***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[kdawg]

Nice to see that they’re focussing all their energies on the things that matter to people. Next I hope they will go after veggie “burgers”.

 

[IATT]

 

[UnicornHunter]

"Most of the left does not see things that way. Most of the left remembers that Bush stole an election, started a war that killed about a million of people, normalized torture, legitimized the imperial presidency, let New Orleans drown and set up an economic crisis that was used to facilitate a massive upward redistribution of wealth."

How is that not worst than what trump did thus far ? All trump basically did is give recognition on racism that's been existing since forever . I see people taking stands on racism that didn't before because of trump. Let's not forget the recession that Bush gave ..
Take away trump's antics and
Imo trump > bush

 

[130122]

"Most of the left does not see things that way. Most of the left remembers that Bush stole an election, started a war that killed about a million of people, normalized torture, legitimized the imperial presidency, let New Orleans drown and set up an economic crisis that was used to facilitate a massive upward redistribution of wealth."

How is that not worst than what trump did thus far ? All trump basically did is give recognition on racism that's been existing since forever . I see people taking stands on racism that didn't before because of trump. Let's not forget the recession that Bush gave ..
Take away trump's antics and
Imo trump > bush

1. Trump cheated an election
2. Trump left Puerto Rico for dead (still have no power a calendar year later)
3. Trump has destabilized all social programs (affordable care/welfare etc.)
4. Trump did more than give racism recognition, he gave a platform where overt racism can thrive without any qualms from those who are higher up
5. Trump has put us in a worse debt to actual money ratio than bush did before the recession
6. Trump has deported american citizens
7. Trump has put babies in cages inside abandoned Walmarts
8. Trump has gone back on literally every promise he's made outside of defunding Obamacare which he regrets doing now ( where's the wall at?)
9. Trump has berated his own intelligence community in favor of those who rigged the election
10. Trump's tax cut plan has yet to produce any gains for the middle class citizens he said it would help
And remember Bush had two terms, Trump has done the same amount of damage in half a term so if my math works out correctly trump at this rate has caught up to bush in damage done and has much time left to double what he's done

 

[kdawg]

I agree that Trump makes Bush look okay - but he wasn’t, he was terrible in his own right.

But, what Trump is doing in tearing down society and stacking the courts has the potential to ruin many more lives than what Bush did - and for what, to pad the pockets of the 1% a little more?

AND IT’S WORSE NOT WORST!!!

 

[elpablo21]

 

[Belgium]

I think Bush still holds the crown for worst president in modern US political history but Trump is well on course to blow him out of the water. He just needs a bit more time.
Arguably he has already trashed the US' international standing down to Iraq war levels and he hasn't even started a war yet.

 

[MalcolmNewton]

Trump hasn't led us to a financial crises yet but he has already planted the seeds with his tarrifs. Just waiting for that ticking bomb to go off. But overall domestically, he is on record pace to be a complete disaster for everyone, including his base. I'm not an expert on past presidential cabinets but he may very well have the worst ever assembled, which was done on purpose.

Suprisingly, he hasn't been very hawkish when it comes to military interventions. He talks big on twitter but that's usually the extent of it aside from the Syria strikes which really did nothing to help or hurt the situation. Granted, all of the military fiasco's have been well under way for the last decade so it's nothing for him to just keep his foot on the military gas pedal and take credit for whatever becomes of them in the end. We are only in year two so there is plenty of time left for him to start something he can't get out of and someone else will have to clean up.

 

[Nike Jordan]

Now there is a subset of center left folks, who just a generation ago would have been moderate Republicans, and they dislike Trump and his administration on stylistic grounds. As a result, they find the need to create a fond recollection of the previous 44 presidents in order to imagine Trump as some singular orch like monster.

I can imagine that subset of liberals in the 2030s. After Trump finishes two terms and after Kamala Harris delivers class, dignity and marginal reforms all while capital continues its decades long conquest of labor; we’ll arrive at a Tom Cotton Presidency with favales, concentration camps, bread lines, debt peonage, hand maids and forced blood harvests in order to supply Peter Theil and his cronies, we will have Kelly Anne Conway hosting the 5:00 PM est spot on MSNBC where she’ll explain how unlike the Cotton White House, the Trump administration was kind and decorous.

I remember when The Daily Show did a thing on this back in 2010, when Republicans were trying to talk up Bill Clinton in the early days of Obama's presidency.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0p8epr/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-republicans-miss-bill-clinton

 

[IATT]

 

[rexanglorum]

"Most of the left does not see things that way. Most of the left remembers that Bush stole an election, started a war that killed about a million of people, normalized torture, legitimized the imperial presidency, let New Orleans drown and set up an economic crisis that was used to facilitate a massive upward redistribution of wealth."

How is that not worst than what trump did thus far ? All trump basically did is give recognition on racism that's been existing since forever . I see people taking stands on racism that didn't before because of trump. Let's not forget the recession that Bush gave ..
Take away trump's antics and
Imo trump > bush

Thus far, Trump has caused less damage than Bush but Bush had eight years as President and then almost another decade for the consequences to reverberate.

I also think that Bush gets a pass from the center-left because Bush managed to endear himself to the legal community. Before Citizens United the influential donor class for both parties were high end lawyers who would pay five, ten, twenty thousand plate at fund raisers. The Bush administration filled its campaign war chest from wealthy lawyers, his presidency was confirmed by five lawyers (the United states Supreme Court), Bush kept his White House staffed up with lawyers, he showed deference to his lawyers, he paid his lawyers. So while socially liberal, affluent lawyers might have disagreed with him, he treated their profession, their conservative colleagues well and many of their blue stocking law firms very well. Furthermore, Bush got buy in from Democrats for the Iraq war and the bailout and his Democratic predecessor utilized some of the new laws and legal powers created by the Bush administration.

