President Donald Trump's Final Days...

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

You want to talk about corruption and moral bankruptcy. Millions of poor and working class families will lose access to health care. Millions of people will go hungry and children will not be given school lunches. Millions of disabled people will lose what little income they have. Millions of women will lose access to birth control resulting in millions of unwanted pregnancies and thousands of premature deaths. Air and water quality will be returned to levels of pollution not seen in decades. Consumer financial protections will be rolled back to pre-2008 levels.

If you keep on saying what the Republicans are going to do, yet fail to acknowledge what third way Democrats have already done then of course progressives look petty but look deeper and you start to realize that they did not have a choice.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Thousands of children are having their parents grabbed up before their eyes and shipped out of the country.

It was already happening under Obama and really started under Bill Clinton.it just now gets more coverage under Trump and garners empathy when it is shown it is not the gang members they are going after.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Thousands, if not millions, of seniors will be forced into homelessness and deprived of medical care.

People who have student loans face the prospect of this already as their pay and career prospects dwindle and their payments and intrests mount. Thanks Joe Biden...

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Public school budgets will be slashed to subsidize religious and private schools. Our trade relations and economy will be be damaged by flawed economic policies, perhaps resulting in a major global recession. We might even find ourselves in a nuclear war. Why is this happening? It is happening because some so-called progressives are seeking to gain control of the majority political party.

Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Things were just fine when the sacrifices were made at the expense of the minorities, the young, and the working class, but now they want to be treated as more than mere bargaining chips now people want to be up in arms? Progressives have as much sympathy for that position as you have for them.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

When we talk of raising money and engaging in the political cycle we are not talking for one campaign. People like Joe Biden, Jerry Brown. Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi have working for over fifty years. (Brown was going to sit out in protest of the HRC candidacy, but got involved upon realizing the Trump threat.)

What the progressives understand is that where the money comes from is just as Important as how money there is. The problem with the list you just gave is that too often the sources of funding run contrary to the intrests of the voters and their policy positions reflect that. Is making people pick between someone who is against them or someone who is going to betray them really a choice?

Originally Posted by Brian249x

If and when your sainted "progressives" find themselves with seats at the power table they will look every bit as "corrupted" as the current players. The banks, industry, hospital chains, military, unions, state and local governments, etc. all have their claims. It takes money to run government, administer social programs, and build infrastructure. Politics and government is the art of balancing competing claims and compromising to arrive at an optimal blend for the greatest benefit for all. We are now witnessing the result of 30+ years of bad politics. In checking the Poly Sci and Law curricula of prestigious universities it is striking how little exposure students are given to basic economics. Macro economics and economic policy are subjects of debate, but all rest upon a basis of settled micro economic theory. Followers of Austrian School of Economics, followers of Milton Friedman or John Maynard Keynes, or Marxist theoreticians - all agree on micro economic theory.

The problem is not Capitalism itself, it is the players bending to many rule to suit themselves at the expense of everybody else and now the outsiders want to press the reset button. When they do it will it be pretty? No, but neither is keep on playing the current game...

[tsunamiSD]

More self-inflicted wounds by our C-in-C...

White House Moves to Block Ethics Inquiry Into Ex-Lobbyists on Payroll

The Trump administration, in a significant escalation of its clash with the government’s top ethics watchdog, has moved to block an effort to disclose the names of former lobbyists who have been granted waivers to work in the White House or federal agencies.

“O.G.E. declines your request to suspend its ethics inquiry and reiterates its expectation that agencies will fully comply with its directive,” Mr. Shaub wrote in a letter he also sent to every federal agency ethics officer, six members of Congress who oversee government operations and the inspector generals from agencies governmentwide. “Public confidence in the integrity of government decision making demands no less.”

Dozens of former lobbyists and industry lawyers are working in the Trump administration, which has hired them at a much higher rate than the previous administration. Keeping the waivers confidential would make it impossible to know whether any such officials are violating federal ethics rules or have been given a pass to ignore them.

Marilyn L. Glynn, who served as general counsel and acting director of the agency during the George W. Bush administration, also called the move by the Trump White House “unprecedented and extremely troubling.”
“It challenges the very authority of the director of the agency and his ability to carry out the functions of the office,” she said.

Obama, unlike Mr. Trump, automatically made any such waivers public, offering detailed explanations. The exceptions were typically granted for people with special skills, or when the overlap between the new federal work and a prior job was minor.

