you need an education on what was then and what isn't today. I'll take you to the small town that my parents grew up in that I've always considered to be my second home. I'll show you where the smaller manufacturing plants were located that disappeared during the 90's. I'll take you to the trailer parks where the primary source of income is crime. How do you fix problems with clueless liberals standing in the way of progress?

Amazing statement. The virtue of being educated, includes not having ideas like this that are so opposed to reality. When you said economically depressed areas created by liberal policies, I thought you meant the big inner urban cities. But then you took us to a small town. Liberal policies are the only way to fix these problems. Conservative policies cause these problems, the ones you voted for in the 80s and 90s, and that caused the manufacturing plants to disappear. Free trade and free commerce with no responsibility imposed on the big business owners who run the economy. We've had clueless conservatives standing in the way of progress since 1980. Over and over again. Liberals haven't been able to do anything, much less stand in the way of anything. Tuesday, you just voted for more of the same. I don't understand how you can think that more of the same policies from the 80s and 90s will bring these small town industries back. But then, what's to understand? With Trump, it's all emotion.
I didn't vote in the 80's. I voted for Perot during the 90's. I've been voting Republican since 2000. I'd like to know how you'd impose responsibility on big business's who are free to roam in a nation of states and a world with  countries who are actively competing for business. The manufacturing jobs went to China during the Clinton years. Three hundred people lost their jobs following the stroke of Bill Clinton's pen. All you can do is mandate and hope we stick around and are able to stay in business. Backwards to me is going back to 1950's level of taxation and imposing early 20th century European way of thinking. As far as I'm concerned, you're nuts. Who wants to be a liberal serf completely reliant upon the generosity of their liberal lords. I prefer to stay in the 21st century where most of America is at and doing fine. Personally, I'm tired of dragging you guys into the 21st century. With you, it's all emotion and ain't much thinking going on. You don't have to think pitching freebies to those looking for freebies and courting blue bigots like yourself. In this election, you voted for a continuation of more jobs flowing outward. I voted for more jobs staying put and flowing inwards. You may not have cared but I did and voted to change the outward trend. Don't worry, we'll keep enough poverty for progressives to live off. However, it won't be enough to stop the economic progress the majority of us have experienced.
Reply
(11-12-2016, 03:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 03:21 AM)Galen Wrote:
(11-11-2016, 07:24 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: What can the Democrats do?

https://newrepublic.com/article/138646/c...nald-trump

I bet you wish the cloture rules hadn't been loosened up by the Democrats?  I am pretty sure I mentioned that you would regret that later.  Congratulations, it is later.

You are getting your way. Enjoy it.

I am enjoying it.  Particularly the irony of watching the strategy of the left biting them in the ass really hard is just too good to pass up.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.   -- Ludwig von Mises
Reply
(11-12-2016, 09:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 06:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 04:51 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: It's not hard to see the economically depressed areas created by liberal policies. Now, if you need an education on what was then and what isn't today. I'll take you to the small town that my parents grew up in that I've always considered to be my second home. I'll show you where the smaller manufacturing plants were located that disappeared during the 90's. I'll take you to the trailer parks where the primary source of income is crime. How do you fix problems with clueless liberals standing in the way of progress?

Amazing statement. The virtue of being educated, includes not having ideas like this that are so opposed to reality. When you said economically depressed areas created by liberal policies, I thought you meant the big inner urban cities. But then you took us to a small town. Liberal policies are the only way to fix these problems. Conservative policies cause these problems, the ones you voted for in the 80s and 90s, and that caused the manufacturing plants to disappear. Free trade and free commerce with no responsibility imposed on the big business owners who run the economy. We've had clueless conservatives standing in the way of progress since 1980. Over and over again. Liberals haven't been able to do anything, much less stand in the way of anything. Tuesday, you just voted for more of the same. I don't understand how you can think that more of the same policies from the 80s and 90s will bring these small town industries back. But then, what's to understand? With Trump, it's all emotion.