Bush also indulged the psycosis of the PMC and how they saw themselves. Bush wielded content free business speak, Bush went jogging while Trump does not (read David Brooks circa 2005 if you want a look inside the head space of the PMC and their belief that they are rich because they work hard and they work hard because they go jogging before work), Bush went to grad school, Bush went to school in New England. Bush indulged the liberal PMC project of subjecting public school teachers to market discipline (remember that Bush crafted No Child Left Behind with Mr. Boston Lawyer himself, Ted Kennedy). Bush was culturally aligned with liberal and conservative members of the PMC so he got a pass in a way that Donald Trump does not.

Honestly, this discussion is like discussing great NBA centers, except, we're talking about horrible presidents. Bush is like the Kareem of horrible presidents, classy with longevity, Bush dished out his cruelty over many years. Trump is like Bill Walton, eccentric and showing intense flashes of brilliance in evil. Let's hope that Trump, like Walton, has his prime cut down prematurely.

 

[gry60]

"Most of the left does not see things that way. Most of the left remembers that Bush stole an election, started a war that killed about a million of people, normalized torture, legitimized the imperial presidency, let New Orleans drown and set up an economic crisis that was used to facilitate a massive upward redistribution of wealth."

How is that not worst than what trump did thus far ? All trump basically did is give recognition on racism that's been existing since forever . I see people taking stands on racism that didn't before because of trump. Let's not forget the recession that Bush gave ..
Take away trump's antics and
Imo trump > bush

This is like one of those arguments where cats compare which hoods have the highest crime rate.

This isn't a discussion worth entertaining.

 

[DADDYFATSACKS]

I hope she froze some butter biscuits
http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...over-national-enquirer-deal-tied-to-cohen?amp

 

[rexanglorum]

I remember when The Daily Show did a thing on this back in 2010, when Republicans were trying to talk up Bill Clinton in the early days of Obama's presidency.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/0p8epr/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-republicans-miss-bill-clinton

The 90's really were the golden age of conservative speculative fiction that involved armed insurgency and assassinating the President, us 80's kids remember.

 

[Fozz]

Sidenote tho: if trump shaved his head his hair would never grow back

That's why I'm scared to cut my hair short lol.

 

[Belgium]

It's not lying if you don't know what you're talking about

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcar...s-that-cant-be-sold-until-september-are-doing
Trump says new health plans, not available until September, already doing 'record business'
President Trump on Thursday touted his administration’s new health insurance plans, which aren't available to the public until Sept. 1, saying they're already generating "record business."

Speaking at a roundtable in Iowa, where he was joined by state and local officials, as well as a few members of his Cabinet, the president highlighted forthcoming health plans that serve as an alternative to the ones offered under ObamaCare.

Trump said Department of Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who was at the event, “has come up with incredible healthcare plans.”



“Alex, I hear it’s like record business that they’re doing,” Trump said of the plans, which aren't available for another five weeks. “We just opened about two months ago and I’m hearing that the numbers are incredible -- the numbers of people getting really, really good healthcare instead of Obamacare, which is a disaster.”

The administration announced its association health plans last month. The plans, which allow small businesses and other groups to band together to buy health insurance, are part of a broader administration effort to offer slimmed-down, cheaper plans as an alternative to ObamaCare plans.

Trump did not cite any numbers regarding the health plans at Thursday's event, while Acosta said he’d heard Iowa businesses are “putting those associations together."

The Labor Department has said associations cannot establish association health plans until Sept. 1.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated earlier this year that 4 million people will join the new association health plans, based on the proposed regulation offered in January.

 

[IATT]

 

[gry60]

Color. Me. Surprised.

https://www.carnegie.org/about/our-history/gospelofwealth/

The growing disposition to tax more and more heavily large estates left at death is a cheering indication of the growth of a salutary change in public opinion. The State of Pennsylvania now takes—subject to some exceptions—one-tenth of the property left by its citizens. The budget presented in the British Parliament the other day proposes to increase the death-duties; and, most significant of all, the new tax is to be a graduated one. Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest. Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for - public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.

It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction. Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man's estate which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the state, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell, until of the millionaire's hoard, as of Shylock's, at least

"The other half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state."

This policy would work powerfully to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life, which is the end that society should always have in view, as being that by far most fruitful for the people.

Here we have Andrew Carnegie advocating for...


... the estate tax.

Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts through the course of many years.

#notallpoor
#taxcutscreatejobs
#givemethecutsnottheroadsnottheeducation

 

[IATT]

 

[elpablo21]

 

[MalcolmNewton]

 

[Belgium]

"This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr Trump"

"Emin asked that I schedule a meeting with you and The Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow for this Thursday."
-Goldstone's email(s) to Trump Jr in the emails that were posted online by Jr after the Trump tower meeting became public

"If it's what you say I love it especially later in the summer"
- Trump Jr reply to Goldstone



Edit: link to AP's new reporting
https://apnews.com/4946c3cfaea04ce6...r-who-met-Trump-Jr.-tied-to-Russian-officials
Emails: Lawyer who met Trump Jr. tied to Russian officials

 

[MalcolmNewton]

 

[EddieDoyers]

 

[whywesteppin]

article arguing that there is a high likelihood Russian hackers changed votes in the 2016 election:

https://www.theroot.com/evidence-shows-hackers-changed-votes-in-the-2016-electi-1827871206/amp

given that every other speculation is being proven true about Russian meddling and collusion, this is probably true as well.

edit: although I will admit the evidence is thin.