segnosaur

And more importantly, neither does Trump. He says a lot of things that sound good, but for which he has no inkling of how to accomplish his stated goal. (Assuming he even wants to accomplish what he promises, and it wasn't just an empty campaign promise/lie... "Drain the Swamp".) Why should we give Trump the benefit of the doubt? Its a difficult problem, and the Trump administration has shown little ability to properly plan things. I suspect their "willingness to help" will only go so far as their chance of casualties is minimized.

That actually does sound like racism (or at least bigotry) to me, especially if the "actions" of that minority were not statistically significant when compared to the remainder of the population. What makes Trump a racist is his tendency to say racist things, and to put forward policies that are racist. "Laziness is a trait in blacks" - Donald J. Trump, current president of the united states http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/20/trump_complained_about_blacks_inherent_laziness_1991_book_says.html Sounds pretty racist to me. If you want something more recent, I can also point out his suggestion that an American-born judge shouldn't rule on Trump's lawsuit because he had Mexican heritage. Even many republicans said that that was racist. (Some may try to suggest that its not racist because "mexico isn't a race", but its still bigoted. "I'm opposed to gay marriage" - Donald J. Trump, President of the United States http://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/aug/14/sean-patrick-maloney/donald-trump-against-same-sex-marriage/ Now, I suppose that you could argue that being against gay marriage doesn't make you anti-gay, but that's a rather bizarre argument, since giving equal treatment regardless of whether a person is gay or straight is generally considered important. I could also point out that he selected Pence as his running mate, a man who believes in "Pray-away the gay". as if homosexuality can and should be 'cured'. Here's the problem... Trump did not say "we're not handling Global Warming very well". He said "Its a hoax". If he said "Its a problem but I think the best way to handle it is to build nuclear reactors and invest in biofuel powered by unicorn farts" then he would have an actual platform worth defending. Claiming "Hoax" is problematic... its both anti-science, and by claiming its not happening Trump (and other republicans who similarly deny global warming) give up any claim to contribute to concrete policy plans to handle it. Again, Trump was not claiming "there are better ways to handle Global warming from an engineering/economics point of view", he was saying "Hoax". That does make him a denier of global warming and anti-science. (I could also point out Trump's false claims about vaccines being linked to autism as additional evidence of an anti-science mindset.) I am quite aware. I also recognize that there are no easy answers. In the past, minorities have been discriminated against. And the problem still exists in some form today. There will always be conflicting interests. While you decry the poor businesses that have to deal with various regulations (something that yes, can cause problems for a business), you also have to accept that in many cases decent workers can and will be passed over not because of ability but because of ethnic or religious background (something which also harms society). Once again.... Trump is racist (as my above examples show), he is anti-gay, and he is anti-science. Whatever reasons a person had for voting for Trump, when they went into the voting both, they were casting their ballot for an individual that had those characteristics. That means that either: The voter themselves were racists They were OK with racism They were ill-informed and/or were willing to listen to "alternative" sources of information without engaging in any sort of rational/skeptic thought None of those are traits that I would want in an employee I had working with me. This is completely different than had someone (for example) supported Mitt Romney or George Bush in previous elections... while someone could reasonably argue that the policies of those candidates was not good, at least they were relatively rational and did not exhibit the bigotry inherent with Trump.

First of all, while there are polls that show support the ban, its certainly not overwhelming. (In fact, in the Ipsos poll, while more Americans supported than opposed the ban, they were NOT in the majority.) And those polls were done fairly early; once we start hearing more about people Secondly, keep in mind that just because something is popular does not make it the right decision, either morally or pragmatically. (I'm pretty sure the Japanese internment had pretty high support during WW2.) Lastly (and perhaps more importantly), while many Americans may support the ban, only ~1/3 think it will actually improve safety. Others (a majority) think it will have no effect, or will actually end up making people less safe. So think about that... If you compare the percentage who support the ban vs. those who think it will help, you find that ... roughly 1 in 10 American are supporting the ban even though they think it won't help. https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/02/01/only-a-third-of-americans-think-trumps-travel-ban-will-make-the/21704832/

You're right. Anyone who calls it a 'ban' is clearly an idiot and should be treated as such. Like this guy, who clearly called it a ban, and probably doesn't know what he's talking about. Or how about the guy who said "the ban deals with seven countries". Clearly this guy doesn't know what he's talking about either. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sean-spicer-muslim-ban_us_5890ed19e4b0522c7d3da0bd

True, but you don't have to be demanding world wide imposition of a religion to say that a conflicts based in religion, and at least part of the motivation for the war in Northern Ireland was due to religious differences (Catholicism vs Anglicanism). (Personally though, I wouldn't say that the war was overall 'religious' in nature.)