I didn't vote in the 80's. I voted for Perot during the 90's. I've been voting Republican since 2000.

Why would you read my statement as referring to one person's voting decisions? This is about the results of the policies which you now favor. That is obvious.

Quote:I'd like to know how you'd impose responsibility on big business's who are free to roam in a nation of states and a world with  countries who are actively competing for business. The manufacturing jobs went to China during the Clinton years. Three hundred people lost their jobs following the stroke of Bill Clinton's pen.

Free trade goes back to Reagan. NAFTA was George Bush I's bill. The companies went to the 3rd world for cheap labor when free trade happened. Not so many would have gone had there been tariffs, so that the companies who sold their goods back to big consumerist America would not have made out so well with this strategy. Even Trump knows this quite well.

Quote:All you can do is mandate and hope we stick around and are able to stay in business. Backwards to me is going back to 1950's level of taxation and imposing early 20th century European way of thinking. As far as I'm concerned, you're nuts. Who wants to be a liberal serf completely reliant upon the generosity of their liberal lords. I prefer to stay in the 21st century where most of America is at and doing fine.

Everyone is doing worse, not fine. Only the billionaires are doing better in the post-Reagan world.

Quote: Personally, I'm tired of dragging you guys into the 21st century. With you, it's all emotion and ain't much thinking going on. You don't have to think pitching freebies to those looking for freebies and courting blue bigots like yourself. In this election, you voted for a continuation of more jobs flowing outward. I voted for more jobs staying put and flowing inwards. You may not have cared but I did and voted to change the outward trend. Don't worry, we'll keep enough poverty for progressives to live off. However, it won't be enough to stop the economic progress the majority of us have experienced.

Changing trade policy, assuming Trump can do it, is only a small piece of making America great again. It's not enough. The problem is the ideology that talks about "pitching freebies to those looking for freebies." That's the entire problem in a nutshell. It is this free-market semi-racist dog whistle that has stalled our economy and shifted all economic gains to the top 1%. There has been no economic progress for the majority. You think you are the majority, but you're not. Many people who voted for Trump didn't think they had experienced progress; that's why they voted for him. They were just duped. They might have voted for Bernie Sanders.

Perot, whom you voted for, said "trickle down didn't trickle." He was right and he's still right. It never does. But that's all the Republicans ever offer, except for The Donald on trade policy.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(11-14-2016, 01:31 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:
(11-12-2016, 08:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: This goes for any Bernie or Stein voter who thinks (s)he can get something from Drumpf:

Opinion
If you voted for Trump because he’s ‘anti-establishment,’ guess what: You got conned
By Paul Waldman November 11
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plu...ot-conned/

The greatest trick Donald Trump pulled was convincing voters he’d be “anti-establishment.”

Well, maybe not the greatest trick. But in a campaign full of cons, it has to rank close to the top. This was near the heart of Trump’s appeal to the disaffected and disempowered: Send me to Washington, and that “establishment” you’ve been hearing so much about? We’ll blow it up, send it packing, punch it right in the face, and when it’s over the government will finally be working for you again. And the people who voted for Trump bought it. After all, he’s no politician, right? He’s an outsider, a glass-breaker, a guy who can cut out the bull and get things done. Right?

But the idea that he would do this was based on a profound misunderstanding of what the establishment actually is, and who Donald Trump is.

Here’s a report on Trump’s transition from Eric Lipton of the New York Times:

President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests, is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists…

Mr. Trump was swept to power in large part by white working-class voters who responded to his vow to restore the voices of forgotten people, ones drowned out by big business and Wall Street. But in his transition to power, some of the most prominent voices will be those of advisers who come from the same industries for which they are being asked to help set the regulatory groundwork.

An organizational chart of Trump’s transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists, representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is positively salivating over all the new opportunities they’ll have to deliver goodies to their clients in the Trump era. Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?

The answer is, anyone who was paying attention. Look at the people Trump is considering for his Cabinet, and you won’t find any outside-the-box thinkers burning to work for the little guy. It’s a collection of Republican politicians and corporate plutocrats — not much different from who you’d find in any Republican administration.

