U.S. Elections - Philadelphia edition

[Goddess Dictator]

23 minutes ago, MerenthaClone said:

Here's the best part:. Trump isn't colluding with Putin and he wants in on the deal.  This is unfuckingreal.

And yes, he stole the spotlight.  Given what he allegedly said to Kasich, I think it is totally clear that he is in the race because he is a narcissist, pure and simple.  The dnc stole his national spotlight and so he had to steal it back no matter the cost.  It's insane.

see my previous post. the man is a textbook narcissist. he isn't CAPABLE of caring about anything other than Donald Trump. Unfortunately he's (somehow despite his looks) got charisma (probably the unshakable egotism does it) and he says things that mean nothing but sound great to a certain group of people.

god help me I'm in Arkansas. I am at work, sitting within twenty feet of at least three Trump voters. Seriously, every day is a struggle to keep my mouth shut. More than half the people i work with believe Obama is a Muslim (even though that's demonstrably not true) and you should see the looks I get when I say things like "Even if he were, which he's not, that would be fine." 

i miss you rest of the country!

[Frog Eater]

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

Actually, he probably won't be my President. Because I really wouldn't be surprised if one of the very first things Ryan and McConnell do is implement impeachment proceedings so that Pence can be President instead.

If there was going to be a Republican revolt against Trump, it would have happened before they gave him the nomination I think. But even if Trump wins the election, there are still a LOT of Republicans who dont want him to be President. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

The second is that trump hoped that the Russians did have Clinton's emails. Hoping that foreign intelligence departments influence your election is a special kind of stupid.

 

 

/Does the widdle trumpy want a carrot? 

[Goddess Dictator]

18 minutes ago, Mexal said:

John Oliver on the RNC...

and on campaign songs...

 

i love john oliver (also samantha bee is killing it.)

5 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 

 

/Does the widdle trumpy want a carrot? 

lololol.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

19 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

Or maybe they were completely opposed to his policies and instead of acknowledging that they had a valid point they were called racist. And in turn the liberals laughed after the election and said "elections have consequences" and 4 more years of Obama were shoved down their throat. So now that you have a candidate that you are vehemently opposed to, you are saying the same things Republicans said 8 years ago. "he wont be my president". But if he wins, he certainly will be your president. Because elections have consequences. 

 

Or maybe you should just ignore Hara Kiri. He/she doesn't speak for all leftists, and certainly doesn't speak for me.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

18 minutes ago, Fez said:

Actually, he probably won't be my President. Because I really wouldn't be surprised if one of the very first things Ryan and McConnell do is implement impeachment proceedings so that Pence can be President instead.

On what grounds?

[Boris the Blade]

26 minutes ago, Frog Eater said:

Or maybe they were completely opposed to his policies and instead of acknowledging that they had a valid point they were called racist. And in turn the liberals laughed after the election and said "elections have consequences" and 4 more years of Obama were shoved down their throat. So now that you have a candidate that you are vehemently opposed to, you are saying the same things Republicans said 8 years ago. "he wont be my president". But if he wins, he certainly will be your president. Because elections have consequences. 

 

 you're so naive it's adorable. I'm also a opposed to him not just because of his many vague policies, but because of his bigotry. 

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, Goddess Dictator said:

random thoughts b/c I'm terrible at coherent ones. 

2. I need more information on the TPP. I'm trying to educate myself. Can I get some links to some neutral descriptions of it? all i seem to be able to find are biased interpretations. hell a link to the actual content itself would be great. I am working 50 hour weeks and have a damn zoo at home (one fiance, five cats, three dogs, two goldfish) and between the two i just have so little time to make sure i am informed, so I am reaching out for help from my trusted peeps here.

5. *waves at xray and fez and jax and everyone else* on a non political note does anyone know if mya stone is ok? i cant' get a hold of her. 

The Wikipedia piece on TPP is pretty good.  Stuff here in Canada sets out very specific examples of things that are bad about the deal (and good) but every country has negotiated very specific concessions and tariff phase-outs, so you need a US summary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

Mya is just fine and has graduated from nursing school.  She pretty well spends 0 time on this board, concentrating on Facebook and another board where she is a mod.  Are you on Facebook?  Do you have mutual friends?  Best way to link up, but I can tell her you were asking about her. 

