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The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns. The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: No smocking guns.

07-17-2017 , 01:26 PM
eh, the US is a constant force undermining elections all over the world, removing democratically elected people we don't like, installing dictators, etc.

You have just been trained to believe that America = Good Guys
07-17-2017 , 01:28 PM
Whatsyourpoint?
07-17-2017 , 01:44 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by OmgGlutten!
eh, the US is a constant force undermining elections all over the world, removing democratically elected people we don't like, installing dictators, etc.

You have just been trained to believe that America = Good Guys
and that's wrong/bad.

is your argument that we should just be ok with another foreign power trying to do the same to us, since murica has done it in the past? because that's really ****ing dumb.
07-17-2017 , 01:51 PM
If were in a cyber war lets not try in win it or protect our elections for it because of our history...
07-17-2017 , 01:55 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by einbert
Socialism worked damn well for thousands of years before capitalism was even a thing. There are actually many more centuries of socialism working, and working quite well, in human history than there are of capitalism even existing.
You certainly don't have to agree with bobman, but the paragraph above is just made up. Capitalism certainly was "a thing" by the end of the 18th century under any reasonable definition of capitalism. How many political systems, socialist or otherwise, worked "quite well", especially for poor people, before that time?
07-17-2017 , 01:56 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by +rep_lol
and that's wrong/bad.

is your argument that we should just be ok with another foreign power trying to do the same to us, since murica has done it in the past? because that's really ****ing dumb.
I thought he was just saying that he wasn't surprised by the Time cover about Yeltsin.
07-17-2017 , 02:12 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Our House
Hmmm...Francis Rooney (R) just referenced Daddy Trump's decisions FROM LAST YEAR about Jr's meeting and how Trump, being an outsider Rooney can sympathize with, didn't understand the optics of such a meeting at the time.

Is that an oops? Anybody know this GOP guy's background, and whether he would be in a position to have the knowledge he just let slip?

I'll post the segment when it's available later and let you guys decide on what I'm pretty sure I just saw. Poppy from CNN was asking about Trump's tweet today saying again that most everyone would take the meeting and it was just politics as usual. To me, it seemed as if Rooney was so focused on avoiding disagreement with today's statement, that he tried to use the rookie argument for Trump Sr at the time they all accepted the meeting. It didn't look like he realized what he said, though I'm sure he's kicking himself now.
OK, just watched it again. He was talking about Jr in the beginning when he said he was able to sympathize with him as an outsider.

The part that got my attention is towards the end, after the interviewer tells him about today's Trump Sr tweet. He definitely talks as if he's aware that Trump knew about the meeting when it took place.

07-17-2017 , 02:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobman0330
Consider for a moment just how stupid the idea of a nationwide $15/hour minimum wage is. There are entire states whose per capita income is less than a $15/hour minimum wage. The *only* reason to believe that a $15 national minimum wage wouldn't be an economic disaster is naive extrapolation of studies, themselves contested, of much smaller changes. And yet, that's a universally held tenet of the New New Left.
I most recently listened to Chapo's first post-election episode which featured a cathartic tear-into-Hillary-for-everything rant, and most of it was on point but one of their complaints was - and this was, like, the entire burn/point being made to indict her lack of progressivism - "she wouldn't even say yes to a $15 minimum wage". It seems like a bit of a blind spot for the far left, because the most liberal cities in the country, you know, the ones that are crazy expensive to live in, are barely at $15 (SF just hit $14 and will be $15 in a year w/ yearly CPI increases to follow, I think Seattle is $15 now? Berkeley, always a barometer of the far left zeitgeist, will be $15 next October).

If these cities with a high cost of living and super liberal governments can barely get $15 done, how in the **** do you convince bumble**** rural Ohio to do this? Do the economics even make sense in the cheaper places in the country? There was grumbling in San Francisco about restaurants closing and **** when they had to pay their waiters $15/hr, and what do you think they charge for food here versus out in the sticks?
07-17-2017 , 02:56 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Namath12
The point is that they're not here to be influenced, they're here to do the influencing, you're wasting column space on them
I just said above your post that I don't reply to the Russian trolls for their sake, I reply for the benefit of lurkers who can be swayed by rational arguments.

