President Trump

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Cobalt said:
Careful out on that limb there.



There's insults and mockery, then there's claiming everyone who disagrees with you are racists, sexists, homophobes, etc.
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How much of that is actually claiming that *everyone* who disagrees with me is a racist, sexist, etc, and how much of that is people exaggerating what is said to make it seem like *everyone* is being mocked, rather than a select few? For instance, Clinton called the racist, sexist, homophobic (etc) attitudes of half of Trump supporters "deplorable," and that was spun by the right wing poutrage machine into insulting every singe Republican.
 
Argumemnon said:
For pete's sake I just explained to you, in detail and with quotes, exactly how things went down. If you ask me "do you like ketchup?" and I say "Yes. A lot of people claim to like ketchup" you'd be right to think that I didn't answer your question because the "reasoning" I provided is so detached from the question that the "yes" can be taken to be detached from the question as well. That's why I insisted. It's not my fault if you don't even understand your own answers.

Fine, now your answer is "yes" but you haven't answered my further question. This seems to be a thing with you:

Why do you think it would make a difference?
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Egads.

I think it would make a difference because a good chunk of the people who supported Trump are gun rights activists, who firmly and deeply believe that the entire reason for the second ammendment to exist is so that citizens can protect themselves from a tyrannical government. They take that duty seriously, and are very suspect of the government in general. I think that they would be unlikley to sit idly by while the very values that they hold dear are dismantled.

Kind of like I said here.

But ah.. you might insist that he can just disarm them, that firearm owning citizens are no match for a modern military. Allow me to elaborate then. The military is made up of citizens, many of whom take their duty as citizens very seriously. Additionally, they are bound by the UCMJ and are sworn to defend the constitution. They are unlikely to just blindly follow orders to disarm the populace.

Kind of like I said here.

Are we on the same page now? Have I managed to answer your question directly (again) and provide you with the reasoning behind my answer (again)? Or have I somehow moved goalposts and avoided answering the question that I directly answered several times?
 
Sabrina said:
CNN headline just now; Trump wants Top Secret Clearances for his children.

No, just... no. There are laws and rules and regulations surrounding who gets security clearances, and your adult children who (theoretically) will have nothing whatsoever to do with your administration because they will be running your company are not on the list for access, and for good reason.

Say it happens; say they get TS clearances. They then are able to theoretically turn around and turn a staggering profit with Trump's business solely because they have access to strategic intelligence that tells them in advance who is a good country to invest in and do business with and who is not. This is nepotism at its worst, IMO, not to mention illegally (I think) profiting off of information that no other business would have access to.

I sincerely hope someone explains this to Trump, using the smallest possible words, that this is a violation of multiple laws, rules, and regulations and it is (hopefully) not going to happen. Hell, technically speaking the President himself doesn't exactly get granted a security clearance, as far as I'm aware; yes he gets the intel, but it's pared down to the smallest possible chunks of only the most important information he needs in order to make a decision, so the Office of Personnel Management doesn't exactly give the President a security clearance in the same way they do the hundreds of thousands of workers in the government agencies and military. By law, persons with a security clearance are prohibited from having dealings with foreign businesses and governments; none of Donald Trump's children fit that bill since they will be running an international business that deals with multiple countries businesses and governments.

If they actually get those clearances, I will come as close as I have ever come to actually quitting my job and renouncing my security clearance as I have EVER come in nearly fifteen years of having one. This is an utter travesty and completely unfair to the multiple hard-working government personnel who had to get their clearances the hard way.
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The kids (except Tiffany of course) are helming the transition team and staying on as unpaid national security advisors, to skirt nepotism rules. He's been very clear that he was not going to reveal the totality or divest himself of his business interests or any conflicts of interest they create. This is exactly what he promised: unprecedented corruption for personal gain.
 