[sologdin]

34 minutes ago, Harakiri said:

The biggest contributor to the Trump shit show is the media. Every fucking thing the piece of shit says is reported on. He can't stand the spot lot not being on him. And either the media doesn't care, or they're just too ignorant to figure it the fuck out.

profit-oriented bourgeois press reports on things that generate advertiser/subscription income.  this is all thoroughly foreseeable.  there's no need to moralize about it.  totalitarian publishing industry is functioning normally in dealing with the ephemera of sport, crime, & astrology.

[Goddess Dictator]

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

The Wikipedia piece on TPP is pretty good.  Stuff here in Canada sets out very specific examples of things that are bad about the deal (and good) but every country has negotiated very specific concessions and tariff phase-outs, so you need a US summary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

Mya is just fine and has graduated from nursing school.  She pretty well spends 0 time on this board, concentrating on Facebook and another board where she is a mod.  Are you on Facebook?  Do you have mutual friends?  Best way to link up, but I can tell her you were asking about her. 

 

thank you very much! i saw the wikipedia post but sometimes those are.... not the best. i'll read that. I'm friends with her on facebook, but she was here visiting little rock and we never hooked up and i've been trying to touch base since. i'll try on facebook. I've been avoiding it lately. thanks!

[Xray the Enforcer]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

I'll say one thing, not a lot of talk about Bill Clinton's humanizing speech last night anymore. Trump has completely taken over the media... again.

This is true, and it's a giant bummer. I thought Bill's speech last night was amazing, in that it was the first First Lady speech given by a man, and it really hammered home just how much Hillary has done for actual progressive causes over the course of her career. 

[Boris the Blade]

I really never want to hear about liberal media bias ever again after this year.

[Corvinus85]

33 minutes ago, Goddess Dictator said:

god help me I'm in Arkansas. I am at work, sitting within twenty feet of at least three Trump voters. Seriously, every day is a struggle to keep my mouth shut. More than half the people i work with believe Obama is a Muslim (even though that's demonstrably not true) and you should see the looks I get when I say things like "Even if he were, which he's not, that would be fine." 

i miss you rest of the country!

You're not alone in your situation.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Without hyperbole, we are actually, literally almost at the point where a major party nominee for president is committing treason. 

I'm not familiar enough with the statutes to know if he has crossed the line. I suspect not, since he is calling for foreign espionage, not actually conducting it (maybe sedition is the more accurate charge?). But I think there is enough happening here, with all the vague connections to Putin, that the FBI should formally investigate the issue.

Here's what he actually said:

Quote

 

"Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing," Trump said during a news conference. "I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens. That'll be nice."

At the same event, Trump also said, "I'm not gonna tell Putin what to do. Why should I tell Putin what to do?... It's not even about Russia or China or whoever it is that's doing the hacking. It's about the things they said in those e-mails. They were terrible things."

...

Later, Trump posted a tweet that said: "If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!"

 

There's no way to read this as calling for foreign espionage because the US no longer has these emails -- they've been deleted from everywhere the FBI has looked for them. What he is doing is calling on foreign governments to share the results of their prior espionage with Americans which, while a highly unorthodox means of doing opposition research, is in fact not only legal, but beneficial to the US as a whole (as well as Trump personally, of course).

[Xray the Enforcer]

42 minutes ago, Goddess Dictator said:

god help me I'm in Arkansas. I am at work, sitting within twenty feet of at least three Trump voters. Seriously, every day is a struggle to keep my mouth shut. More than half the people i work with believe Obama is a Muslim (even though that's demonstrably not true) and you should see the looks I get when I say things like "Even if he were, which he's not, that would be fine." 

Really good to see you Geed.

I am so grateful that my immediate coworkers are also anti-Trump. I think I would have lost my mind otherwise.

 

[Fragile Bird]

28 minutes ago, Goddess Dictator said:

 

thank you very much! i saw the wikipedia post but sometimes those are.... not the best. i'll read that. I'm friends with her on facebook, but she was here visiting little rock and we never hooked up and i've been trying to touch base since. i'll try on facebook. I've been avoiding it lately. thanks!

The TPP is an absolutely massive document, because there are so many countries involved.  I used to work with the US - Canada Free Trade Agreement, and then with NAFTA, and they were very simple in comparison.  I glanced at the US Trade Representative's summary of the TPP, here: https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2015/october/summary-trans-pacific-partnership

but it just summarizes the chapters, many of which, I think, are hundreds of pages long.  There are copies of the agreement also available on the internet, but good luck trying to read them.  Very complex.