Unless your point is lurkers who are on the fence don't gain anything from seeing some of their thoughts countered or even ridiculed?
07-17-2017 , 03:08 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huehuecoyotl
The Weeds kind of covered this but initially the bill looked like it was created by someone who just wanted tax cuts and less spending and now after the conservative policy wonks have had time to work on policy makers it's a mix of people who still want spending cuts with people who actually have a conservative vision for what healthcare should look like, but for that vision to happen it requires money. It's still a bit of a mix of both.
Or, the Republican party has been trying to do away with medicaid for decades, and this is the path of least resistance? Let's not overthink things here, if there was actually a vision of health care it would been rolled out and passed in January.
07-17-2017 , 03:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by zikzak
It's not fetishism. They cobbled together a pretty decent system with multiple failsafes to prevent a Trump. They just failed to appreciate that in the future We the People would be monumentally stupid enough to blow through all of them.
Bingo. There is no way the founders could have possibly foreseen how much political influence grumpy old white men would manage to weld in the 21st century.
07-17-2017 , 03:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TrollyWantACracker
Bingo. There is no way the founders could have possibly foreseen how much political influence grumpy old white men would manage to weld in the 21st century.
I don't know, grumpy old white men were the only people who had power when the Founders were around.
07-17-2017 , 04:04 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
I most recently listened to Chapo's first post-election episode which featured a cathartic tear-into-Hillary-for-everything rant, and most of it was on point but one of their complaints was - and this was, like, the entire burn/point being made to indict her lack of progressivism - "she wouldn't even say yes to a $15 minimum wage". It seems like a bit of a blind spot for the far left, because the most liberal cities in the country, you know, the ones that are crazy expensive to live in, are barely at $15 (SF just hit $14 and will be $15 in a year w/ yearly CPI increases to follow, I think Seattle is $15 now? Berkeley, always a barometer of the far left zeitgeist, will be $15 next October).

If these cities with a high cost of living and super liberal governments can barely get $15 done, how in the **** do you convince bumble**** rural Ohio to do this? Do the economics even make sense in the cheaper places in the country? There was grumbling in San Francisco about restaurants closing and **** when they had to pay their waiters $15/hr, and what do you think they charge for food here versus out in the sticks?
Meh, I don't know how this gets framed as a new issue these days. Seems to me every time there's ever been a move to raise the MW the right wing has gone ballistic saying that it will cause job losses and bankruptcies yet for some reason it continues to go up.

Of course the right says that about virtually every progressive policy, so it's not a surprise that they do it about the MW too. If they were correct about any of that America would've turned into an economic wasteland back during the FDR administration.
07-17-2017 , 04:09 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by dinopoker
Meh, I don't know how this gets framed as a new issue these days. Seems to me every time there's ever been a move to raise the MW the right wing has gone ballistic saying that it will cause job losses and bankruptcies yet for some reason it continues to go up.

Of course the right says that about virtually every progressive policy, so it's not a surprise that they do it about the MW too. If they were correct about any of that America would've turned into an economic wasteland back during the FDR administration.
I don't mean to suggest I support the right's side on this - I support & voted for $15 locally. But it's an issue where geography matters, I think.
07-17-2017 , 04:12 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
I don't mean to suggest I support the right's side on this - I support & voted for $15 locally. But it's an issue where geography matters, I think.
We need a maximum wage more than we need a higher minimum wage. Make the CEO's maximum wage some multiple of the lowest paid workers in the corporation and wages will rise.
07-17-2017 , 04:15 PM
Trump: I better say "I think" otherwise they'll give me a Pinocchio. I don't like Pinocchios.

How about you stop ****ing lying instead of blaming the people who give out the lie award? Idiot.

BTW, that would have been my question in the briefing earlier. "Hey Spicer, literally everyone has been suggesting that the President and the WH to get the whole Russia story out in the open for months now. Yet we're still seeing new details and contradictions revealed to the public every couple of days. Why has the WH not taken this advice?"

