U.S. Politics: Feelings Trump Facts

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 

Bbbbbuuuuutttttt - they hacked the RNC too.  Just didn't release anything.

Oops.  Muddying the water with fax.  Not permitted.

 

[Tempra]

1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

It's not a requirement so much as a reasonable criticism. This guy has put small family contractors out of business since the 80's with this bullshit. The only reasonable defense at this point is why any contractor at this point would do business with this guy without being paid up front. 

And? This happens literally every day in this country.  We have established civil courts to deal with, among other things, breach of contract cases.  And you know what? Trump is about to head a Government that wrongs individuals and corporations so frequently that there are multiple courts that do nothing else but address claims against the Government.  I guess Trump will fit right in, huh?

Now, of course, we can feel bad for those small businesses that Trump's companies have stiffed, but should every bit of his business dealings intrude into the political realm?  IMO, only if he is using the political office to enrich himself, his family, or friends.  Otherwise, every time a Trump hotel gets a bad review, we will start hearing about how his hotel's failure to turn down the bed demonstrates his contempt for the little person.

There is so much ammunition against Trump.  Focusing on little shit blurs the message about how bad he is and simply makes liberals look petty.

[Mexal]

17 minutes ago, Tempra said:

And? This happens literally every day in this country.  We have established civil courts to deal with, among other things, breach of contract cases.  And you know what? Trump is about to head a Government that wrongs individuals and corporations so frequently that there are multiple courts that do nothing else but address claims against the Government.  I guess Trump will fit right in, huh?

Now, of course, we can feel bad for those small businesses that Trump's companies have stiffed, but should every bit of his business dealings intrude into the political realm?  IMO, only if he is using the political office to enrich himself, his family, or friends.  Otherwise, every time a Trump hotel gets a bad review, we will start hearing about how his hotel's failure to turn down the bed demonstrates his contempt for the little person.

There is so much ammunition against Trump.  Focusing on little shit blurs the message about how bad he is and simply makes liberals look petty.

Who's focusing on it? I posted it because I thought it fit well with his hypocrisy. I didn't spend much time on it.

This, however, is pretty screwed up. The new rules package says that any proposal has to be scored by the CBO except any replacement for the ACA. These people are unbelievable. They know they're going to fuck everything up with repealing the ACA, they know they don't have a replacement and they know every replacement they come up with will cause a net increase in spending. So what do they do? Change the rules so that it doesn't matter. 

 

[Martell Spy]

Yeah, I think the Republican plan for healthcare is shitty policies for everyone with high deductibles. And kicking as many poor people off Medicaid as possible. And higher Medicare costs for seniors. Fortunately, they need Democrat help to do any replacement. All they can do is repeal a chunk of Obamacare, and then either cause chaos or be forced to do an insurance industry bailout.

President Obama says he'd be happy to repeal Obamacare — if Republicans have a better idea

Quote

 

Addressing his comments to Republicans during an interview with Vox Friday morning, Obama said, “If you can in fact put a plan together that is demonstrably better than what Obamacare is doing, I will publicly support repealing Obamacare and replacing it with your plan.”

“I don’t have pride of authorship on this thing,” the president added. “I’m not the one who named it Obamacare!”

Obama went on to express deep skepticism about whether the GOP could in fact come up with something better. “I suspect that will not happen,” he said. “If you want to provide coverage to people, then there’s certain baseline things you have to do.”

 

http://www.vox.com/2017/1/6/14191202/obama-interview-repeal-obamacare-vox

[Week]

12 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Yeah, I think the Republican plan for healthcare is shitty policies for everyone with high deductibles. And kicking as many poor people off Medicaid as possible. And higher Medicare costs for seniors. Fortunately, they need Democrat help to do any replacement. All they can do is repeal a chunk of Obamacare, and then either cause chaos or be forced to do an insurance industry bailout.

So basically, keep the least popular part of the ACA (high deductibles) and damage the only 'popular' health care programs in the country - Medicare and Medicaid. That seems like a winning strategy.

[Martell Spy]

GOP resistance grows to Obamacare repeal without replacement
Republican senators are pushing their leaders to come clean with a health care alternative.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/gop-obamacare-repeal-replacement-resistance-233298

[Martell Spy]

Racist or Not, Sessions Has Chosen the Wrong Side of History in the Struggle for Justice

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/sessions-chose-the-wrong-side-in-the-fight-for-voting-rights.html

[Altherion]

I am continually amazed by how people who have presumably studied history can use phrases like "the wrong side of history." Even a cursory examination of ancient or modern societies will reveal that the vast majority of people who spoke about such things believed that their way of doing things is the best and the future belongs to them. The overwhelming majority of these people have been wrong and in fact, what comes next is often something predicted by no one (or no one important enough to leave a record, at any rate). I realize that it is a phrase common in propaganda and almost nobody stops to think about it, but it's still really annoying.

[Dr. Pepper]

Yeah because no one in the 50's could have possibly predicted the Civil Rights movement (except, you know, all those who believed in racial equality), no one in the 90's could have possibly predicted equal marriage (except, you know, all those who supported it) and so on and so forth. 

I mean, what an obscenely stupid and ridiculous piece of bullshit.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, you surely need to have a unique perspective to assume that support of voter suppression will turn out to be not the wrong side of history. But do as you please. 

[OldGimletEye]

Yeah, I'm gonna go out on a limb here say the KKK was on the wrong side of history. Nazi's were on the wrong side of history.

I don't have a problem with saying some people are clearly on the wrong side of history.

Take your random old Dixiecrat: He says, "Uh, can't ya, just see things from my perspective?". Uh, no.

