Yeah, so what? What's that got to do with Frump being an assh*le?Originally Posted by SkStu
This is why:
Thank you
Yeah, so what? What's that got to do with Frump being an assh*le?This is why:
So what? Really? Do you not see any problems or have an issue with having 95% of your news controlled by very few people?
I'm not saying Trump isn't an ******* (show me a politician that isn't) but there is a balance to the reporting that is sorely missing. Admittedly he makes it easy as he is ridiculously public, forthright and vocal with his opinions. But give me that any day over the clandestine garbage we tolerate as acceptable from our leaders.
Also, I have few issues with almost all of his major policy positions.
Last edited by SkStu; 12/02/2017 at 10:40 PM.
That has happened regardless. What is Frump going to do? Nothing...
No it hasn't. Our news, as recently as the 90's, was far more diverse and decentralized. In fact, it was night and day.
Trump has already done more in a month than previous administrations did in a term. You mightn't like it all (or any) and that's fine too.
Interesting article here : (you will rubbish the source) http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...-has-done.html
So... what has Trump done since elected.....
As President
Week 6 2017
• Declared the “court system” a threat to national security.
• Then, he framed the existence of judicial review as a sign of national decline.
• Insisted that his Supreme Court pick had no problem with attacks on the judiciary, in the face of blatant evidence to the contrary.
• Trashed New START during a call with Putin — after putting the phone aside to ask his advisers what that (nuclear-arms treaty) was.
• Publicly condemned a private company for dropping his daughter’s (increasingly unpopular) fashion line.
• Suggested that publicly criticizing his military decisions is tantamount to aiding “the enemy.”
• Got angry at his press secretary for being impersonated by a woman.
Week 5 2017
• Used the executive branch’s immense authority over border control to inflict arbitrary cruelty on thousands of Muslim immigrants, create chaos at airports all across America, and sour diplomatic relations with the rest of the world.
• Violated court orders against his travel ban.
• Created a diplomatic crisis with Australia — and threatened to invade Mexico.
• Allowed his press secretary to falsely claim that Iran had committed an act of war against the United States.
• Retained the author of a reactionary screed that likened the 2016 election to Flight 93 as a national-security staffer.
• Suggested that Frederick Douglass is still alive in speech on Black History Month.
Week 4 2017
• Told a demonstrable lie about the size of the crowd at his inauguration — and predicted that the media would “pay a big price” for refusing to repeat it.
• Told congressional leaders at a private meeting that he only lost the popular vote because undocumented immigrants cast millions of ballots against him.
• Suggested America might once again have the opportunity to confiscate Iraq’s oil.
• Allowed his company to leverage the cachet of his election into a massive expansion of its hotel empire.
• Ordered the Department of Homeland Security to issue a weekly list of crimes (allegedly) committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities.
• Prepared to radically reduce American funding to the United Nations.
• Signed a bevy of executive orders that were drafted by the White House’s Breitbart wing — and no one else.
• Stood by as his top advisers leaked like a sieve.
• Declared that his election had restored American democracy, in an angry, authoritarian inaugural address.
• Replaced the White House website’s page on climate change with a vow to drill for oil on federal lands.
• Defamed a hero of the civil-rights movement in a series of racist tweets.
• Suggested that America’s intelligence agencies might be turning the United States into something akin to Nazi Germany.
• Allowed his secretary of State nominee to pledge that America would block China’s access to its disputed islands in the South China Sea — a promise that, if kept, would almost certainly mean war.
• Named his son-in-law a senior White House adviser, in defiance of norms (and, very likely, laws) against nepotism.
• Called NATO obsolete.
As President Elect
• Repeatedly denigrated America’s intelligence agencies, then leaked plans to downsize them.
• Trump then falsely claimed that his intelligence briefing on Russian hacking had been delayed — and suggested that this was because the CIA needed more time to fabricate “intelligence.”
• Declared his openness to reviving a nuclear arms race.
• Disparaged the sitting American president, while praising a hostile foreign autocrat.
• Named a billionaire investor — with an enormous, personal financial interest in deregulating certain sectors of the economy — as his special adviser on regulatory reform.
• Declared the American intelligence community to be inherently untrustworthy, after it produced information that he did not like.
• Said he would continue skipping daily intelligence briefings when he becomes president because he’s smart enough to get by without them.
• Said he doesn’t know why he should be bound by the One China Policy.
• Invited his adult sons — who are slated to run the Trump Organization— to a policy meeting with the leading lights of Silicon Valley.
• Picked a man who once tried to call for the abolition of the Energy Department — but couldn’t remember the department’s name — as secretary of Energy.