Instead, we got to hear Spicey say the Fredo meeting was about adoptions, even though Jr's own email proof and Trump's tweets today say it wasn't. Spicer is living in 8 days ago time, because the bull**** answers from back then make them look like better people.
07-17-2017 , 04:15 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jman220
We need a maximum wage more than we need a higher minimum wage. Make the CEO's maximum wage some multiple of the lowest paid workers in the corporation and wages will rise.
Or companies will find loopholes in a maximum wage law by giving their CEOs even more neat perks.
07-17-2017 , 04:16 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by dinopoker
Meh, I don't know how this gets framed as a new issue these days. Seems to me every time there's ever been a move to raise the MW the right wing has gone ballistic saying that it will cause job losses and bankruptcies yet for some reason it continues to go up.

Of course the right says that about virtually every progressive policy, so it's not a surprise that they do it about the MW too. If they were correct about any of that America would've turned into an economic wasteland back during the FDR administration.
It hasn't gone up since 2009. Also, a jump to $15 would be an increase of 107%. That could definitely have some weird effects.

Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
I don't mean to suggest I support the right's side on this - I support & voted for $15 locally. But it's an issue where geography matters, I think.
Yeah, $15 is reasonable some places but a federal minimum wage either needs to:
a) Account for cost of living by location
or
b) Basically just go for the lowest common denominator i.e. a reasonable wage for a low cost of living area.

(a) is obviously better, especially if you support high minimum wage, but (b) is also fine but leaves the burden on high COL localities to implement their own, higher minimum wage.

Even if we keep (b) it needs to be indexed to inflation.
07-17-2017 , 04:17 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jman220
We need a maximum wage more than we need a higher minimum wage. Make the CEO's maximum wage some multiple of the lowest paid workers in the corporation and wages will rise.
Eh, I don't really think this makes sense.
07-17-2017 , 04:18 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by goofyballer
I don't mean to suggest I support the right's side on this - I support & voted for $15 locally. But it's an issue where geography matters, I think.
I agree with this. Now if there only a type of organization that would negotiate on behalf of employees with employers so that employee wages could be much more fine grain we'd be set.
07-17-2017 , 04:28 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by TiltedDonkey
Eh, I don't really think this makes sense.
Why? How much better off would the middle class be if instead of the CEO getting 10million in stocks etc 9 million of that was spread around as profit sharing, or R&D, or more employees because the CEO was limited to making no more than 32 times the lowest paid worker in the company? Ok, for Google that would be only 125$ bucks per employee, but still...
07-17-2017 , 04:32 PM
Made in America week, another pathetic attempt to manufacture an agenda that takes away from their constant lying and covering up.

This is the kind of trouble you get into when you're running a criminal enterprise masquerading as a real government.

So anyway, Made in America couldn't be brought up today without Spice getting asked about the hypocrisy of Trump & Kids, Inc and their involvement with overseas production. The ONLY possible answer to defend nepotism, conflicts of interest, and worker's rights violations is obviously "It's not appropriate to discuss that." NOT. APPROPRIATE. OBVIOUSLY.
07-17-2017 , 04:32 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by kerowo
Why? How much better off would the middle class be if instead of the CEO getting 10million in stocks etc 9 million of that was spread around as profit sharing, or R&D, or more employees because the CEO was limited to making no more than 32 times the lowest paid worker in the company? Ok, for Google that would be only 125$ bucks per employee, but still...
First, I don't see any compelling reason why a company shouldn't be able to pay the CEO as much as it wants. Second, even if I agreed there should be some limit on CEO pay, I don't think multiple of lowest paid worker is a sensible way of setting it. Why should the CEO of, say, a software engineering firm be eligible to make many times more than the CEO of a fast food chain?
07-17-2017 , 04:33 PM
Simon Rosenberg thinks alot of republicans assisting trumps campaign like spicer, priebus and ryan are liable to the Aiding and Abetting statute, referring to a recent article by bob bauer. He thinks this is one of the reason there is not more outrage, ppl are defending themselves.
07-17-2017 , 04:59 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyWf
Counterpoint:

The neoliberal belief that a simple idea is bad, that simplicity is a mark AGAINST instead of for a policy, might explain all those people who hate Obamacare but are about to lose their insurance.

The NHS doesn't have that problem.

Kneejerky simple solutions that are ACTUALLY SOLUTIONS sound like a damn good idea to me.
Here is an interesting article on the evolution of the term "neoliberal" and the use of the term by the left wing of the Democratic party as a pejorative label for Obama/Clinton supporters.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...=sharebutton-b

      
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