Senate The US Politics discussion

False equivalence.

 

Well bad and worse, doesn't really give much comfort.

What does though is... have you read Res Publica?

 

This is glorious news. Perhaps there is no reason for despairing at all. Please recall that earlier, when a republic was riven by deep political divisions and men with dictatorial ambitions attempted to seize power, the First Citizen rose up to avert disaster and lead them into a golden age. And now here, they have returned to rally all people of good conscience to their cause. We should all pledge our cooperation with and fealty to their efforts.

 

Saw the clip of Barron Trump playing peekaboo with his nephew Theodore. Sweet of him to keep the baby occupied.

 

Trump speech fact check

Spoiler alert: Trump lied.

 

Sorry but Trump Sr. was already occupied.

 

Er ... whatever.

 

Well, number one, and this is a genuine question, did he say we were backing down on Syria or what? Because I remember him saying something to the effect that, now that we were in it, we had to move forward with it. Like he wouldn't have gone in the first place, but now we were there and so we had to win? Okay, I found that quote: "I would have said get out of Syria. Get out if we didn't have the power of weaponry today. The power is so massive that we can't just leave areas that 50 years ago or 75 years ago we wouldn't care." I admit that's, as many of his statements are, kind of obscure, but does that sound like backing down on any current conflicts? I mean, that would seem to indicate to me that he's not going to pull back on anything. I mean, would you agree that the gist of what he's saying is "Where we are, we have to stay?"

Well, look, I consider putting nuclear weapons back on the table as more than doubling the Obama administrations policy on war. And he's more than put them back on the table. He wants to be "unpredictable" with them*. I don't know what that means, but it doesn't mean leaving them in the silos. That's very predictable; it's what we've done for decades. He's putting nuclear bombs back in play and has flatly said that he doesn't understand why some people think he shouldn't*. He said. Himself. I'm sorry, I consider that more than doubling down on the Obama policy.


*(in response to the statement that the US hadn't used a nuclear bomb since 1945) "You know, I use the word unpredictable. You want to be unpredictable."

*(in response to the statement that people don't want him to use nuclear weapons) "Then why are we making them? Why make them?"

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-signs-executive-order-on-obamacare/index.html?adkey=bn

**** Trump.

 

Be warned that tomorrow I will be merging this thread into the US Politics thread, so if you want to discuss something other than the inauguration itself, you might want to start there to avoid losing context.

 

Be forewarned that I've heard he plans on signing perhaps as many as two hundred Executive Orders in his first one hundred days. So, this is likely the first of many.

Rogue1-and-a-half, Trump was at odds throughout the campaign when he suggested Russia could help in Syria and there wasn't a need for ground troops. We are already bombing there. His stance was at odds with Rubio, who seems to follow the more aggressive stance of no-fly zones and ground troops espoused by McCain and Graham.

So his position rings like a status quo one to me.

But your points on nukes is well taken and correct. I can't counter that. That was inexcusable of him to say….both times. Ehhh….the several times he said it.

As for his position on NATO, I agree with him on revising the payment structure. And actually, so did Obama. Obama had disagreements with Cameron over the UK's lack of fulfilling its obligations for instance but Obama couldn't get them to pony up.
I am all for revising the payment structure. Mattis and his other advisers are against blowing NATO up as well. So I think that alliance is fine.

As a little aside, last week we deployed troops to Norway for the first time since WW2. No need to ask why considering who they share their northern border with. It will be interesting to see if they are redeployed now that Trump is in.

 

Yes, and apparently they came ill-prepared for the cold, according to one of the newspapers here.

 

We have troops that train in the arctic in Alaska. Did they forget and send the troops from the Bahamas?

 

I thought about the same thing too and found it odd.

 

Oh, I imagine I'll be saying those words so many times over the next four years that I'll eventually be doing it in my sleep.

 

George W. Bush struggling with a poncho at maximum George W. Bush was the best thing about the inauguration.

 

What words? Executive Order ________ just signed?

Yeah, whatever happened to Congress? They're a sideshow. Way too much power in the Presidency.

 

Methinks you missed a key word, and it wasn't "He..." but "if" he ..... My personal reading as a poster.

 

Very excited. I realize you can't post on the Internet without saying you hate Trump and how he's going to murder your first born child or whatever, but I am definitely hopeful. First, Obamacare is terrible. My premiums have risen 200% since Obama pushed that lousy program through and that's absolutely unacceptable. I have better places to spend my money than on a total sinkhole. I never even go to a doctor, so they're collecting money to spend on someone else. Sure isn't helping me at all. In fact my deductible also increased by 2x so now if something does happen to me, I'm out twice as much money as I would have been before, even while paying 200% more. Funny because 8 years ago I could have gotten premium health insurance for what I pay now, and now what I pay is the worst, most awful insurance money can buy but I don't want to waste any more than I have to on something I don't use.

My income taxes are guaranteed to go down, same with my capital gains, so even if Trump is a one-term president I'll likely save many many tens of thousands of dollars if not hundreds of thousands, depending on which investments pay out when.

Yup, I'm a happy camper. Complete republican control of the government means a great path for businesses like mine, great for lower taxes, and great for the economy.

 

Then proceeds to post.