• Named his bankruptcy lawyer — who thinks liberal Jews are “worse” than Nazi collaborators — as his pick for ambassador to Israel.
• Provoked heightened diplomatic tensions with two nuclear-armed states.
• Defended the propriety of mass murder as an anti-drug policy.
• Handed the Environmental Protection Agency to a climate denialist.
• Attacked a local labor leader for calling attention to his lies.
• Handed the Labor Department to a serial violator of labor law.
• Baselessly accused a private company of ripping off the government, shortly after the CEO of that company criticized his trade policies.
• Questioned the legitimacy of the election he just won.
• Appointed Ben Carson secretary of Housing and Urban Development — despite the fact that Carson has no relevant experience and recently declared himself unqualified for any cabinet position.
• Allowed his D.C. hotel to actively court the patronage of foreign diplomats.
• Invited the manager of his blind trust onto a phone call with the president of Argentina.
• Met with Indian business partners who have publicly declared their intention to capitalize on his status as president-elect.
• Tried to coerce Britain into appointing a right-wing extremist as its ambassador to the United States.
• Berated the media at a closed-door meeting for publishing unflattering photos of his double chin.
• Criticized the cast of a Broadway musical for asking the vice-president to work on behalf of all Americans.
• The president-elect decided that the case against his defunct “university” was strong enough for him to accept a $25 million settlement.
• Admitted that his charity was guilty of self-dealing.
• Derided protestors as paid professionals whose acts of free speech are fundamentally “unfair.”
• Invited the manager of his “blind trust” to a meeting with the prime minister of Japan.
• Assembled a team of racists to lead his White House.
• Took credit for the fact that Ford will not be relocating a plant to Mexico (which they never had any intention of relocating to Mexico).
• Declared America’s leading newspaper a “failing” institution.
• Took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consulting the State Department.
• Referred to his White House transition as though it were the next season of The Apprentice.
Ok. Ignoring the obvious hyperbole and hysteria in the perspective above, are you interested in and do you pursue other perspectives on what he has done? Or are you only interested in snippets that will confirm your bias? Sincerely.
As I've said before I held very negative opinions of Trump (certainly as a person and quite a lot as a policy maker) up until last summer and I started digging into Wikileaks and discovered other media and blogger perspectives. Wikileaks exposed the corruption and collusion that is prevalent in Washington that none of us should be willing to tolerate - even as outsiders. The destruction of Sanders, the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party and its "values" and the worrying conduct of the Clinton Foundation. It really opened my eyes. It caused me to question what I was reading and watching that portrayed the left (my left) as angels and Trump and the Republican Party as the devil incarnate. With that lens, I sought out more information. Some garbage and some good.
As policies, there's not a whole lot wrong with what Trump is pushing forward. Security, safety and borders are worthwhile discussions and debates for US citizens to have. The rise of Islamic extremism in Europe and North America is worthy of discussing and debating. I don't think open borders are a good thing and I think that extreme vetting from terrorist producing nations is reasonable if done correctly. However, it is the behaviour of the left and the screeching and wailing of bitter losers and the demonstrations that are orchestrated and funded by those with a globalist agenda that really makes me think that they (the big "they") have another reason to fear Trump. I find the prospects of globalism and open borders to be quite frightening.
Like what, acting like a complete tool?
Are you actually going to post anything that doesn't just amount to Trump being a big meany?
In the unlikely event of him not being a moron, I'll say so!!
Deal!
I could accuse you of the same in fairness Stu - you rubbish basically every source on here except your own.
Don't 100% agree with you but I'm with you until this point. Understandable point of view.
Fundamentally disagree with everything here apart from the bit in bold- it is worth a discussion - discussion / debate fine, but there is little evidence to suggest the risk is so extreme that closed borders are required given that the US is virtually the most difficult country in the world at this stage to pass through the refugee process anyway. Again to re-emphasise this is merely Trump playing to his kind of people. The worry is if, God forbid, there is a major incident in the US - weather it is perpetrated by an immigrant or just another radicalized US citizen- it will be used as an excuse to give Trump the type of power he is looking for through these EO's. That would be a disaster.
"They" are not out to get you SkStu - well its only 1 person and its not who you think? I'm not really sure why this behavior irks you so much - surely its reactionary wailing to Trump himself. He's not so much as looking for common ground on anything so far. Maybe there would be less wailing if he wasn't insulting everyone who disagrees with him.
Haha class all round in that paragraph RAM! Touché!"They" are not out to get you SkStu - well its only 1 person and its not who you think? I'm not really sure why this behavior irks you so much - surely its reactionary wailing to Trump himself. He's not so much as looking for common ground on anything so far. Maybe there would be less wailing if he wasn't insulting everyone who disagrees with him.
