America under President Trump

[segnosaur]

9 minutes ago, WestCoastRunner said:

Quote

Trump really put the CNN reporter in this place yesterday and the guy wouldn't quit talking  after Trump told him he wouldn't talk to him because of what CNN  was reporting about the Russians and him.

No, Trump didn't put him in his place.  Trump was bullying the reporter after Trump attacked the credibility of the news organization he works for and the reporter was trying to address the issue (and rightfully so) but Trump is too much of a coward (as bullies usually are) to debate it with him.

Exactly.

One of the functions of the media is to help keep our politicians in line by reporting on relevant news, even if that news is distasteful to the politician. The fact that Trump wants to undermine that is rather significant.

Many fellow reporters have stood up for CNN and for Acosta. Even one of the Fox reporters has pointed out that Trump was in the wrong.

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/fox-news-defends-rival-cnn-against-donald-trump-213951823.html

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/12/journalists-stand-up-to-sean-spicer-donald-trumps-press-secretary-for-threatening-to-ban-cnns-jim-acosta/

 

 

[WestCoastRunner]

7 minutes ago, betsy said:

Well, it depends. First of all, it involves another country.  It is negligent, I think. 

Gone are the days when news we read are facts!

CNN was very careful to not post specific details of the compromised situations.  Not sure what you mean by news not reporting facts?  Are you including all news organizations?  That's a pretty broad insinuation.

[segnosaur]

On 1/10/2017 at 2:11 PM, Hal 9000 said:

So, the truth was revealed to the American voters and people are upset about it!  What do we say about leaders from Germany and the UK (among others) getting in front of the press to try and sway American voters...Or foreign business leaders?  Everybody in the world had their say, the only difference is that foreign Hillary supporters gave hyperbolic opinions, while Russia (maybe) provided clear truth.

First of all, you seem to have ignored a very key point: That one of the main problems with the hacking and the reveals was that it was unbalanced, that it was only the Democrats who got their internal communications revealed. Were things to be totally fair, both sides should have gotten the same treatment... secret/personal emails from both people released. But that didn't happen.

As for what foreign leaders may say or do, that's totally in another ball park. If some leader says "I'd like leader X to win", we know exactly where that comment is coming from, and the American voter can accept or reject their statement as they see fit. It bears no resemblance to a foreign country both conducting espionage and revealing information in order to sway the election, without anyone knowing who was behind the attacks.

Now, in an attempt to bring this back to Trump: This whole issue reveals so much about the current situation we find ourselves in with the President-elect. We were told over and over again (By Trump and many of his supporters) that his actions during the primaries were just for show, that he could be "presidential" once he won the election. Instead, what we see is the kind of idiotic circus that many of us were worried about, with Trump's lack of intelligence and integrity being shown front and center.

What Trump should have done was release a statement along the lines of "There are reports of hacking. This will be investigated. We'll confer with our allies and those in the intelligence committee to see what an appropriate response is, although we need to balance our desire for revenge against the need for diplomacy. In the mean time I have confidence in the American Voters and our election system". Simple, conciliatory at points, gives him breathing room, yet shows he acknowledges the possible problem.

Instead, what do we get?

• First claims that it didn't happen/no evidence (which he later has to go back on)
• Insults the intelligence community
• Claims Putin and Assange's claims of russian non-involvement were somehow proof
• Lies about when a security briefing was supposed to have taken place
• Lies about how he's got information and will release it "Tuesday or Wednesday". That was several weeks ago. Spoiler alert: there was no such information release
• Blames the Democratic party for bad security (a game of "blame the victim")

Its like a checklist of things not to do. By insulting the intelligence agencies, he's setting up an adversarial system when he actually should be working with them. (Yes, many at the top of the agencies were political appointees, but there are plenty of long-term employees at places like the CIA and FBI who take their positions seriously. Now they realize they have a president elect who may not listen even if they have something important to report on.). By taking the word of Putin/Assange over those of the CIA/FBI/etc. he risks alienating Republicans in congress, from whom he might eventually need support. The lies (e.g. that he'll release information Tues/Wed) re-enforce the negative opinion his detractors have had about him all along that he lies/can't be trusted.

In short, those of us who didn't want Trump to be elected often did so because we didn't think he had the level-headedness for the job. Now we have more evidence that we were right.

[bush_cheney2004]

2 minutes ago, segnosaur said:

...In short, those of us who didn't want Trump to be elected often did so because we didn't think he had the level-headedness for the job. Now we have more evidence that we were right.

 

Irrelevant....American voters elected Donald Trump despite such things.    The "level-headed" candidate doomed her own chances with stupid decisions.

