US Politics: Paradise Lost

[Fragile Bird]

6 hours ago, Horza said:

What is it about the above two examples that makes you think this anti-immigrant upsurge is related to immigration levels, or that centre-left parties moving to heavily restrict nonwhite immigration is going to be effective at undermining this movement?

Oh come on, it’s not setting the refugee level at 10,000 that’s the key number, it’s the millions of  Muslim terrorists that are going to sneak into the US and murder everyone.

The way the Brits attacked Polish residents in the UK, not even ‘immigrants’ in the traditional sense because under EU rules members can live and work anywhere in the EU, shows it’s about ‘the other’ and not necessarily about non-white immigration, which is why I used the example. 

But Merkel is about to be gone and it’s because of immigration. Is it good for Germany or for the EU or for refugees around the world that she’s been driven out of power because the far right successfully attacked her for that incredible act of humanity of hers?

I have a number of times said that climate change is going to create massive movements of people. What are nations going to do in 10 or 20 years? Bomb ships full of refugees or convoys of the desperate? Scientists keep talking about dire events in 50 or 80 years, but those dire events are building up right now and getting worse each year, and people are on the move in the millions. 

I’m cynical enough to believe that there’s going to be a reaction equal in size. I’d like to believe that democracies will generously open their arms and welcome millions, but I suspect the reaction in many cases will be the hardening of democracy and the rejection of people, not the acceptance. I think the number of Polish people in the UK was a bigger factor in the Brexit vote that has been given credit.

eta: I went back to that article to make sure I didn’t miss a quote from Clinton, but no where does it say she suggested that non-white immigration be dramaticallly reduced. She did say issues of cultural identity were very important and had to be taken into account. You are taking Trump’s position and words and painting Clinton and the ‘center-left’ with his policies. Where does it say they should heavily restrict immigration?

 

[Gone and Quite Forgotten]

7 hours ago, DMC said:

Yeah I randomly caught it, which was kind of serendipitous - actually old school channel surfing.  I don't watch Colbert since he went to CBS but I was an early and one of his most virulent fans.  The segment was a let down though, all Colbert wanted to do was geek it up about Tolkein.  Love how Martin mentioned A Caution for Young Girls though, which I just read about yesterday.

Im kind of surprised GRRM hasn't said more about Trump. He was such a firebrand about Bush back in the day...oh man, remember when we all thought Bush was the worst thing ever? God I wish Bush were president now...and I cannot believe I typed that, but there ya go. Strange times. 

[maarsen]

26 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Im kind of surprised GRRM hasn't said more about Trump. He was such a firebrand about Bush back in the day...oh man, remember when we all thought Bush was the worst thing ever? God I wish Bush were president now...and I cannot believe I typed that, but there ya go. Strange times. 

The problem with Bush is that he set a bar for non-intelligence in a President and once that was set, Trump could limbo under it. Don't wish for him back, blame him for setting the bar so low.

[maarsen]

I sincerely apologize for all those who now have the image of Trump doing the limbo under a low bar burned into their brains. My humour algorithm seems to be developing a bit of personality.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

20 minutes ago, maarsen said:

The problem with Bush is that he set a bar for non-intelligence in a President and once that was set, Trump could limbo under it. Don't wish for him back, blame him for setting the bar so low.

The sad part is that Trump isn’t stupid.  He’s ignorant and bizarrely proud of his ignorance.  He seems to think he doesn’t need those pesky “facts” to makes decisions about serious issues.

[maarsen]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The sad part is that Trump isn’t stupid.  He’s ignorant and bizarrely proud of his ignorance.  He seems to think he doesn’t need those pesky “facts” to makes decisions about serious issues.

What name would you give to the trait of  wilfully disregarding facts and evidence when making a decision? 

BTW, Happy Thanksgiving from up here in the frozen north. Minus 16C a few nights ago.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, maarsen said:

What name would you give to the trait of  wilfully disregarding facts and evidence when making a decision? 

BTW, Happy Thanksgiving from up here in the frozen north. Minus 16C a few nights ago.

Deliberate ignorance.

[TrueMetis]

I believe in another thread we settled on the term Malignorance.

[Gone and Quite Forgotten]

1 hour ago, maarsen said:

What name would you give to the trait of  wilfully disregarding facts and evidence when making a decision? 

BTW, Happy Thanksgiving from up here in the frozen north. Minus 16C a few nights ago.

Yeah I'm with Scott on this one. What most people take for stupidity in Trump is, I think, actually a combination of bigotry, callousness, shamelessness, and incompetence in his current position. He is an excellent con artist though.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

52 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

I believe in another thread we settled on the term Malignorance.

I like it.  The word, not the reality.

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Bah, you misunderstand me. I didn’t say anything about capitulating to those who want to clamp down on immigration. I’m saying Clinton is right, immigration is feeding the far right. And I stand by my examples. The US is paralyzed on the topic of immigration, totally unable to put together a policy on what to do about the 11M people living illegally in the country. This gave a person like Trump a hole big enough to drive a Mac truck through, with his ranting and raving about rapists and terrorists. 

Americans don’t care about percentages or whether or not the percentage is down .3 or .5 or whatever, Trump screams millions and millions and millions, and many of them BAD people. It’s a message of fear and pretty darn effective one. Look at the incredible cruelties being inflicted on people, ICE agents don’t even blink at ripping away babies out of the arms of parents or deporting spouses who’ve lived in the US for 20 years, leaving behind partners and children, jobs and mortgages and gutting communities.

 

Nope.  The country is paralyzed on immigration because his base is racist and xenophobic.  