And it isn’t just personnel. What are the priorities Trump and the Republican Congress will be pursuing right out of the gate? There’s the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, of course. “Take that, establishment!”, 20 million people can say when they lose their health coverage. Next on the list is that eternal Republican priority, cutting taxes. If you’re waiting for your fat rebate from the government once the establishment has been sent packing, you’re in for a shock. It won’t actually be Trump’s plan precisely that will pass Congress and he’ll sign, it will be some combination of what he wanted and what congressional Republicans want. But the two share a driving principle in common, and you may want to sit down while I tell you that helping regular folks is most definitely not it.

No, their commitment is to be of service to that most oppressed and forgotten group of Americans, the wealthy. Trump’s tax plan would give 47 percent of its benefits to the richest one percent of taxpayers. Paul Ryan’s tax plan is even purer — it gives 76 percent of its cuts to the richest one percent in its first year, and by 2025 would feed 99.6 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent.

Once that’s accomplished, Trump and the Republicans plan to either gut or completely repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulations, the greatest wish of Wall Street bankers. Can you feel the anti-establishment wind blowing?

So what’s going on here? Most plainly, the voters thinking that Trump would vanquish the establishment were just marks for a con, like those who lost their life savings at Trump University. But it was made possible by the vagueness of the idea of the “establishment” — and some related ideas — and the way people could pour all their dissatisfaction into it and elect they guy promising to destroy it when he had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

You see, in Washington we think of the establishment as something specific to this city: the people who hold certain kinds of institutional positions and certain kinds of ideas about what should be done. We tend to think that, say, internal arguments between factions of the Republican Party represent a genuine threat to the establishment.

But for most voters it’s much bigger than that, and this is what Donald Trump recognized. By now we should understand that while Trump is an ignorant buffoon in some ways and an outright moron in others, he’s also a savant of hatred and resentment. He not only identifies the ugliest feelings that portions of the electorate have — that’s the easy part, and all of his primary opponents knew equally well what those feelings were — he finds just the right way to reach in and goose them. And he grasped that people were ready to sign on with an attack on all sectors of established power, in Washington or anywhere else.

That attack was politically potent because to those who heard it, it was about much more than politics. They didn’t really care whether the House Majority Whip is one guy or a different guy. What Trump tapped into was their sense of powerlessness, that unseen forces are pulling the strings and manipulating “the system” for their own benefit. That “system” encompasses everything from politics to the economy to their local schools to culture. The system made that factory leave town. The system lets immigrants come in and speak a language other than English. Everywhere you look you’re being held down by the system.

So when Trump complained that anything that didn’t go his way meant the system was “rigged” against him, they nodded in agreement and said, “Yep, it’s rigged against me, too.” And of course, the horror of the establishment (both Democratic and Republican) at Trump only reinforced the belief that once he was elected he’d change everything.

Now to be clear, the fact that in some ways — hiring lobbyists, cutting taxes for the wealthy, gutting regulations — Trump is going to be little different from any other Republican president doesn’t mean that he isn’t uniquely dangerous. He’s reckless, impulsive, vindictive, hateful, and authoritarian, and his presidency is going to be somewhere between disastrous and cataclysmic, likely in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

But one thing it will not be is a threat to the establishment, or the system, or whatever you want to call it. The wealthy and powerful will have more wealth and power when he’s done, not less. There’s a lot that Trump will upend, but if you’re a little guy who thinks Trump was going to upend things on your behalf or in order to serve your interests, guess what: you got suckered.

He was and is anti-GOP-Establishment.

We have witnessed an Alt-Right putsch that has taken over the GOP.

Trump is not anti-anything Establishment. He IS Establishment, pure and simple.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(11-14-2016, 01:22 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:
(11-11-2016, 11:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(11-11-2016, 08:47 PM)radind Wrote: I think we need to take a break and review the results after Trump has been in office for a few months. Then we could discuss facts instead of endless speculations.

