The Trump Presidency | Biden Inaugurated

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This is amazing, as per topic on last page about Trump supporters' incredible cognitive dissonance forcing them to do backflips to defend him:
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This is a Trump supporter telling someone to go read the Art of the Deal to see how it matches the Donald's speech patterns. He's telling that to the authour of the Art of the Deal.

I give up.
 
I've been thinking about this recent Venezuela revelation. People are shrugging it off as just another nutty Trump moment. But it says to me that he doesn't even consider the lives of soldiers as worth worrying about. The military is a plaything for indulging his whims and, but for the intervention of thinking adults, he would have sent people to face death and injury just for the hell of it.

Yet I bet his support is pretty high amongst the military and veterans.
 
Grinner said:
I've been thinking about this recent Venezuela revelation. People are shrugging it off as just another nutty Trump moment. But it says to me that he doesn't even consider the lives of soldiers as worth worrying about. The military is a plaything for indulging his whims and, but for the intervention of thinking adults, he would have sent people to face death and injury just for the hell of it.

Yet I bet his support is pretty high amongst the military and veterans.
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It truly is unbelievable to me how military families vote for war hawk politicians.

I mean... that’s most of my family in a nutshell.
 
Grinner said:
How is it that Trump is so thick? He went to decent schools.
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Apparently the admissions officer who interviewed him at Wharton's school of business was a long time friend and former high school classmate of his older brother Freddy Trump. His grades at Fordham university where he transferred from where average. He wasn't an honor student either despite his claims that he finished first in his class and most of his classmates don't even remember him.
 
Grinner said:
I've been thinking about this recent Venezuela revelation. People are shrugging it off as just another nutty Trump moment. But it says to me that he doesn't even consider the lives of soldiers as worth worrying about. The military is a plaything for indulging his whims and, but for the intervention of thinking adults, he would have sent people to face death and injury just for the hell of it.

Yet I bet his support is pretty high amongst the military and veterans.
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I am not so sure about that. Or atleast not with the ones that I know. My uncle was a high officer in the US Air Force and still works for them as consultant and my cousin is a school teacher that does not work as a teacher but coordinates all kind of family related stuff for an Army base in the US. They were here on holidays the recent two weeks - time to talk about all kind of stuff. I doubt that the support among the military and veterans with higher education - or the ones with migration background or african heritage is higher than in the other part of the population.
 
Anyone see this? @Dwazza?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...roached-questioned-canadian-vessels-1.4732583

U.S. Border Patrol questions crews of at least 2 fishing vessels in Canadian waters
Fishermen's association chair says U.S. officials were apparently looking for illegal immigrants


The federal government is investigating reports that two Canadian fishing vessels were approached, and crew members questioned, by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Canadian waters in the Gulf of Maine in late June.

According to Global Affairs Canada, the incidents occurred June 24 and 25 around Machias Seal Island and North Rock.

While details are scant, the fishermen are members of the Grand Manan Fishermen's Association. Laurence Cook, the association's chair, wrote on Facebook that the U.S. officials claimed they were "looking for illegal immigrants."

On Wednesday, Cook said further that border officials have stopped at least 10 fishing boats in the past two weeks. CBC News has only been able to confirm two of those instances with Global Affairs, but has requested information about any other investigations as well.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
I don’t know who’s losing their grasp on reality more; Trump or the guy next door to me who comes out every night and swears at the seagulls (in fact he’s outside right now calling them “fecking wee shites”).
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If the seagulls are imaginary it's your neighbor.

Carolina Red said:
It truly is unbelievable to me how military families vote for war hawk politicians.

I mean... that’s most of my family in a nutshell.
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You're not alone. I don't have that much military left in my family (a number are reserves now) but they all seem pro war if in doubt.
 