Go back and read what I wrote. Then go back and look at your reference. The article you referred to suggests countries like Saudi Arabia may support safe zones and you are suggesting they'd be willing to fund them, but that still doesn't address the major questions that I had brought up in my post: Who supplies the military forces and from where, what casualty level is acceptable, what territory is used and what to do if Syria does not accept the safe zone. Compared to those issues, the source of funding is a pretty unimportant.

I picture Donald Trump as more of a Forest Gump figure... he's a failure, but manages to have success due more to dumb luck than any skill. He won the primaries, but the republican party had an extremely large group of Candidates; had the Republicans had only 2 or 3 candidates from the beginning, Trump would probably not have gotten the traction that he did. And he won the election, but only 1) with Russia's and Comey's help, and 2) against a candidate that had been subject to almost constant attacks from the Republicans (something Trump had little do do with). And despite that, he still lost the popular vote, and won due to the way the Electoral college worked. No, Donald Trump connects with Racists and idiots better than Obama could. That was enough to get him elected. He still 1) Lost the popular vote, and 2) started his presidency off with a much lower approval rating than Obama.

That is such a vague "plan" to set up a safe zone as to be completely useless. Will America provide the protection or will they get others to provide troops? And if Americans are directly involved, will it require adding forces or diverting resources from the fight against ISIS? And what type of losses of troops are the Americans willing to accept? What if Syria disagrees with having American troops around? Nobody is claiming that it's not cheaper to have refugees live near their homeland; the problems in doing so are more political and military than financial.

He may have a valid point about some Arab nations not doing enough to help refugees. The problem is, does Trump have the skills to actually convince the leaders of those other countries to help out. Evidence suggests not.

Given the fact that the 2 situations were significantly different, how she felt about Trump's muslim ban is irrelevant to how she would have felt about Obama's. From what i understand, Obama's "Muslim ban" was related to a specific threat... 2 Iraqi refugees with problematic backgrounds that managed to get in despite procedures. As a result, the government managed to fix the procedures to keep the problem from recurring. On the other hand, Trump's ban is both 1) much more far reaching, and 2) not specifically related to any threat, other than a "we don't trust them Muslims" mindset. http://www.factcheck.org/2017/01/trumps-faulty-refugee-policy-comparison/

Save zones, while nice in theory, can be extremely problematic. For example, who maintains them? If its the U.S., that puts more U.S. troops on the ground in harms way and can drag the U.S. deeper into the war. If its the Syrians or Russians, how do you guarantee that they will truly remain 'safe'? If its some 3rd party from the area,(Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.) how do you guarantee that the safe zone is not used for rebel activities (as some of those 3rd parties support the revels.) And maintaining safe zones can be expensive, and might take resources away from the fight against ISIS. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/27/middleeast/trump-syria-safe-zone-explained/ Why exactly are you assuming Putin actually cares about the millions of displaced people? Russia supports Assad. Until now, the U.S. didn't. While the 2 countries are nominally both trying to defeat ISIS, both countries have radically different ideas of what the end result should be. I'm sure Putin would be quite happy to see millions of displaced people if it meant that Assad would stay in power.

Ok, fine... a hardcore anti-abortionist may have a reason for selecting Trump over Clinton. However, keep a few things in mind: - Only a small minority of voters is completely anti-abortion (~20%). That means many Trump supporters voted for Trump even though he was giving a position that they might disagree with. - Trump himself has been both for and against abortion. - I would consider it rather significant that a person is so against abortion that they are willing to vote for a candidate who is both racist and anti-gay. ... This falls into the whole 'ignorance' category. Climate change/global warming is happening, and the vast majority of the relevant scientific community is in agreement that humans are the cause of it. If I had 2 job applicants with equal qualifications, one of which thought global warming was an issue, one of which said it was a hoax, I'd pick the one who said it was an issue, because it illustrates that they are able to engage in rational, critical thinking. The one who said "Its a hoax" (and voted for Trump as a result) is someone that doesn't seem to engage in critical thinking. Like the regulations put in place to prevent another 2008 financial meltdown? Ok, if you're a banker/wall street executive, you may have a reason for supporting Trump. (Cutting regulations increases your profit, and you know that the people at risk are the small-time investors and/or the taxpayers.) But I doubt whether many of the people you were talking to were that wealthy. Ok, if you want to cut back on free speech you might want to vote for Trump. (After all, he's the one who talked about making it easier to sue newspapers.) Most people don't consider eliminating free speech to be a good thing. I can look at evidence to show that the stereotypes of "all muslims are terrorists" or "illegal Mexican immigrants" are wrong. We can look at the fact that the crime rate among illegal immigrants is often lower than among native-born Americans, or the number of actual terrorist sympathizers among the muslim community is relatively small. On the other hand, Trump is a racist... he made racist statements both before and during the election, and has engaged in racist activity. That is a fact. Anyone who voted for Trump is either racist themselves, or thinks that having a racist as leader is of little concern. All Trump supporters fall into that category. If I'm an employer, I would want to avoid that. (Again, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to disqualify a Trump supporter, I'm saying if I had 2 equally qualified candidates I would definitely not pick a Trump voter.)