I don't think the reports I posted about the decisions he's making are speculations.

But he is the president, so we'll see.

We also know what Paul Ryan wants to do, and what the Republican platform is. What is clear is that the fluke election of 1980, now more than half my life ago, has still not been reversed, and the count continues of the reign of trickle-down economics. Now 36 years, and to continue now for at least 4 more and probably more. Our nation cannot continue to prosper and our people cannot continue to prosper under the system. We are declining, and have been all this time. Just reducing the government, which was never the problem, will not solve our problems. We can't continue to blame people who get benefits for our low wages and slow business, instead of the folks who refuse to pay us fair wages and give endless breaks to them. That seems so obvious, and yet the people keep voting for more trickle-down economics. These are facts, not endless speculations. What seems to be endless, is the constant dumbing down of the people, so that they keep making stupid decisions on election day. It's tragic.

Mark these words. There WILL be challenges to Trump and his ilk, from The Right. Alt-Right are not all of The Right.

Challenges from the Right only mean that certain elements want to go backward even more faster than Trump does. They mean nothing.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(11-14-2016, 01:18 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:
(11-11-2016, 06:22 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Literally. Sheriff Clark is in charge, it appears.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/...view-story

One of the people being prominently floated as Trump's potential head of Homeland Security is Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, a prominent pro-Trump voice at the Republican convention and, as you will soon see, quite the self-promoter himself. Here's the reaction of our new potential Homeland Security chief to protests held across the nation last night over the results of Tuesday's election.

David A. Clarke, Jr. ✔ @SheriffClarke
These temper tantrums from these radical anarchists must be quelled. There is no legitimate reason to protest the will of the people.

This is the way to civil war.

Well, if true, at least it would no longer be a white boys club!

Big Grin

Neither is the Supreme Court, thanks to that wonderful black boy Clarence Thomas. So what?
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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Trump faces backlash over appointing Bannon as a top aide, a choice critics say will empower white nationalists
By Elise Viebeck, Katie Zezima and Jerry Markon November 14 at 1:54 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powe...ionalists/

President-elect Donald Trump faces a growing backlash against his decision to name campaign chairman and former Breitbart News head Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist at the White House, a choice critics say will empower white nationalists.

A chorus of advocacy groups, commentators and congressional Democrats denounced Bannon as a proponent of racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic views as Trump began his first full week as president-elect. Trump named Bannon his chief strategist and senior counselor on Sunday while also appointing Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to be his chief of staff.

“President-elect Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon as his top aide signals that white supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump’s White House,” Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), said in a statement Sunday night. “It is easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion when Trump appoints one of the foremost peddlers of White Supremacist themes and rhetoric as his top aide. Bannon was ‘the main driver behind Breitbart becoming a white ethno-nationalist propaganda mill,’ according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

[Donald Trump plans to immediately deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants]

The statement echoed sentiments from leaders of the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, other Capitol Hill Democrats and some Republican Trump critics such as Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who tweeted, “Is there precedent for such a disreputable & unstable extremist in [White House] senior ranks before Bannon?”

A spokesman for Trump accused critics and the media of trying to “divide people” following the election when they raise questions about Bannon’s views and history.

Jason Miller, communications director for the Trump presidential transition, said Monday morning that Bannon has done a “fantastic job” since joining Trump’s inner circle.

“If you’ve seen the president-elect since the election, he’s taken a very measured tone,” Miller said in an interview with CNN’s “New Day.”

Kellyanne Conway, who worked closely with Bannon as Trump’s campaign manager, also defended him.

“He’s been the general of this campaign,” Conway told reporters as she arrived Monday at Trump Tower in Manhattan to meet with the president-elect. Citing Bannon’s résumé as a former naval officer and Goldman Sachs executive, she called him a “brilliant tactician.”