[LongRider]

Apparently the phrase 'wrong side of history' is so disturbing that perhaps it requires a trigger warning.  No?

[Rippounet]

I think you're all missing Altherion's point though, which is actually about the unpredictability of history. To talk about a "wrong side" means assuming that some changes are irreversible and/or that there is a continuous process throughout time, both of which are hazardous propositions at best.
I'm sure pretty much everyone here would like to believe that some changes are indeed irreversible and that nothing can stop the slow processes of democratization and human progress... But recent events should make us cautious about assuming that our belief will in fact translate into reality. Let's also bear in mind that such belief is, all in all, rather recent.
In a nutshell, Altherion was, I think, making a purely intellectual argument, not a moral one.

[LongRider]

Better to talk about the title of the piece instead of what the article is about I guess, so arguing about 'the wrong side of history' becomes more important than the damage Sessions can do to voting rights and other rights as AG.  To quote the article

Quote

But the fact remains that we have every reason to suspect Sessions will change the deployment of that power from a posture of protecting powerless victims of discrimination to pursuing them with the hounds of justice because he’s done it before. Aside from civil rights and voting-rights causes, others traditionally within the protective arms of the Justice Department could suddenly find themselves staring down the barrel of prosecutorial hostility. These will include women seeking to assert their reproductive rights, LGBTQ folk fighting discrimination, nonviolent drug offenders seeking relief from long prison sentences, and undocumented immigrants who have otherwise played by the rules.

This is what concerns people, not what the title of an article about their concerns is in a news magazine.  Nice try at the misdirection tho.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Rippounet said:

I think you're all missing Altherion's point though, which is actually about the unpredictability of history. To talk about a "wrong side" means assuming that some changes are irreversible and/or that there is a continuous process throughout time, both of which are hazardous propositions at best.
I'm sure pretty much everyone here would like to believe that some changes are indeed irreversible and that nothing can stop the slow processes of democratization and human progress... But recent events should make us cautious about assuming that our belief will in fact translate into reality. Let's also bear in mind that such belief is, all in all, rather recent.
In a nutshell, Altherion was, I think, making a purely intellectual argument, not a moral one.

Uh, well, I guess. But it wasn't really clear that he was just disputing some kind of whig view of history, and not making any comment at all about Sessions views or actions.

[Altherion]

17 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Yeah because no one in the 50's could have possibly predicted the Civil Rights movement (except, you know, all those who believed in racial equality), no one in the 90's could have possibly predicted equal marriage (except, you know, all those who supported it) and so on and so forth.

This is a rather myopic view. History encompasses more than a single society and the things you mention are not common to all societies or even to a majority. Consider, for example, China which has a considerably different set of values from ours or the Islamic countries which differ significantly from both. Individually, each of them has roughly as many people as all nations which espouse Western values combined and it's not at all clear which set of values will win out (if any -- there are quite a few other societies that can make a case).

19 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Apparently the phrase 'wrong side of history' is so disturbing that perhaps it requires a trigger warning.  No?

Nah. It's not disturbing, it's just annoying.

16 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I think you're all missing Altherion's point though, which is actually about the unpredictability of history. To talk about a "wrong side" means assuming that some changes are irreversible and/or that there is a continuous process throughout time, both of which are hazardous propositions at best.
I'm sure pretty much everyone here would like to believe that some changes are indeed irreversible and that nothing can stop the slow processes of democratization and human progress... But recent events should make us cautious about assuming that our belief will in fact translate into reality. Let's also bear in mind that such belief is, all in all, rather recent.
In a nutshell, Altherion was, I think, making a purely intellectual argument, not a moral one.

Thanks, that's a pretty good elaboration on what I was trying to say. Indeed, it is a purely intellectual argument.

[LongRider]

1 minute ago, Altherion said:

This is a rather myopic view. History encompasses more than a single society and the things you mention are not common to all societies or even to a majority. Consider, for example, China which has a considerably different set of values from ours or the Islamic countries which differ significantly from both. Individually, each of them has roughly as many people as all nations which espouse Western values combined and it's not at all clear which set of values will win out (if any -- there are quite a few other societies that can make a case).

The article was about the United States of America's recent history, which the article made plain.  Did you bother to read the article? 

[OldGimletEye]

Here is my purely intellectual argument: Sessions is a jackass.

[OldGimletEye]

Well, I guess if the Whig Theory of History really annoys you, its good to get that off your chest, I suppose. But, I don't think that was really the point  of the article with regard to Sessions.

[LongRider]

One of the concerns voiced in the article about Sessions was about his voter suppression ways. 

Quote

Second, we need an affirmative agenda to make it easier to vote. In Oregon, 250,000 new voters were added to the rolls this year through the state’s new automatic registration system and 76 percent of registered voters cast a ballot. That should be a model for the rest of the country.
 
The real headline of this election was that 42 percent of eligible voters decided not to participate — either because they couldn’t or didn’t want to. The cure for this is more democracy, not less. 

http://billmoyers.com/story/voter-suppression-laws-working/

Voter suppression laws work and prevent American citizens from voting.  The above article links to the one quoted below.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2016/11/10/milwaukee-elections-head-says-voter-id-law-hurt-citys-turnout/93607154/

 

Quote

Wisconsin's voter ID law caused problems at the polls in the city and likely contributed to lower voter turnout, Milwaukee's elections chief said Thursday.

The city saw a decline of some 41,000 voters in Tuesday's election compared with 2012, when President Barack Obama won broad support in Milwaukee and coasted to re-election.

"We saw some of the greatest declines were in the districts we projected would have the most trouble with voter ID requirements," said Neil Albrecht, executive director of the city's Election Commission.