Correction... they were offered one unpalatable choice (an oompa Loompa who spouted empty catch phrases yet little in the way of rational policies) and another who may have had some flaws, but were 1) overly exaggerated and 2) relatively minor compared to Trump's flaws. If this were a job interview and (for some reason, I can't imagine why) someone made the exact same claim, I would question their ability to think and reason rationally. I'd wonder why they were so uninformed, and/or so willing to accept the blatant racism from Trump. I could certainly criticize those people. Remember, we're not talking merely about 2 candidates with simply 2 differing sets of policies. If it were, for example, someone who voted for Romney instead of Obama, (Or, since I'm Canadian, someone voted NDP instead of Conservative) I would be accepting. After all, I recognize that in those cases at least the politician I didn't vote for usually had rational platforms. I may not have agreed with them, but I can accept that different people may be completely rational but just have different priorities. Trump is a different kind of animal. He's racist, plus he has given very little in the way of useful policy proposals, and often what he has given is either unworkable, or contradicts other promises he has made. In other words, its not just a "difference of opinion" at work here. Then why did they vote for him? His wonderful policies? Like "Build a wall"? Like his wonderful health care plan? Then those people were ignorant, since even a cursory examination of the evidence would have shown that Trump's policies in those areas are failures. Once again... while you can't 100% guarantee a person who voted for Trump is less competent or more likely to be racist than a hillary supporter, its certainly evidence pointing in that direction. If someone wears a white sheet and burns crosses, I think its rational to assume that they're racist. (Ok, maybe its not 100%, maybe they are actually going to a costume party dressed as a ghost. But its certainly strong circumstantial evidence.) If someone chains themselves to a tree in front of a logger, I'm going to assume they're an eco-nut. And if someone willingly votes for Trump and admits it, I will suggest that its strong circumstantial evidence that they are flawed in some way (either racist, or gulliable).

So you solution for bigotry is more bigotry? I am of the opinion that supporters of "progressive" causes are the worst bigots we have in society today. It appears you think this is a good thing which makes you quite the hypocrite whenever you complain about discrimination. Keep in mind that some may consider it a slightly different situation when the discrimination is about something which can't be controlled and/or which shouldn't affect your job performance (e.g. skin color), and something that can be controlled. Those Trump voters looked at all available options and said "Yup, I'm going to select this racist Orangutan as president, even though he said he's going to take away several rights from people". Nobody forced the Trump voter to select the racist Orangutan. There was all sorts of evidence that selecting the racist Orangutan may be counter-productive to improving the country. But they did anyways. As for the bigger question about whether it would be OK to fire a Trump supporter, I'd say probably not. Except for perhaps under the following cases: - Their support for Trump caused disruption at work (e.g. if he started repeating pro-trump nonsense to people.) - Their job specifically called for the person not to be a racist (e.g. you work for an organization that deals with minorities), in which case voting for a racist Orangutan might suggest you're not quite qualified for the job Although to be honest, I'd say that if I had a choice between 2 equally qualified job candidates, one a Trump supporter and one not, I would definitely pick the non-Trump supporter. After all, Trump won the election in large part by preying upon some pretty negative aspects... peoples gulability (on you really think I'm going to drain the swamp? Ha!), ignorance, and their racism. I'd rather not have anyone working for me that had those characteristics. While there is no guarantee the non-trump supporter would be any smarter or less bigoted, its more likely that that is the case.

That's probably it. But, it has happened in the past... Presidents Adams and Johnson ended up serving in congress, and Taft became a supreme court justice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Subsequent_public_service I think they would be quite eligible to. But, I think loosing the presidency would probably be considered too much of a political liability. But, Cleveland managed to do it... (President Cleveland was defeated in his attempt for a second term, but ended up winning 4 years later.)