Asked whether Bannon needed to explain his connections to the alt-right movement, Conway said: “I’m personally offended that you think I would manage a campaign where that would be one of the going philosophies. It was not — 56 million-plus Americans or so saw something else. . . . You should really focus on the will of the people, which was to elect Donald Trump the president.”

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) sought to calm the fears many Americans still hold about Trump’s election, which has been greeted by widespread protests.

“There is a lot of hysteria and hyperbole,” Ryan said during an interview Monday with his hometown radio station, 1380 Big AM. “I would tell people to just relax — things are going to be fine.

Trump’s naming of Bannon and Priebus set up what could be a battle within the White House between the populist, outsider forces that propelled his winning campaign and the party establishment that dominates Washington.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(11-14-2016, 03:28 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:
(11-14-2016, 02:17 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(11-14-2016, 01:22 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:
(11-11-2016, 11:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(11-11-2016, 08:47 PM)radind Wrote: I think we need to take a break and review the results after Trump has been in office for a few months. Then we could discuss facts instead of endless speculations.

I don't think the reports I posted about the decisions he's making are speculations.

But he is the president, so we'll see.

We also know what Paul Ryan wants to do, and what the Republican platform is. What is clear is that the fluke election of 1980, now more than half my life ago, has still not been reversed, and the count continues of the reign of trickle-down economics. Now 36 years, and to continue now for at least 4 more and probably more. Our nation cannot continue to prosper and our people cannot continue to prosper under the system. We are declining, and have been all this time. Just reducing the government, which was never the problem, will not solve our problems. We can't continue to blame people who get benefits for our low wages and slow business, instead of the folks who refuse to pay us fair wages and give endless breaks to them. That seems so obvious, and yet the people keep voting for more trickle-down economics. These are facts, not endless speculations. What seems to be endless, is the constant dumbing down of the people, so that they keep making stupid decisions on election day. It's tragic.

Mark these words. There WILL be challenges to Trump and his ilk, from The Right. Alt-Right are not all of The Right.

Challenges from the Right only mean that certain elements want to go backward even more faster than Trump does. They mean nothing.

Re-read your history of how Totalitarianism took over governments last century. Often times, fighting in the streets between the Left and Right was promoted and funded. Sometimes, a given instigating organization would fund or support both sides!

I don't see the anti-Trump demonstrations as funded. Trump called them professionals. No they are honestly outraged citizens expressing their opinion. Some of them are, I hope, going to channel the energy into organizing and political activism, FWIW, not just demonstrating, and not into fighting. That's what the folks at Lake Merritt said they would be doing. I don't see any of these demonstrators fighting against Trump supporters yet, do you? They got their way; they don't have to protest anyway.

Quote:This is why the classic Right and Left (which used to be represented by the GOP and Dems) should unite against this great evil. The various governments that fell during the period 1920 - 1940 did not heed such advice. Big, big mistake.

I don't see that as possible. The classic right and left are still represented by GOP and Dems. Trump is mostly classic Right; just some sops to working folks like anti-trade to get their votes. Hitler did the same sort of thing. Trump's main program is Reaganomics, and other right-wing policies. The classic right IS the evil, and the alt-right is the evil too. The right-wing is evil, whether classic or alternative.

You sometimes identify as Right, but you are moderate to liberal in your views. A mixture of right and left wing views is also moderate. No-one agrees with me or you on every issue. No need for you to defend the right-wing, which rules this country now.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
It's amusing that Ryan says "relax things will be fine" when he has declared open warfare on the environment and on all the social programs that help people.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(11-14-2016, 01:08 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:
(11-11-2016, 03:30 PM)noway2 Wrote:
(11-11-2016, 02:14 PM)taramarie Wrote: Different people see them in different ways. It sounds like typically urban folk are more than likely to see rural folk as fools if we are to go on Odin's personal experience.

For some time now, I have been coming to the conclusion that the fracture line that is growing in this country is largely urban versus rural, or it can generally be categorized into one with a high degree of correlation.  As I can only really speak for myself, I will present my view on this.  I currently live in and own a home in a city but I also own a sizable tract of rural  (actually it is planned as less than rural and classified as agricultural) property that i plan to move to.  Consequently, I believe that i have an understanding of both the rural and urban perspectives to some degree, though I lean towards the rural.

