Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 24

[varwoche]

From another thread, better suited here. Concerning "very fine people on both sides"...

... Anybody who watches politicians and thinks they have any sort of profound concern for the conveying a fair and balanced understanding of the world is a fool. Trump's quote about "very fine people" is useful to Democrats. They aren't going to help people find the wider context that he made it clear a few seconds later that he wasn't talking about neo-nazis. They tell politicians lies. Just like when Kamala painted Joe as some kind of racist/racist enabler in the debate, and now brushes that off as something she said because it was a debate. Some stupid lie Trump has told about the size of a crowd isn't going to offend me much in comparison.

The difference between us is that you think your guy is honest. I say you can't trust any of them.

I want to come back to this and take it baby step at a time. First, I want to make sure we haven't had a failure to communicate from the get-go.

Perhaps you acknowledge the fact that it was indeed a rally that was organized, promoted, and attended by unabashed neo-nazis / white supremacists. But Trump was unaware. And since he was unaware, "very fine people on both sides" isn't as bad as it seems.

Is that your position?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And since he was unaware, "very fine people on both sides" isn't as bad as it seems.

Is that your position?

That's the Trump apologists framing. They've been repeating it in all the news interviews.


That ****** is still going on about the California fires being the result of not clearing the leaves. Such an ignorant fool.

Governor Newsom shot back that it was global warming.

 

[wasapi]

That's the Trump apologists framing. They've been repeating it in all the news interviews.


That ****** is still going on about the California fires being the result of not clearing the leaves. Such an ignorant fool.

Governor Newsom shot back that it was global warming.

Good for Newsom. Not that it matters to Trump. Living in one of the fire zones - and put on alert to evacuate if it gets any closer to us, this repeated absurd lie from Trump just infuriates me.

 

[SezMe]

Okay Comrade. You do you. I'd rather live in a country where a Lada isn't the best car I can own.

Chille, Joe. All Mader Levap is saying is that (s)he wants the externalities that capitalism does not handle well - or not at all - to be brought into the marketplace, which is usually done through governmental regulations. I'll bet you don't disagree.

Now, one can argue about what the appropriate type and level is best but let's leave that for another thread.

 

[SezMe]

Governor Newsom shot back that it was global warming.

Well, to be fair, blaming the fires on global warming is an extreme exaggeration.

 

[quadraginta]

You seem to be under mistaken impression that "capitalism with boot on its face" is communism. Nope. It is still capitalism, although one that is forced to actually serve all people, not just 1% richest.

Or, more likely, you cannot say anything to that so you play "lol commie" card. I can't say I am impressed.

In fact, if you think result of free, unrestricted, unregulated capitalism is anything else than horrid corrupted hellhole (we have bunch of examples of those around world), you are as delusional as any commie - and pretty much for same reason.


I will have you know citizens of Nordic countries can afford way, way more than Lada.


I guess these nutjobs think they somehow won't be victim of this. This point in fact is general - for example, every wannabe anarchist imagines they will be well off in anarchy, but in reality they will be first to be decoration of skull throne of some warlord.

These are people who either never knew or have forgotten that within living memory of more than a few of us we had rivers so polluted they caught fire, cities with air that was all but unbreathable, an ozone layer being destroyed, chemical contamination so bad that not only were entire neighborhoods death traps, but birds couldn't even sit on their eggs without breaking them.

It was thanks to this despised government (over)regulation that they are able to be unaware or forgetful of these facts.
Tom Lehrer offered us this critique ... in 1965;



I was eleven years old when that song came out, growing up next to a major river which was so polluted with mining and industrial waste that there were no fish worth trying to catch, and the few that were there were too poisoned to eat. The tributaries, needless to say, were mostly worse.

Now they routinely catch recorded breaking muskie not two miles from where I had lived.

It wasn't unregulated capitalism that brought about the change.

The solution is what has made their ideological braying possible, like anti-vaxxers claiming that vaccines aren't needed, something they can only do because the vaccines have made the threat of disease so remote to them. They don't remember ... or don't care about when measles was a deadly threat and just about everyone knew somebody who had suffered from polio.

 

[RolandRat]

I saw this article:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/poli...er-of-presidency-to-counter-biden/ar-BB18f66x

One thing that got my interest was:

“This is the definition of walking into a punch,” said Democratic strategist and former Biden aide Scott Mulhauser. “Trump has the job already, and rather than rising above the fray to embrace a Rose Garden strategy touting his leadership, he’s campaigning and flailing away at every convention punch Democrats throw."