I'll respond to the rest of your post later as I'm supposed to be working - I appreciate your thoughts.
One can harbour critical or negative feelings for both Trump and the Washington establishment at the same time.
What would you classify as a "terrorist-producing nation"?I don't think open borders are a good thing and I think that extreme vetting from terrorist producing nations is reasonable if done correctly.
1) correct. However you must also make the connection that a lot of what is being fed to us is through the Washington establishment and the establishment in general. Therefore the criticisms of the likes of Schumer, Warren, McCain and Graham - amongst many others - that is funnelled through the beholden establishment media carries very little weight. Or it should at least be taken with a cellar of salt or viewed with skepticism. I have seen enough from Trump to conclude that he is a buffoon and ignorant on a few policy issues but not convinced that he or his agenda poses the threat to democracy, society and existence that we are being asked to believe is the case. This is far from doomsday and the most contentious issues he has advanced are issues that are important to a significant number of people in the States and as evidenced in Europe too and certainly warrants fulsome debate.
2) loose with language there I suppose. I think there are many nations capable of producing terrorists however individuals coming from countries whose governance systems are dysfunctional or broken and/or whose actions demonstrate a broad anti-West sentiment should be subject to satisfactory screening the extent of which is the right of any sovereign nation to determine.
Even though the Americans created that climate.
If only they could hit the right targets, they deserve all that's coming to them!
As for Frump, as long as he speaks like a person with learning difficulties, he's worthy of being ignored as much as possible!
In effect, you're saying it is tolerable that all individuals who might happen to originate from or hold citizenship of a particular state that is deemed to have demonstrated (through what sort of actions exactly?) anti-Western sentiment in some way ought to be uniquely prejudiced in their appeals for entry/refuge/asylum?
And you'd presumably exclude, say, Belgium, France or the UK from the list of "terrorist-producing nations", despite these societies evidently producing within their confines obvious threats to the security of their own countries and other Western countries? Anti-Western sentiment, social discontent/exclusion and anger/frustration over official Western policy (that finds intimate refuge and sanctuary in the appeals of profoundly reactionary ideologies) isn't exclusive to non-Western or even suspected anti-Western states. These phenomena also exist and indeed flourish within the West itself.
An interesting and relevant piece here that was written for Salvage in the aftermath of the Paris Bataclan attack: http://salvage.zone/online-exclusive/paris-daesh/
Amid the mainstream jabbering about psychopaths and madness, truly to weaken Daesh, we must understand it. The organisation consists of three main elements. First, the fragments of the Iraqi Ba’athist security state sutured to Sunni ultra-chauvinists in the fight against the US occupation after 2003. It is simple fact this part would not exist without that invasion – carried out, you may recall, to stop terrorist atrocities from occurring again. The second element is the Takfiri Islamists released by the Assad regime in 2011 in a largely successful attempt to undermine the Syrian revolution and win international legitimacy. That bourgeois dictatorship, and its imperialist and sub-imperialist backers Russia and Iran bear no small measure of paternity of the monster. The third element is the international adventurers, colonialists and war fantasists who have taken over large parts of Syria. The Paris attackers seem to come from this group. They are not a product of Islamic society: they are exports from decrepit, anomic Euro-capitalism to the unfortunate people of Syria. Few of them have much knowledge of the Islamic religion – not that that should matter, except it does, when all Muslims are violently conflated with Daesh. In Scotland, Islamic centres are being torched and Muslims advised ‘not to go out alone’. When the ‘centrist’ candidates for the Republican presidential nomination and Rupert Murdoch, the most powerful press baron in history, suggest that only Christian refugees be admitted; when the governors of more than half the US states announce they will exclude Syrian refugees – fleeing from the very regime of institutionalised barbarism that has claimed responsibility for Paris – from entry; when the incoming Europe minister in Poland flatly refuses to honour the EU’s refugee plan, this is the kind of fire with which they play.
More bombing, more ‘anti-radicalisation strategies’? Maybe that will work, for a while. It did, somewhat, with Al-Qaeda and look what followed them. What do you want to be grieving in 2028?
Last edited by DannyInvincible; 14/02/2017 at 11:17 AM.
No I didn't say that.
I'm cringing listening to Trump cluelessly waffle on about a potential solution to the conflict in the Middle East here:
What a spoofer. Way out of his depth. Even Netenyahu laughs before ducking his head out of embarrassment for Trump. Desperate stuff that must be utterly terrifying for Palestinians to be hearing. Hard to believe it's real.
There's going to be similar every day he's in office, how long before they send for the men in white coats or take out this simpleton?
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