Twisted_Woody said:
Anyone see this? @Dwazza?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...roached-questioned-canadian-vessels-1.4732583

U.S. Border Patrol questions crews of at least 2 fishing vessels in Canadian waters
Fishermen's association chair says U.S. officials were apparently looking for illegal immigrants


The federal government is investigating reports that two Canadian fishing vessels were approached, and crew members questioned, by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Canadian waters in the Gulf of Maine in late June.

According to Global Affairs Canada, the incidents occurred June 24 and 25 around Machias Seal Island and North Rock.

While details are scant, the fishermen are members of the Grand Manan Fishermen's Association. Laurence Cook, the association's chair, wrote on Facebook that the U.S. officials claimed they were "looking for illegal immigrants."

On Wednesday, Cook said further that border officials have stopped at least 10 fishing boats in the past two weeks. CBC News has only been able to confirm two of those instances with Global Affairs, but has requested information about any other investigations as well.
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Yeah, saw that this morning. Heard that this also happened occasionally before Trump but it's rather unsettling.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
My apologies in advance for a long post but its important to not view Trump as an anomaly.

He is the conclusion of a very intentional, organized set of interconnect operations designed by far-right conservatives to gain and maintain power and control over laws and policies. This organized effort began after Barry Goldwater's defeat. But its important that some of foundations of Trump's supporters lie in a strain of anti-intellectualism in the US that was superbly documented by historian Douglas Hofstadter in 1963.

After Goldwater was defeated there were organized attempts to create socially conservative institutions from think tanks like Heritage Foundation whose sole goal is to produce research supporting social conservative ideas. There was nothing comparable on the liberal side. These conservative think tanks differed from traditional think tanks like Rand and Brookings in that they have a specific goal for research. They don't just study the facts. They cherry pick the facts they want to form the socially conservative narrative they are trying to spread. Here are some references to how powerful this conservative think tank movement from the 1970s (unmatched by progressives in any way) has influenced the public:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1034.1547&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.833.7268&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Then you have the legal angle. They formed the Federalist Society in 1982 and basically invented/reformatted a new judicial theory. They created the framework to push on all levels (from law school to Senators who wouldn't move on nominations). This is well documented in two great books: Cass Sunstein's Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts are Wrong for America and Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

Finally the evangelical right was empowered in the 1970s-80s with the Moral Majority and TV preachers like Falwell and Pat Robertson. And perhaps even more important was the Focus on the Family and James Dobson. Dobson was very influential in organizing religious conservative lobbying of Congress and influencing Republicans to maintain hardline stances.

Three pronged organized attack from academic, legal and religious angles. (I didn't even mention media and the Fox, Koch push either)

Then you get the amoral operators that these institutions empowered like Roger Stone. The film Get Me Roger Stone is very important in showcasing how some of these operate behind the scenes.

What all this adds up to is a specifically socially conservative infrastructure that has been built since the 70s-80s and has nothing comparable on the other side. All of this post-Goldwater conservative infrastructure has served to continually push the general masses further to the right as they are uncompromising while the progressive politicians completely outflanked, have just given up concessions without gaining anything in return. Any progressive victories have mostly ridden the natural wave of the technology boom and its subsequent progressive social consequences. All this infrastructure pushing explicitly right wing ideas makes it easy for things like Breitbart or alt-ring extremists to become empowered in such a climate.

Unfortunately this is also where the two-party political completely breaks down and loses its purpose and effectiveness. Traditionally game theory has always argued that the benefit of the two party system is that it is allegedly always supposed to moderate candidates and keep them honest to attract voters. But that long time formulation has been broken now. The incentives and payoffs don't work as classic game theory set up the model. What the conservatives realized is that by no compromising they can keep pushing the center further and further to the right.

Trump really was foreshadowed by Reagan. Reagan was a Hollywood movie actor (not an intellectual or academic), anti-communist activist and a charming figurehead. With all the conservative infrastructure I mentioned above, its really more predictable that a Trump would be nominated by the Reps and elected than it first seems.
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Some good information here. While I don't doubt this is happening and that it's a big problem I am more optimistic. When I say trump is an anomaly for a president I'm probably pointing more towards the way he goes about his business rather than the conservative politics being the anomaly.
 