Stacko said:
The kids (except Tiffany of course) are helming the transition team and staying on as unpaid national security advisors, to skirt nepotism rules. He's been very clear that he was not going to reveal the totality or divest himself of his business interests or any conflicts of interest they create. This is exactly what he promised: unprecedented corruption for personal gain.
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Which will create huge problems for him within the GOP,when his competitors, who have a lot of clout in the GOP, start to complain..which they will.
 
newyorkguy said:
I was very concerned to see that someone had written that Donald Trump is asking for a special session of Congress to repeal Obamacare. First of all, Trump isn't actually president yet. Second, I could not find any news story confirming it. In fact what I found was markedly different. Here's what I found on a fairly nonpartisan website called Market Watch.



The report above is from last Thursday, here is a Market Watch report from this afternoon:


The person who posted that Trump is already asking for a special session of Congress for a full repeal of Obamacare should post a link verifying that is true. People on this board have already stated they are covered under Obamacare and it will be a huge burden for them if the program is suddenly scrapped. It's very irresponsible to tell them that it is about to be scrapped unless one knows for a fact that is true.

I don't see what that is based on. It appears to be more rumor than anything else.
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The last Republican plan proposed to scrap Obamacare, in the fall of 2015, included a 2 year grace period, so I'm expecting to probably be covered through 2018, whatever else happens.

As for the rest, thankfully Trump has shown a willingness to go back on a lot of his crazy campaign promises, so all is not yet lost with respect to health insurance.
 
Now we are hearing reports that the security clearnece that Trump requested was to allow family members into some areas of the White House. Story is developing.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Within recent years, however, it seems that there's been a huge increase in the amount of intellectual arrogance, derision, and insult directed at their political opponents.
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It's kinda hard to avoid at least the appearance of arrogance when the other side is proud of their ignorance.

Maybe scratch that and take different approach. When conservatives insist that evolution is wrong, that AGW is not real and that abstinence is the best approach to sex education, is it arrogant to insist they just plain wrong? When they decry the environmental regulations that keep their own homes and land in good shape should their opinions be treated with respect? When they think same-sex marriage will be the end of the USA (that is NOT hyperbole) should we meet them on equal ground?

I hear your objections to some of the views expressed here, but working across the urban/rural divide requires some movement on both sides. But I think you're giving the rural side more leeway for their beliefs than you are willing to extend to the urban side.
 
Interesting interview with Ron Paul:


During the whole thing I was thinking what a great choice for Secretary of State Ron Paul would be, and then that's the final question Peter Lavelle asks him. He was of course humble as always, but Teh Donald owes him something - because without the grass roots work of the Ron Paul Revolution in 2012, it wouldn't have been possible to stage the internal GOP coup that brought him into power.
 
Emily's Cat said:
For most of the past 30 years, Trump has been a Democrat.
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There is little evidence from his public positions that he was an Anything. There is a lot of evidence that says he was milking the political patronage system for everything that it would deliver to Donald Trump and thus it's not surprising that in overwhelmingly Democratic cities like NYC, Atlantic City and Las Vegas he would be plowing the Democratic fields for truffles.

Was that a Democratic proposal to bring back the death penalty and execute the Central Park defendants (since proven innocent)? Please feel free to counter that with his large number of statements and activities that scream out "I'm a Democrat" to the general public. Perhaps it was the refusal to rent or sell to black people?
 
newyorkguy said:
I was very concerned to see that someone had written that Donald Trump is asking for a special session of Congress to repeal Obamacare. First of all, Trump isn't actually president yet. Second, I could not find any news story confirming it. In fact what I found was markedly different. Here's what I found on a fairly nonpartisan website called Market Watch...
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ponderingturtle said:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/13/politics/kellyanne-conway-trump-special-session-congress/ Now it is only his campaign manager saying this for him.
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Thanks I appreciate the link.

First I would say this is already getting watered down: Trump is going to call a special session of Congress to repeal Obamacare. The CNN story quotes Kellyanne Conway (not Trump) and Conway was Trump's campaign manager. He did say that during the campaign but apparently he is not saying it now. Now he's saying something else. Here's what I found to be the most relevant part of the CNN story (which is actually based on a Conway appearance on a Sunday FOX News show).
"(Trump) has talked about convening a special session on January 20 after he is sworn in as President of the United States to do this very thing, to repeal and replace Obamacare," Conway said on Fox News Sunday. "It would be a pretty remarkable move," she added.