If it helps any, during the Republican primaries Trump also said that "Wages were too high". Its a shame that the Democrats didn't hammer that point... their whole election ad campaign could have just consisted of a clip from the debate with Trump saying wages were too high, along with a voice over saying "Do you really think you're earning too much? Trump does". Anyone who was planning on voting for Trump because he was going to stand up for the working man might have had second thoughts. http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/12/politics/donald-trump-explains-wages-too-high-comment/

Which only shows how stupid Jones is, because while Russia did end up fighting the Nazis, for the first part of the war they were actually allies. Which only goes to show how much people can stretch their morals in an attempt to gain power or fame. Jones is continually complaining about global conspiracies, yet he has supported Trump, a man who seems to be quite willing to give the 'elite' (like those from Goldman Sachs and Exxon) more political power. If Jones really were some sort of true beacon of freedom, he should have been opposing trump.

Yes, because if anyone deserves access to the White House Press corps, its someone who believes that the government is putting chemicals in the water to turn people gay http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alex_Jones#List_of_conspiracist_views_held_by_one_Mr._Jones

Yet the republicans have spent a significant part of Obama's presidency trying to repeal Obamacare, and Trump promised to replace it with something completely wonderful that is cheaper and covers everyone (but he can't bother telling us what exactly that is, suggesting he was just talking out of his ass). The Republicans have really painted themselves into a corner on this one.

Well, at least is inauguration has proven one thing: That time travel is not possible. Because if it was, you would have seen people from the future returning to stop Trump from being president (being the time in the world's history when everything went wrong.) Of course, while Trump was having his big pre-inauguration party, protests were held which easily dwarfed the inauguration celebrations. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/michael+moore+alec+baldwin+robert+niro+anti/12747027/story.html

As has been pointed out, profits from foreign officials staying at his hotels is only part of the issue. Other types of transactions (giving building permits for any new buildings his business puts up, changes in regulations, etc.) are also potential conflicts of interest. What checks and balances? Congress (who would be involved in the impeachment) is currently controlled by the republicans, who are probably not likely to turn on a president who is also a republican because it might give them a bad name. He's also the most flawed president (in terms of being racist, and incompetent, and petty and vindictive). But, it still hasn't changed the fact that shortly we will have a barely-trained orangutan as "leader of the free world" (well, the president used to be the leader of the free world. But now, who gets that label... Putin?)

And in yet another example of Trump incompetence... The commander of the Washington D.C. national guard (the only one appointed by the president, and one of the key figures involved in security during the inauguration) is being turfed out, during inauguration day. The current commander (Errol Schwartz) served under both Bush and Obama (so its not like he's some partisan hack). Usually, people in this situation offer their resignation, and its turned down; but the incoming Trump administration decided to let the guy go (so technically a resignation, but in reality he was fired.) Of course, changing a key security figure at such a time (when I suspect everyone will be on high alert) should be considered silly (and a little dangerous). When all this hit the news, the Trump transition team tried to smooth things over by giving him "a few extra days", something he turned down. Can't say I blame him. http://www.snopes.com/2017/01/14/national-guard-commander-inauguration/

The problem is, I think the group that would be responsible for dealing with violations is Congress, and since the Republicans control both the house and senate, they may just as likely look the other way as they would to actually enforce the constitution. (After all, they probably don't want to see one of "their own" get turfed out... it might make them look bad.)

Hey, you be nice to Ben Carson. He's perhaps the most honest person Trump could have in his cabinet. During his confirmation, he stated: "It will not be my intention to do anything to benefit any American." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ben-carson-not-benefit-american-flubs-article-1.2944855 (Yes, I realize it was just a slip of the tongue. Funny though.) By the way, in your list, you forgot to include: A Department of Energy Secretary who wanted to eliminate the department. (And who, at one point, didn't seem to know what the department did.) http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/energy-department-sec-nominee-rick-perry-i-regret-calls-nix-n708916

I think part of the problem is that your previous statement was missing a word: Due to his foreign business ownerships he will be in violation of the US Constitution the moment he is signed in. The highlighted word is one that I think you left out. (I assume that was one that you meant to say.) As for officials checking into Trump hotels, he did say he would give any money earned from his hotels to the government. The problem is, there are so many secondary ways he would benefit... for example, foreign countries approving building permits in order to gain favor.