“The Trump team wisely chose to take an aggressive approach to the Dems' big week and dominated local news by traveling to secondary markets in key battleground states,” said Scott Reed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s political strategist. “Now that we are within 100 days, every day is a battle to win the day, the small sliver of undecided voters. Time is the one thing you cannot buy in national politics.”

Was curious what peeps in the US thought of this. Are any of these interpretations of Trumps strategy on the mark? Do you think it's likely to help or hinder him?

 

[thaiboxerken]

These are people ....

They're idiots that can't understand anything beyond their personal experience. These are the same morons that think covid-19 doesn't really exist because no one close to them has had it. They hate gay people, until they find out their son or daughter is one. They hate minorities because they only see them on TV. Etc, etc... What's worse is that when reality or facts catch up to them, it sets off a series of cognitive dissent triggers that often involves conspiracy theory, more hatred, and denial.

 

[quadraginta]

Governor Newsom shot back that it was global warming.

Well, to be fair, blaming the fires on global warming is an extreme exaggeration.

Possibly an exaggeration.

Extreme? Maybe not.

The climate in California is hotter and drier for longer than it has been since we started recording weather. That isn't due to forest mismanagement, like Trump seems to think.

Don't misunderstand me. I have thought for years that complaining about fires in a place where they are so common that the very ecosystem has evolved to depend on them is something of an exercise in futility, but that isn't the point. They are worse, now. Much worse, and climate change is certainly a significant contributing factor.

Just like the people who insist on building tourist resorts on barrier islands. It was never very clever, but what's happening now and what's coming is far worse than what has passed.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Well, to be fair, blaming the fires on global warming is an extreme exaggeration.

Really?

Climate Change Has Doubled Riskiest Fire Days in California

An analysis led by Stanford University found that temperatures rose about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit statewide while precipitation dropped 30% since 1980. That doubled the number of autumn days—when fire risk is highest—with extreme conditions for the ignition of wildfires.

“That’s a really big increase over a relatively short period of time that can be attributed directly to the changes in climate,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and one of the study’s authors...

“Much of interior northern California and coastal southern California experienced the hottest summer on record in 2018, and autumn rainfall did not arrive across much of the state until mid-to-late November—thus predisposing the region to extreme fire danger conditions,” the study said.

Yes, climate change is almost certainly fueling California’s massive fires

Climate scientists, who long resisted linking global warming to any specific extreme event, now say its influence is all but certain.

David Romps, director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center, said in an email that we’re living in a fundamentally climate-altered world. He noted that average daily highs for this time of year are now about 3˚ or 4˚ F warmer in Berkeley, California, than at the beginning of the 20th century. He was also the lead author of a 2014 Science paper finding that every additional 1 ˚C (1.8 ˚F) of warming could increase lightning strikes over the US by about 12%.

“To cut to the chase: Were the heat wave and the lightning strikes and the dryness of the vegetation affected by global warming? Absolutely yes”...

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said... “climate change played a large role in the severity or likelihood [of heat waves]”...

Friederike Otto, acting director of the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute and co-lead of World Weather Attribution, echoed that view in an email: “There is absolutely no doubt that the extremely high temperatures are higher than they would have been without human-induced climate change. A huge body of attribution literature demonstrates now that climate change is an absolute game-changer when it comes to heat waves

 

[Resume]

Well, to be fair, blaming the fires on global warming is an extreme exaggeration.

You know what's an extreme bull **** regarding the fires? Claiming the cause is not raking the forests.

 

[kookbreaker]

I saw this article:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/poli...er-of-presidency-to-counter-biden/ar-BB18f66x

One thing that got my interest was:

“This is the definition of walking into a punch,” said Democratic strategist and former Biden aide Scott Mulhauser. “Trump has the job already, and rather than rising above the fray to embrace a Rose Garden strategy touting his leadership, he’s campaigning and flailing away at every convention punch Democrats throw."

“The Trump team wisely chose to take an aggressive approach to the Dems' big week and dominated local news by traveling to secondary markets in key battleground states,” said Scott Reed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s political strategist. “Now that we are within 100 days, every day is a battle to win the day, the small sliver of undecided voters. Time is the one thing you cannot buy in national politics.”

Was curious what peeps in the US thought of this. Are any of these interpretations of Trumps strategy on the mark? Do you think it's likely to help or hinder him?

He did this last time. Remember he got into a Twitter rage about the Gold Star family that spoke at the 2016 convention?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Good for Newsom. Not that it matters to Trump. Living in one of the fire zones - and put on alert to evacuate if it gets any closer to us, this repeated absurd lie from Trump just infuriates me.