Kekistan, with the famous capitol of Kekstantinopel named in tribute to the great and only god Kek.

Would read again.
 
Carolina Red said:
It truly is unbelievable to me how military families vote for war hawk politicians.
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Long story short, wars keep military families' mouths fed, hence no reason to wonder about water being wet.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
What a bunch of absolute cnuts. Depresses me to think I might walk among them without knowing it. There should be a law obliging them to have the MAGA hats surgically stapled to their heads.
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That's why I believe in free speech. So you know who the Cnuts are and can avoid them.
 
In a perfect world - Trump gets made to look like the joke he is by the people of England - goes on a Twitter rant against England on his way back home and England winning the world cup right after.
 
Redplane said:
In a perfect world - Trump gets made to look like the joke he is by the people of England - goes on a Twitter rant against England on his way back home and France winning the world cup right after.
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Fixed that for you.
 
Raoul said:
Boom!

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Yesterday a slim majority of senators approved Andrew Wheeler to be the EPA’s deputy administrator―the person who could end up running the agency should the current administrator suddenly decide (as so, so many Washingtonians before him have decided) that he really wants to spend more time with his family.

If you’re hoping Wheeler could represent some sort of departure from Pruitt’s (literal) scorched-earth agenda, he wouldn’t. While it may be impossible to imagine anyone worsethan Pruitt to lead our nation’s environmental policy, plenty of individuals could be just as bad.
...
Well, for starters, his most recent job was as an energy lobbyist. His biggest clients included Murray Energy Corporation, which proudly bills itself as the largest coal mining company in America, and whose CEO, Robert E. Murray, vigorously fought the Obama administration’s attempts to reduce carbon emissions and strengthen environmental and public health laws. Shortly after Trump took office, Murray, an unabashed climate denier, presented Vice President Mike Pence with a ridiculously pro-coal “action plan” that called for doing away with the Clean Power Plan, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, eliminating federal tax credits for renewable energy, and—yes—halving the EPA’s workforce.

In his spare time, Wheeler serves as the vice president of the Washington Coal Club, a powerful yet little-known federation of more than 300 coal producers, lawmakers, business leaders, and policy experts who have dedicated themselves to preserving the uncertain future of our dirtiest fossil fuel. Wheeler clearly loves coal, but he’s also made time to lobby the U.S. Department of the Interior to open portions of the Bears Ears National Monument to uranium mining.

It gets worse. Before joining his current K Street lobbying firm, Wheeler worked as a legislative aide to Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe. Inhofe is without question the most virulent climate denier on Capitol Hill—a man who regularly refers to the science of climate change as “the greatest hoax” ever perpetrated on the American people and who told one radio interviewer that educating schoolchildren on the basics of climate science was tantamount to “brainwashing.” When Wheeler’s nomination was announced last year, Inhofe effusively praised the decision, saying that “there is no one more qualified than Andrew to help Scott Pruitt restore EPA to its proper size and scope.” (The italics are mine; the anxiety that they denote should be everybody’s.) In that same statement, Inhofe referred to Wheeler as his “close friend”; indeed, the two are close enough that Wheeler thought it perfectly appropriate to organize a fund-raiser for Inhofe last May, an act that many believe crossed ethical lines.

The line on Wheeler from people in the know is that he’s essentially Scott Pruitt’s ideological twin—but that his many years as a Washington insider have endowed him with a political savvy that Pruitt sorely lacks. Were the increasingly embattled Pruitt to leave, few believe that this replacement would deviate from Pruitt’s path of rolling back protections, propping up the moribund coal industry, and putting energy company profits ahead of public health.
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https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/who-andrew-wheeler-and-why-you-should-be-afraid-him
 
Must be some news about to break that he actually did something ethical for a change...

And don't worry, the next in line will almost certainly only be as bad.
 
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