The hands down, number one reason I want to move out to the rural environment is to be left the hell alone.  I do not want people who live on a postage stamp passing rules and trying to stipulate regulations on what I do with my land.  I want to raise a large portion of my own food including vegetables and animals.  I want to be largely self sufficient.  I accept responsibility for myself and I don't want government hand outs. I am tired of being taxed to death because some urban population center holds a vote and then holds their hand out. 

While I understand the systemic problems, including things like lack of affordable healthcare coverage, dwindling prospects for the "American dream", bleak retirement outlooks, etc, I do not accept the answer as being government forced wealth redistribution.  I didn't get a government hand out on my student loan.  I do not get a government subsidy on my housing.  I do not get a government break on my health care.  I have to work for those things and pay for them.  Similarly, I don't want a bunch of illegal immigrants coming to my country and leaching off the system by claiming a bazillion dependents on a fake SSN to avoid paying taxes and using the emergency room for their medical care at my expense.  Along those same lines my ancestors were not responsible for slavery and I don't owe the blacks one damned dime and see instead a group that needs to pull their pants up, learn to speak proper English and get a damned job instead of blocking the highway because they're pissed off.  I see these BLM riots and it looks like nothing but a bunch of animals that need to be put down and it is why when I left the house today I made sure my spouse had a Glock with several extra magazines and I left with an FN5-7 with sixty rounds and we both carry extra weapons. It is why I have well over a years supply of food and other essentials stored away while a large portion of the population of the city I live in can't feed themselves beyond 24 hours (A snow storm resulted in a line over a mile long to get into a McDonald's) as well as enough ammunition (and the ability to make more) to make a NY Liberal feint.  

Unfortunately, despite my desire to be left alone, what ends up happening is that some carpet bagger comes down here from a Yankee state and tries to vote in all the rules and regulations that they had in the little utopia they left to the net effect of destroying MY desired way of life.  I see the Clinton Criminal Crime Syndicate as being an extension of this big government bullshit and it is quickly getting to the point where "burn the MF'er down" as some of the rioters put it is starting to sound pretty good, especially if we're talking about the liberal strong holds.

Now, I am NOT a Republican.  In fact, I despise them and in many ways more than I despise the Democrats.  Unfortunately, "Pissed Off" isn't a registration option either. I see the problem as the oligarchy comprised of both parties that is selling out the jobs and replacing them with service sector dead ends while laughing all the way to the bank.  I see the QE ponzi scheme bleeding the citizens dry and benefiting those that already have too much.  I am socially very liberal in the things I support ranging from freedom to marry whomever you want (I think government should not have a say in marriage at all), what substances you want to put in your body, that abortion is a personal choice, etc.  I most closely represent the Libertarian ideals but unfortunately freedom and personal responsibility are never options on the ballot - just a choice of a shit sandwich or shit soup both courtesy of big government.  I see the government as illegitimate and I don't give a rats ass if "you voted" - I don't recognize it's authority.  I see government as the problem, not the solution.

So yes, I see civil war coming.  I see an economic collapse coming and I like the ant, preparing for it, unlike all the urban grasshoppers.  So you will just have to excuse me if I chose not to support the queen who failed in their attempt to steal a coronation, but even if she had won you wouldn't see me retreating to my "safe space" with my emotional comfort dog to have a sad before I go out and riot in the streets, because I would have to go to work in the morning.

I used to help manage a large and popular "Right wing" defense oriented forum. There are a few things you wrote here that I cannot argue with. However, the text I bolded was the type of writing we would ban people for. We had rules that stated one could not post racist notions and notions of extra-judicial murder. Just saying ...

Exactly; that's what I was trying to say too.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
[Image: 15073368_1152059578218387_85583020820804...e=58915228]
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply


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