You need to find a summary done by a group you trust, even if it will be biased.

When I hear Trump talk about what a bad agreement NAFTA is my jaw just drops.  First of all, the reason why the US-Canada agreement was expanded by NAFTA was to help out Mexico to staunch the flow of Mexican immigrants into the US.  Without that agreement and the thousands of jobs it has created in Mexico, think how many more people would be fleeing Mexico.  You can't stop economic refugees or those fleeing war zones.  Why did North America fill up with Europeans?  Why can't Europe stop Syrian, Iraqi and Afghani refugees, or those coming from Africa?

Secondly, we here in Canada certainly think the US gained enormously from NAFTA.  What a re-negotiated NAFTA would look like, one more advantageous to the USA, boggles the imagination.  One of the worst parts of it, imo, is the fact it gives corporations the right to sue governments if they think laws have been geared against them.  From what I have heard of Trump speeches, it seems to me that I keep hearing them say that the TPP grants foreign governments the right to sue the US.  That is absolutely false.

And guess what?  Which country's corporations have been suing governments left, right and centre, and winning hundreds of millions?  US based corporations have issued hundreds of lawsuits under the NAFTA provisions.  I don't think Canadian and Mexican companies have the aggressive tendencies or experience to sue with the same viciousness Americans sue with.  My prediction is that if TPP is passed there will be a whole new cornucopia opening up for US trade litigators.

I'm not crazy about pipelines, but Trans Canada Pipeline has filed a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the US government under NAFTA for disallowing the Keystone XL pipeline that looks like it has a pretty darn good chance of succeeding (considering how many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousand, of miles of pipeline have been given approval to US companies during the same time period).

[IheartIheartTesla]

The important thing here is to pace oneself with 'Trump outrage', we have a good 4 months to go before the elections.

This particular statement is not high on the outrage meter for me. It's a stupid statement to be sure, but calling it treason sets a rather low bar for treason. Actually handing over e-mail documents to me is treason, some argle bargle coming out of someone's mouth is not.

My opinions may be outside the mainstream because I have a rather more lax view on 'treason' than most Americans.

[Goddess Dictator]

24 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

You're not alone in your situation.

thanks. solidarity! 

18 minutes ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

Really good to see you Geed.

I am so grateful that my immediate coworkers are also anti-Trump. I think I would have lost my mind otherwise.

 

hey xray! my biggest issue is every single time the forum logs me out it will not let me log back in unless i reset my password. i have reset it thre times already today. sigh. any idea on how to fix that? 

 

also: yes i'm close to losing my mind. If i hadn't lost it years ago i'd be more worried lol.

[sologdin]

14 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Here's what he actually said:

There's no way to read this as calling for foreign espionage because the US no longer has these emails -- they've been deleted from everywhere the FBI has looked for them. What he is doing is calling on foreign governments to share the results of their prior espionage with Americans which, while a highly unorthodox means of doing opposition research, is in fact not only legal, but beneficial to the US as a whole (as well as Trump personally, of course).

very doubtful there's a violation of 18 USC 791 et seq. here.

nor does it arise to maiestas, as our statute requires a state of war, though we all might want to inflict the aquae et ignis interdictio.

is it however a violation of 52 USC 30121?  curious.

[Fez]

56 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

On what grounds?

I'm sure he'll do something within the first few weeks of office that would fit the definition of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Not saying they'd do it on inauguration day, they'd wait until they had an excuse.

28 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Here's what he actually said:

There's no way to read this as calling for foreign espionage because the US no longer has these emails -- they've been deleted from everywhere the FBI has looked for them. What he is doing is calling on foreign governments to share the results of their prior espionage with Americans which, while a highly unorthodox means of doing opposition research, is in fact not only legal, but beneficial to the US as a whole (as well as Trump personally, of course).

Of course there is, there's no way not to read as calling for espionage. And I'm going to bite my tongue on saying anything because I like to remain polite. 

 

ETA: 

3 minutes ago, sologdin said:

very doubtful there's a violation of 18 USC 791 et seq. here.

nor does it arise to maiestas, as our statute requires a state of war, though we all might want to inflict the aquae et ignis interdictio.

is it however a violation of 52 USC 30121?  curious.

I've seen the argument that its actually a violation of 18 USC 373, since courts have held that hacking counts as "physical force."