*****

Trump asked intelligence chiefs to push back against FBI collusion probe after Comey revealed its existence

President Trump asked two of the nation’s top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government, according to current and former officials.
Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.
Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president.

The new revelations add to a growing body of evidence that Trump sought to co-opt and then undermine Comey before he fired him May 9. According to notes kept by Comey, Trump first asked for his loyalty at a dinner in January and then, at a meeting the next month, asked him to drop the probe into Flynn. Trump disputes those accounts.

[hound dog]

Originally Posted by SanteeFats

Give it a break and negotiate compromises and help America first.

I guess the important thing about compromising is who is actually going to have to do it. Republicans weren't so keen on the idea between 2008 and 2016.

[Faceman675]

Originally Posted by SanteeFats

I saw an article about the bowing on Sunday that made a big deal out of the fact that Trump made fun of Obama for bowing to foreign dignitaries. I looked at the video and Trump was taller than the Saudi king, the king is 81 years old and appears to have a bowed back. What was Trump suppose to do??? Make this old, bowed back man try and reach all the way up to put the award on Trump???
IMO the polite thing was what he did. I mean if you want to really offend the Saudis in particular and the Arabs in general appear as a typical arrogant ugly American. Of course whichever political side can do something nasty to impact the other side they will.
Give it a break and negotiate compromises and help America first.

There is a huge difference between lowering ones head to receive an award the way Trump did and bowing the way Obama did. I don't believe that what Trump did should even be considered bowing, at the very least it should be pointed out what Trump did was not done as a sign of respect, deference, allegiance or fidelity. Funny how all these brilliant journalist, or should I say liberal commentators impersonating impartial journalists, have failed to make that distinction!

Santee you must understand that if Trump were to single handedly cure cancer the headline in the WaPo and the NYT would be:
TRUMP HATES PEOPLE WITH AIDS, Doesn't Lift A Finger To Help Them.
It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome!

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by diamelsx

Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Things were just fine when the sacrifices were made at the expense of the minorities, the young, and the working class, but now they want to be treated as more than mere bargaining chips now people want to be up in arms? Progressives have as much sympathy for that position as you have for them.

What the progressives understand is that where the money comes from is just as Important as how money there is. The problem with the list you just gave is that too often the sources of funding run contrary to the intrests of the voters and their policy positions reflect that. Is making people pick between someone who is against them or someone who is going to betray them really a choice?

It occurred to me after my post that I should cut you some slack. Your thinking and arguments are very similar to what I would have made in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We were very much caught up in the civil rights movement, the efforts to end the Vietnam war, and efforts to better the lot of the poorest citizens and eliminate hunger. We saw Hubert Humphrey as a corrupt old politician, refused to support him, and allowed Nixon to win. It was the beginning of the Republican rollback of the New Deal. (But, ironically, Nixon created the EPA.) As I grew older, I learned more and came to understand the balance of competing claims and the necessity of building consensus through compromise in government. I am now more experienced and educated, which makes me increasingly aware of my limitations and fallibility.

My commitments to social justice remain unchanged. If I am ranting it is because I am seeing three generations of social progress unravel before my eyes. I am very unhappy that the poorest and most vulnerable of society are being called on to make further sacrifices so that the wealthy get more. I am very unhappy that the scientific progress of centuries is being driven from the marketplace of accepted ideas. I am appalled that superstition is replacing science as a governing philosophy; that overt racism is fashionable again; that cruelty is replacing compassion in public discourse.

What progressives will soon learn is that there is not enough money available from the "pure" sources. As for the voters, haven't they repeatedly shown that they can be duped into voting against their interests? Also, many in the heartland find the progressive belief that they alone know what is good for the voters to be the height of arrogance? Isn't that exactly the attitude that got Hillary in trouble?

Please understand that I regard the use of wealth and ownership of property as privileges granted by society and fully revocable. If it were up to me, the ruling class would be standing trial to account for their stewardship. Given what I see here every day in Oakland, that trial is not likely to go well for them. (Do you think the Koch brothers would mind sharing their various houses with a few hundred homeless veterans with PTSD? )

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

It occurred to me after my post that I should cut you some slack. Your thinking and arguments are very similar to what I would have made in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We were very much caught up in the civil rights movement, the efforts to end the Vietnam war, and efforts to better the lot of the poorest citizens and eliminate hunger. We saw Hubert Humphrey as a corrupt old politician, refused to support him, and allowed Nixon to win. It was the beginning of the Republican rollback of the New Deal. (But, ironically, Nixon created the EPA.) As I grew older, I learned more and came to understand the balance of competing claims and the necessity of building consensus through compromise in government. I am now more experienced and educated, which makes me increasingly aware of my limitations and fallibility.