I wish someone would take him for a hike in the Olympics, like the Sol Duc Falls trail and ask him what he would rake first? Sol Duc is an easy hike.

See a picture here

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well, to be fair, blaming the fires on global warming is an extreme exaggeration.

Is this a joke?

 

[Resume]

Here’s how California could avoid wildfires (hint: It’s not raking)

If California doesn’t want a future wreathed in wildfire smoke, the report suggests, it will need to permit more tree thinning, more prescribed fires, and more burning of wood for electricity.

Wait a sec, you say. Does that mean President Donald Trump is right to blame the fires on California’s forest management? Hardly. Trump’s suggestion that California needed to spend more time “raking” the forest is comically wrong. The Paradise Camp Fire started on National Forest Land, which is managed by Trump’s own Department of Agriculture, not by California. The severity of the recent fires, burning areas surrounded by brushy chaparral rather than forest, can be blamed more accurately on climate change and also the sprawling development that puts houses in the wilderness.

Maybe Trump thinks California needs to prune the chaparral.

 

[shemp]

I wish someone would take him for a hike in the Olympics, like the Sol Duc Falls trail and ask him what he would rake first? Sol Duc is an easy hike.

See a picture here

Are you kidding? That jaunt to the church across the street was the longest walk he's ever taken. He'd drop dead before he'd gone a mile.



Wait. Yes, somebody should take him for a hike!

 

[alfaniner]

I remember one of the first Executive Orders he signed was that for every new regulation Congress enacted, they had to get rid of two "old" regulations. What a brilliant management decision!

 

[Aridas]

The most extreme version of the free market that I've seen says that health and safety regulations are unnecessary. If a company makes a product that kills people, consumers will eventually stop buying it and the company will go out of business. If a company's lack of safety procedures kills its employees, people will eventually stop working there and they'll go out of business.
All of the people who die along the way are an unfortunate but necessary side effect of having a free market.

...

Yeah, that's an utter and complete BS version of the free market that rests on likely intentionally ignoring history. It's exactly because of systemic business abuses and ruthlessness that health and safety regulations exist in the first place. I'm very much for a free market, honestly - but, well... I think that the response I made to the following needs to always be remembered and taken into account.

You seem to be under mistaken impression that "capitalism with boot on its face" is communism. Nope. It is still capitalism, although one that is forced to actually serve all people, not just 1% richest.

To add to this - it's probably also well worth specifically pointing out that unregulated capitalism murders itself. By stabbing itself, poisoning itself, hanging itself, and so on - and all at the same time. To stay healthy both for it and us, it pretty much needs a "boot on its face" in ways that prevent it from murdering itself in all the creative ways that capitalists use in their pursuit of ever greater profits for themselves, while disregarding the harm done.

Well, to be fair, blaming the fires on global warming is an extreme exaggeration.

Err... kinda? But also not so much. Climate change isn't really a direct cause, yes, but it's generally exacerbating the frequency and severity of disasters... and quite significantly so. A bit like the difference between trying to light damp firewood and dry firewood. It's easier to light the dry firewood and it burns better.

Looks like I've been unsurprisingly beaten to the punch when it comes to more specifics about California's fires, though.

I remember one of the first Executive Orders he signed was that for every new regulation Congress enacted, they had to get rid of two "old" regulations. What a brilliant management decision!

IIRC, that wasn't directed at Congress, but rather at the various government agencies.


To poke elsewhere -

Trump campaign fails to show evidence of vote-by-mail fraud, filing reveals

No surprise there.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...... To poke elsewhere -

Trump campaign fails to show evidence of vote-by-mail fraud, filing reveals

No surprise there.

No surprise but a very interesting read. The details are worth a look.

 

[Aridas]

To poke at some Dejoy stuff -

'Complete Bombshell': Former Top USPS Official Reveals 'Disturbing' New Details of DeJoy Selection and Mnuchin Sabotage of Mail Service

According to David Williams, Mnuchin required members of the USPS Board of Governors to "come to his office to kiss the ring."

Also, DeJoy was apparently deemed uniquely unfit among the candidates by Williams, to note, and had one of the Republican Board members finishing his sentences and "explaining" what DeJoy actually meant.

Separately, but not too separately, in DeJoy news -

‘Flat-out lied’: Elizabeth Warren and a lot of other people sure think Louis DeJoy committed perjury

Trump official commits perjury... Sounds like a hearing with a Trump official.

Elsewhere...

Here's a couple pro-Democrat videos if you feel like checking them out.

Also, somewhat in relation to the previous Christian Left mention - Progressive Christians slam XINO Franklin Graham for saying God was absent at DNC