[?Impact]

27 minutes ago, segnosaur said:

We were told over and over again (By Trump and many of his supporters) that his actions during the primaries were just for show, that he could be "presidential" once he won the election. Instead, what we see is the kind of idiotic circus that many of us were worried about, with Trump's lack of intelligence and integrity being shown front and center.

Not to worry, come January 20th a miracle will occur. 

[-TSS-]

It is easy to understand that Hillary must be bitter as hell. In 2008 she received more votes in the primaries than Obama but as the Democrats have the so-called super-delegates who don't have to declare their support for any candidate she lost the nomination.

8 years later she finally gets the nomination but loses the election after getting the largest number of votes again. As if it was just not meant to be for her.

[segnosaur]

39 minutes ago, -TSS- said:

It is easy to understand that Hillary must be bitter as hell. In 2008 she received more votes in the primaries than Obama but as the Democrats have the so-called super-delegates who don't have to declare their support for any candidate she lost the nomination.

8 years later she finally gets the nomination but loses the election after getting the largest number of votes again. As if it was just not meant to be for her.

Just a little nit-pick... Hillary didn't loose the 2008 primaries due to super-delegates. She did have a higher percentage of the popular vote, but Obama won a higher number of pledged delegates (and supposedly, the democratic party penalized Michigan, I think for holding their primary too early. As a result, Obama didn't contest Michigan but Clinton did, which may have distorted the vote totals.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008

ETA: If I were Hillary the think I'd be miffed at most is the way the Clinton foundation was treated. The foundation generally did good work... had high ratings from agencies that evaluate their spending, actually had support among some Republicans, etc. Yet for all the work that she put into the organization (and all the money she personally donated), it ended up possibly harming her candidacy, whereas the Trump foundation (which was better known for bribing U.S. politicians and buying portraits of Trump) seemed to have far less effect on the Trump candidacy.

Edited January 14, 2017 by segnosaur

[The_Squid]

2 hours ago, betsy said:

 

It is unverified.  It doesn't have to be on the MSM.  Unless they're tabloid - you know - like the headline, Space Aliens Live In Manhattan!

 

You're talking about the President-elect!  MSM has become so trashy.

Do you think Obama was born in the USA?

[WestCoastRunner]

2 hours ago, betsy said:

 MSM has become so trashy.

Does that include fox? 

[bush_cheney2004]

53 minutes ago, segnosaur said:

.... whereas the Trump foundation (which was better known for bribing U.S. politicians and buying portraits of Trump) seemed to have far less effect on the Trump candidacy.

 

Indeed...Trump's critics (foreign and domestic) never figured this out until it was too late.   Trump even told them exactly what he was going to do, and Team Clinton still failed badly against a politically inexperienced candidate.   It never mattered what Trump had done...he was the cure for Hillary disease.

[eyeball]

8 hours ago, segnosaur said:

Exactly.

One of the functions of the media is to help keep our politicians in line by reporting on relevant news, even if that news is distasteful to the politician. The fact that Trump wants to undermine that is rather significant.

 

Except it's because so many Trump supporters have been whining and snivelling about exactly this sort of reporting for so long now they finally have the strongman they've been fantasizing about.

[blueblood]

6 minutes ago, eyeball said:

Except it's because so many Trump supporters have been whining and snivelling about exactly this sort of reporting for so long now they finally have the strongman they've been fantasizing about.

Well looks like they are going to keep each other honest.  At least with the cord cutting phenomenon people get to pick and choose where they get their news from.

[Topaz]

Trump want to revamp their health system, do u think they can do it?

[?Impact]

18 hours ago, segnosaur said:

ETA: If I were Hillary the think I'd be miffed at most is the way the Clinton foundation was treated. The foundation generally did good work... had high ratings from agencies that evaluate their spending, actually had support among some Republicans, etc. Yet for all the work that she put into the organization (and all the money she personally donated), it ended up possibly harming her candidacy, whereas the Trump foundation (which was better known for bribing U.S. politicians and buying portraits of Trump) seemed to have far less effect on the Trump candidacy.

That has to be the most insightful post about America under president Trump because truth is completely irrelevant.

[blueblood]

13 minutes ago, ?Impact said:

That has to be the most insightful post about America under president Trump because truth is completely irrelevant.

It's been irrelevant for more than 20 years.  Power brings out the worst in people.

[kimmy]

1 hour ago, Topaz said:

Trump want to revamp their health system, do u think they can do it?

The Republicans don't want to "revamp their health system", they want to repeal Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act.

"Revamp" implies that they have any sort of plan, but they don't. They know what they're against, but don't know what they're in favor of.