When it is your interests that are always getting compromised you tend not to deal with the practice. Too many times the party compromised the intrests of the voters in the name of "getting things done" and not fulfilling their needs. Just like that spouse that keeps running around on his mate the party only has itself to blame when the mate walks out on them.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

My commitments to social justice remain unchanged. If I am ranting it is because I am seeing three generations of social progress unravel before my eyes. I am very unhappy that the poorest and most vulnerable of society are being called on to make further sacrifices so that the wealthy get more.

You just now noticing this? The underclass have been sacrificial lambs for decades now and of course they exploit everthing from racism to doublespeak to advance the agenda of the ownership class see education, see veteran issues, see healthcare. There are two sides the thing is they are both headed in the same direction, just at different speeds.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I am very unhappy that the scientific progress of centuries is being driven from the marketplace of accepted ideas. I am appalled that superstition is replacing science as a governing philosophy; that overt racism is fashionable again; that cruelty is replacing compassion in public discourse.

I see the science issue as a same direction, different speeds situation. Both sides are paid well by the energy industry so no way either side is going to really cut their money short. Racism rise is a byproduct of the economic times we are in. People are trying to find out who is responsible for their condition and unfortunately they get mislead.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

What progressives will soon learn is that there is not enough money available from the "pure" sources.

The rules are changing rapidly on that. Jeb Bush, Eric Cantor, and yes Hillary Clinton can tell you a bigger war chest does not translate into victory.

As for the voters, haven't they repeatedly shown that they can be duped into voting against their interests?

When both sides are trying to dupe you you bound to be a sucker sometime. Which is why voter participation rates are dropping worldwide.

Also, many in the heartland find the progressive belief that they alone know what is good for the voters to be the height of arrogance? Isn't that exactly the attitude that got Hillary in trouble?

Of what I am seeing flyover contry is more of a problem for Democrats than it is for progressives. Bernie just pulled 12,000 at a rally in Montana this week Meanwhile Democrats had the worst fundraising April since 09'. Considering all the energy people have going to rallies and protesting that is not a good sign.

[Rogerbh]

I don't remember private phone conversations being transcribed and given to the press before for any president. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/...cid=spartanntp
The Philippines transcribed the conversation and gave it to the US press? So I guess no conversation is off the record anymore.

I do believe the majority of the US press wants to vilify Trump. Too bad he helps them accomplish that task by providing so much ammo - seemingly on a daily basis.

[Rogerbh]

Think the public should get ready for war in North Korea, it is one of the ways Trump can get his garbage out of the daily press.

It needs to be done too, just the cost in lives could be enormous.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by diamelsx

Actually it is the makeup of Congress that make impeachment more likely. They still were not too keen on him running an as his popularity drops and the trouble mounts the knives are gonna come out and once the money gives the ok those knives will go in that bullseye right in his back. Cause the agree that the guys behind him can get the job done better.

Please do the math. It takes 67 votes in the Senate to convict in an impeachment trial. It also takes a very big leap of imagination to believe that the House will pass articles of impeachment with Trump commanding an 84% approval rating among registered Republicans. Even attempting to remove him at this point will be seen as an attempt by the elite to remove a populist champion. He will survive at least one four year term.

Originally Posted by diamelsx

If you keep on saying what the Republicans are going to do, yet fail to acknowledge what third way Democrats have already done then of course progressives look petty but look deeper and you start to realize that they did not have a choice.

My point is that some times less than perfect candidates must be supported to keep really, really bad people out of power. Many Germans liked Adolph Hitler's vision of a revitalized Germany in 1933 and thought his loony tune rhetoric could be ignored.

Originally Posted by diamelsx

Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

This statement remind me of Josef Stalin's justification of the mass starvation following the forced collectivization of agriculture in the USSR and of Chairman Mao's rationale of his "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution" programs.

Originally Posted by diamelsx

I see the science issue as a same direction, different speeds situation. Both sides are paid well by the energy industry so no way either side is going to really cut their money short. Racism rise is a byproduct of the economic times we are in. People are trying to find out who is responsible for their condition and unfortunately they get mislead.

Science is much bigger than climate change and energy policy. Disease research and the CDC are also having their budgets gutted. Many Bible belt states are teaching "creationism" to school children as a legitimate theory.