It's unclear why Trump would need a "special session," since Congress is in session year-round, unlike state legislatures that meet a few months out of the year and are at times convened under special circumstances.

Trump has backed away from his pledges to repeal Obama's health care law in its entirety. He said [after his White House] meeting Thursday that he favors keeping the law's rules barring insurers from turning away those with pre-existing conditions, as well as its allowance that those up to age 26 can remain on their parents' insurance.
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See the parts I highlighted? His healthcare plan is clearly evolving. The same CNN story quotes speaker Paul Ryan as saying Congress "will keep" the good parts of Obamacare and, essentially, fix the bad parts.

That's exactly what Hillary Clinton was saying during the campaign! :rolleyes:
 
ponderingturtle said:
But that is going to go away when they allow insurance companies to sell across state lines. It will be a race to lobby the states to make the rules the best they can be to make money.
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Exactly so. It'll be a race to the bottom. Some state is going to be for selling insurance like Delaware is for incorporation.
 
newyorkguy said:
First I would say this is already getting watered down: Trump is going to call a special session of Congress to repeal Obamacare. The CNN story quotes Kellyanne Conway (not Trump) and Conway was Trump's campaign manager. He did say that during the campaign but apparently he is not saying it now. Now he's saying something else...
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See what he did (and I hate to be an I-told-you-so). During the campaign he got all intense and yelled, "On my FIRST DAY! I'll repeal Obamacare!" And the crowds roared. Had he been honest and said (like John McCain or Mitt Romney might have), "I'll keep the good parts of Obamacare and fix the bad parts..."

There's no roar from the crowd. No one's throwing them red meat. You could have heard a pin drop. You'll "fix" Obamacare, Mr. Trump? So what!

This reminds me of George Costanza on Seinfeld. As George once explained:
"No! I didn't mean it. It was just something you say. That doesn't mean that you meant it. It's just something you say."
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Some people are comparing Trump with Adolf Hitler; I'd compare him with George Costanza.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
I don't see it. Maybe you're right, but in my small sample of the world, I'm not seeing it. You and I live in liberaltopia, pretty much. I'm constantly baffled by the amount of conservative-bashing I hear on a day to day basis, when liberals in WA have such an unquestionably better hand. It not sour grapes, it's sore winners, which baffles me.

I don't hear the same sort of near-constant conservative bashing when I visit family in the south. I hear some, here and there, but mostly I hear "ivory tower liberals don't understand us". Which is pretty true - liberals don't understand conservatives and don't seem to think they should even try.

I dunno. Maybe if I were in a different part of the country, or watched different TV shows, I'd see things differently. It's entirely possible that I have a biased selection. It's completely my impression, not necessarily fact.

But I do see significantly more, and more constant, conservative-bashing on ISF. I see very little liberal-bashing, even from the conservatives here. And there's a surprising number of conservatives on ISF, more than I've experienced on most of the other atheist-based forums I've taken part in.
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I travel a lot. I get in my small rv and go everywhere. I throw my golf clubs in the back along with my fishing gear. I also do a lot of hiking and sometimes I just drive. In fact I love to drive. One of my favorite things to do is have breakfast at diners and small town diners are usually the best. The food is almost always great and the people are incredibly friendly. Most of the time though there are farmers or fishermen or loggers saying the worst things about Obama or Hillary or liberals.

I've watched it over time get worse, but still you don't hear the "n" word like I use to back home in Iowa but that was a long time ago. As I said, it's gotten to be much worse after Obama was elected. His election brought something out in many whites. There is this fear that blacks, or Muslims or Hispanics will take it all away from them and I think Obama represented that to them. But the facts have never supported that fear. Obama deported far more people than George W. The drone strikes continue even increased under Obama.

But who I really blame for the divisiveness is the right wing talk radio that dominates the airwaves of most of the country. The outrageous and ridiculous hyperbole and nonstop demonization of the left goes unabated and unanswered. It has had a destructive impact on the divisiveness of the discussion.
 
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