There are a few ideas they keep floating around, like giving people the same tax-credits for health insurance that businesses have, which is a good idea, and allowing people to shop for insurance out of state, which is also a good idea.  They also keep talking about things like medical savings plans which would let people save up money in case they get sick, kind of like educational savings plans or retirement savings plans... which is a fine idea in principle, but when so many people live paycheck to paycheck it's pie-in-the-sky to think this is going to let people save enough to pay for medical care that can cost tens of thousands of dollars.   That's not actually going to do anything to help the people who are going to need help the most when Obamacare gets repealed.

One of the features of Obamacare that people actually care about is that it allows people with pre-existing medical conditions to get health insurance; the Republicans have no plan for how to address that issue.

Ultimately, millions of people are going to lose their health insurance when Obamacare gets repealed, and the Republicans have no plan to replace it.  Some Republicans urge that the repeal of Obamacare be delayed until they have a plan to replace it, but the leaders like Paul Ryan want it done ASAP regardless of the effect on people's lives.

The biggest problem in healthcare in the US (and elsewhere) is extremely high costs, and nobody-- Republican or Democrat-- has a plan to reduce costs either.

 -k

[Argus]

2 hours ago, Topaz said:

Trump want to revamp their health system, do u think they can do it?

They can certainly get rid of it. I doubt there's an awful lot of interest on the part of the Republicans in replacing it with anything useful.

[cybercoma]

.

Edited January 31, 2017 by cybercoma

[segnosaur]

1 hour ago, blueblood said:

re: the Clinton foundation vs. the Trump foundation affecting election

It's been irrelevant for more than 20 years.  Power brings out the worst in people.

First of all, I don't think its quite accurate to say that power always brings out the worst in people. After all, the democrats seemed to run a fairly clean set of primaries, with the candidates disagreeing on policy but not resorting to personal attacks.

Secondly, the point isn't so much that power brings out the worst in people... the problem is that the voters let themselves be bamboozled by such bunk. By all means, let Trump and the right-wing echo chamber make bogus claims about "corrupt hillary and her foundation", but the voters should have actually looked at things with rationality and reason and said "we're not falling for your bunk. We see that even with the faults with the Clinton foundation it still did a better job than the Trump foundation". But we got Trump and his klan spewing nonsense, and a significant number of voters lapped it up.

The fact that voters weren't that smart is cause for concern. 

[Argus]

1 minute ago, segnosaur said:

Secondly, the point isn't so much that power brings out the worst in people... the problem is that the voters let themselves be bamboozled by such bunk. By all means, let Trump and the right-wing echo chamber make bogus claims about "corrupt hillary and her foundation", but the voters should have actually looked at things with rationality and reason and said "we're not falling for your bunk.

It started with FOX, decades ago. They were the ones to start blanketing the airwaves with endless repeated statements about how the MSM were all biased and dishonest, and only THEY would deliver 'fair and balanced' news. They pounded away at that for years, until it sunk into the popular culture of at least those who watched FOX - who, according to studies are the most ignorant people in America in terms of knowledge of social issues. FOX distorted everything they broadcast, and their viewers saw that their message was completely different from the "Mainstream news", and since what FOX told them was soothing and agreeable to their own unsophisticated mindsets, they bought into the idea that the rest were dishonest. Other offshoots of FOX, rigid, nasty, right wing talk radio and blogs, did the same. Thus a lot of people stopped paying attention to what the mainstream news organizations told them, or simply presumed it was heavily biased. Add in the typical laziness of busy people to spend much time familiarizing themselves with the story behind the story, and you get an atmosphere where a congenital liar like Trump can say whatever he wants and have people take him seriously. And remember, all politicians are liars, right, so in that atmosphere the fact the 'MSM' are saying he's a liar is bound to be shrugged off by a number of people who like what he's saying.

[segnosaur]

2 hours ago, Topaz said:

Trump want to revamp their health system, do u think they can do it?

Short answer: no.

Long answer; Heck no.

As other posters have pointed out, neither Trump nor the republicans have any concrete plans for improving the health care system.

For years, the only thing that the Republicans could agree on was "Obamacare=evil". They had no coherent strategy for replacement. The same applies to Trump himself, who didn't actually have a plan, only made vague statements about how he would replace it with "something great". There are a huge number of problems that the Republicans will have to deal with:

- Multiple competing/conflicting proposals from the Republican party itself

- People who want to repeal Obamacare immediately (and maybe come up with a replacement in the future) vs. those who only want to repeal it once a new plan is in place

- Promises by Trump that the'll somehow keep certain aspects of Obamacare (e.g. allow people to be covered if they have preexisting conditions), even though it will be pretty impossible to keep those aspects of Obamacare while scrapping the rest. (Not to mention that many of the Republican proposals contradict Trump's claims)

- Many Trump supporters are only partial idiots (rather than complete idiots like other Trump supporters). They're convinced that they don't like Obamacare, but they're quite happy with what their own insurance currently gives them, not realizing that their insurance is part of Obamacare. Eliminate obamacare, and all of a sudden the Republicans will have to deal with many of their own supporters who see their current health care adversely affected.