No one who grew up in the United States of the 1950s, is white, and has listened to private conversations of white people would make the misguided claim that the economy is causing racism. Black folks often make racists comments about Jews, Arabs, and Asians. We have come a long way in this country, but racism is endemic. All that has happened is that white supremacists feel safe in publicly expressing their views.

Originally Posted by diamelsx

The underclass have been sacrificial lambs for decades now

The rules are changing rapidly on that.

The exploitation of the working class goes back much farther than the past few decades, my friend.

I suggest reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn to get some perspective.

I also suggest reading one of the many collection of excerpts of James Madison's notes at the Constitutional Convention, Decision in Philadelphia by Collier and Collier, or The Case against the Supreme Court by Erwin Chemerinsky to disabuse yourself notions that the United States government was designed to be democratic institution to represent the will of the people. It was specifically designed by the wealthy property owners to protect their position in society from the great mass of tenant farmers and working poor.

Things appear no closer to change than they were when Karl Marx realized in 1848 that the revolution was not imminent.

Originally Posted by diamelsx

The problem is not Capitalism itself, it is the players bending to many rule to suit themselves at the expense of everybody else

Concentration of wealth and bending the rules is the essence of capitalism. Please remember that capitalism followed feudalism and slavery as social structures to divvy up the wealth. The pie is much bigger, but workers are not a whole lot better off in relative terms.

Final observations 1) it is extremely unlikely that the voters can seize control of the government by legal, peaceful means. It is what I would prefer happening because violent revolution kills many people and has historically most often resulted in psychopaths holding dictatorial powers. 2) IMO the effects of climate change are going to be of major concern to y'all by the time you reach age 68.

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Please do the math. It takes 67 votes in the Senate to convict in an impeachment trial. It also takes a very big leap of imagination to believe that the House will pass articles of impeachment with Trump commanding an 84% approval rating among registered Republicans. Even attempting to remove him at this point will be seen as an attempt by the elite to remove a populist champion. He will survive at least one four year term.

84%? I say it could be 94% and it still would not matter.

1. it is the voters
2. party loyalists is a small, dying breed. literally

It is too much money on the table to be worrying about what some party loyalists think. For the amount of money on the line they can take care of Congress quite well in the private sector. Grease the revolving door and get to cutting these taxes.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

My point is that some times less than perfect candidates must be supported to keep really, really bad people out of power. Many Germans liked Adolph Hitler's vision of a revitalized Germany in 1933 and thought his loony tune rhetoric could be ignored.

In life it is the so called friends that have betrayed you that you end up having the most contempt for. I still do not see how this does not fall on the party. They knew going in that the groups were not going to support Hillary and they did it anyway. So they failed in their prime objective which was putting forth a canindate the voters will support. Again I ask the question do you stand with the one who is your enemy or do you stand with the one who is going to betray you?

Originally Posted by Brian249x

This statement remind me of Josef Stalin's justification of the mass starvation following the forced collectivization of agriculture in the USSR and of Chairman Mao's rationale of his "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution" programs.

I'm glad you feel that way cause that was exactly what those groups kept hearing during the Clinton administration and the other centrist Democrats. Just like the Evangelicals did from the Rinos

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Science is much bigger than climate change and energy policy. Disease research and the CDC are also having their budgets gutted. Many Bible belt states are teaching "creationism" to school children as a legitimate theory.

As I said in another thread politics sometimes veils financial motivations.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

The exploitation of the working class goes back much farther than the past few decades, my friend.

True indeed...

Originally Posted by Brian249x

I also suggest reading one of the many collection of excerpts of James Madison's notes at the Constitutional Convention, Decision in Philadelphia by Collier and Collier, or The Case against the Supreme Court by Erwin Chemerinsky to disabuse yourself notions that the United States government was designed to be democratic institution to represent the will of the people. It was specifically designed by the wealthy property owners to protect their position in society from the great mass of tenant farmers and working poor.

Design flaws always present themselves given time and conditions.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Things appear no closer to change than they were when Karl Marx realized in 1848 that the revolution was not imminent.

In a land of 300+ million people do you think 300,000 can keep control forever?

Originally Posted by Brian249x

Concentration of wealth and bending the rules is the essence of capitalism. Please remember that capitalism followed feudalism and slavery as social structures to divvy up the wealth. The pie is much bigger, but workers are not a whole lot better off in relative terms.

Change is the one true constant it may not always make itself known, but it is always there.

Originally Posted by Brian249x

2) IMO the effects of climate change are going to be of major concern to y'all by the time you reach age 68.

I'may counting on it