 Overall, its a huge flaming pile of dog poop. And I think the Republicans and Trump deserve every moment of it.

 

[blueblood]

29 minutes ago, Argus said:

It started with FOX, decades ago. They were the ones to start blanketing the airwaves with endless repeated statements about how the MSM were all biased and dishonest, and only THEY would deliver 'fair and balanced' news. They pounded away at that for years, until it sunk into the popular culture of at least those who watched FOX - who, according to studies are the most ignorant people in America in terms of knowledge of social issues. FOX distorted everything they broadcast, and their viewers saw that their message was completely different from the "Mainstream news", and since what FOX told them was soothing and agreeable to their own unsophisticated mindsets, they bought into the idea that the rest were dishonest. Other offshoots of FOX, rigid, nasty, right wing talk radio and blogs, did the same. Thus a lot of people stopped paying attention to what the mainstream news organizations told them, or simply presumed it was heavily biased. Add in the typical laziness of busy people to spend much time familiarizing themselves with the story behind the story, and you get an atmosphere where a congenital liar like Trump can say whatever he wants and have people take him seriously. And remember, all politicians are liars, right, so in that atmosphere the fact the 'MSM' are saying he's a liar is bound to be shrugged off by a number of people who like what he's saying.

But generally all media has some kind of bias due to the fact a person with feelings and emotions are the editors who send out the message.  That's just human nature and all media outlets have that in common.

there has been a vision of what America is supposed to be purported by democrats and the media and a lot of people just got tired of that vision.  I would say there is a march of progress on excessive political correctness that enough people either saw it as a threat (brexit) or had enough of it and wanted change (USA). 

There are lots of things I disagree with trump on and things I agree with such as slashing taxes and cutting the excessive regulations.  However I do enjoy watching the middle finger being given at the so-called establishment and leftists being twisted in knots over it.

in fairness trumps isolationist policies are in fact detrimental to long term growth and it's unfortunate that it's ironic that he's wanting to punish Mexico for succeeding which is essentially cutting Mexican emigration rates to the USA by growing the Mexican economy.

 I would much rather do business with Latin America than china.  However the Americans with a decade of stagnation had their patience wear out.

[blueblood]

45 minutes ago, segnosaur said:

First of all, I don't think its quite accurate to say that power always brings out the worst in people. After all, the democrats seemed to run a fairly clean set of primaries, with the candidates disagreeing on policy but not resorting to personal attacks.

Secondly, the point isn't so much that power brings out the worst in people... the problem is that the voters let themselves be bamboozled by such bunk. By all means, let Trump and the right-wing echo chamber make bogus claims about "corrupt hillary and her foundation", but the voters should have actually looked at things with rationality and reason and said "we're not falling for your bunk. We see that even with the faults with the Clinton foundation it still did a better job than the Trump foundation". But we got Trump and his klan spewing nonsense, and a significant number of voters lapped it up.

The fact that voters weren't that smart is cause for concern. 

Let's be intellectually honest for a second and yes her charity did do some good things, however it's quite easy to obtain financing when one of the pillars of that charity is in power and grants favours.  That's a problem.  

Its not being bamboozled, it's an observation that power can be influenced with money and connnections.

[segnosaur]

4 minutes ago, blueblood said:

Re: The Clinton Foundation

Let's be intellectually honest for a second and yes her charity did do some good things, however it's quite easy to obtain financing when one of the pillars of that charity is in power and grants favours.  That's a problem.  

Except of course that we have no actual proof that there were any sort of favors granted in exchange for financing.

Its not being bamboozled,

But the fact that you think there's some sort of nefarious "money for favors" thing going is suggest that indeed you were bamboozled. 

[blueblood]

5 minutes ago, segnosaur said:

Except of course that we have no actual proof that there were any sort of favors granted in exchange for financing.

That's one of the things that only those with much more power and influence than either of us will know for sure.  There is a connect the dots out there and I wonder how much money will be put into the clinton foundation when the clintons are now essentially powerless

5 minutes ago, segnosaur said:

 

 

But the fact that you think there's some sort of nefarious "money for favors" thing going is suggest that indeed you were bamboozled. 

It's quite plausible that money for favours was going on and people shouldnt let the anti-trump narrative bamboozle them.