I'm not sure what your point is?  Yeah Trump is terrible on immigration and people are suffering and he's encouraging violence and talking about shooting people seeking asylum.  In case you haven't noticed the people trying to fix the immigration system have faced a completely obstructionist congress until 2017 and after that the GOP has controlled the executive and the legislature.  It's not like no one is trying to address this.  

Theres actually been a bunch of bipartisan legislation that's been worked on re immigration the last ten years by Dems and moderate Republicans but it's been blocked by the rest of the GOP.  

Yes immigration policy needs to be designed to bring more people in legally.  But it's kind of tough to do that when the opposition wants to build a wall and shoot immigrants through it.  

[Jace, Extat]

7 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Nope.  The country is paralyzed on immigration because his base is racist and xenophobic.  

I'm not sure what your point is?  Yeah Trump is terrible on immigration and people are suffering and he's encouraging violence and talking about shooting people seeking asylum.  In case you haven't noticed the people trying to fix the immigration system have faced a completely obstructionist congress until 2017 and after that the GOP has controlled the executive and the legislature.  It's not like no one is trying to address this.  

Theres actually been a bunch of bipartisan legislation that's been worked on re immigration the last ten years by Dems and moderate Republicans but it's been blocked by the rest of the GOP.  

Yes immigration policy needs to be designed to bring more people in legally.  But it's kind of tough to do that when the opposition wants to build a wall and shoot immigrants through it.  

No no no FAKE NEWS

The wall isn't shoot through its SEE through.

[ThinkerX]

Team Trumps Climate Report:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/major-trump-administration-climate-report-says-damages-are-‘intensifying-across-the-country/ar-BBQ1DIZ?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=msnclassic

The federal government on Friday released a long-awaited report with an unmistakable message: The impacts of climate change, from deadly wildfires to increasingly debilitating hurricanes and heat waves, are already battering the United States, and the danger of more such catastrophes is worsening.

The report’s authors, who represent numerous federal agencies, say they are more certain than ever that climate change poses a severe threat to Americans' health and pocketbooks, as well as to the country’s infrastructure and natural resources. And while it avoids policy recommendations, the report’s sense of urgency and alarm stand in stark contrast to the lack of any apparent plan from President Trump to tackle the problems which, according to the government he runs, are increasingly dire.

[ThinkerX]

Makes me wonder if more indictments are on the way....

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/stone-associate-jerome-corsi-is-in-plea-negotiations-with-special-counsel/ar-BBQ17MZ?ocid=msnclassic

 

Conservative writer and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi is in plea negotiations with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, according to Corsi and another person with knowledge of the talks.

The talks with Corsi — an associate of both President Trump and GOP operative Roger Stone — could bring Mueller’s team closer to determining whether Trump or his advisers were linked to WikiLeaks’ release of hacked Democratic emails in 2016, a key part of his long-running inquiry.

 

Corsi provided research on Democratic figures during the campaign to Stone, a longtime Trump adviser. For months, the special counsel has been scrutinizing Stone’s activities in an effort to determine whether he coordinated with WikiLeaks. Stone and WikiLeaks have repeatedly denied any such coordination.

 

[Horza]

5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

eta: I went back to that article to make sure I didn’t miss a quote from Clinton, but no where does it say she suggested that non-white immigration be dramaticallly reduced. She did say issues of cultural identity were very important and had to be taken into account. You are taking Trump’s position and words and painting Clinton and the ‘center-left’ with his policies. Where does it say they should heavily restrict immigration?

I did that deliberately because it's what the Trump people want, it's what the Clintonian triangulators know they want - hence that concession to 'issues of cultural identity' - and nothing short of delivering that (and probably not even that) will satisfy them. They want the white picket fence world they remember from childhood or imagine their grandparents lived and they think that will come back when there's no shady outsiders wandering into frame. That's their selling point, and centre-left triangulators will keep on losing this auction because there will always be another bidder offering more. That was obvious in the 90s, long before Libya when Le Pen pere, Jorg Haider and Pim Fortuyn were playing this game. It was obvious in 2010 when places like Alabama with hardly any immigrants at all started passing 'papers please' deportation laws.

You and I agree that the way the world  is going we can't leave immigration politics to the far right, but that's what this proposal does. Every attempt to meet people's Very Real Concerns by cutting intake, restricting benefits, policing status has entrenched the politics of the wall and encouraged the right to bid higher still. We fight this by telling the real story on what really happened to everyone's quality of life, not trying to tell the far right's out of one half of our mouth.

[SweetPea]

2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Nope.  The country is paralyzed on immigration because his base is racist and xenophobic.  

I'm not sure what your point is?  Yeah Trump is terrible on immigration and people are suffering and he's encouraging violence and talking about shooting people seeking asylum.  In case you haven't noticed the people trying to fix the immigration system have faced a completely obstructionist congress until 2017 and after that the GOP has controlled the executive and the legislature.  It's not like no one is trying to address this.  

Theres actually been a bunch of bipartisan legislation that's been worked on re immigration the last ten years by Dems and moderate Republicans but it's been blocked by the rest of the GOP.  

Yes immigration policy needs to be designed to bring more people in legally.  But it's kind of tough to do that when the opposition wants to build a wall and shoot immigrants through it.  

Doesn't it ever bother you when you say blatantly false things like this?

[Larry of the Lawn]

29 minutes ago, SweetPea said:

Doesn't it ever bother you when you say blatantly false things like this?

Well that begs the question, do I say false things?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

Corsi presumably must be dishing on Stone if he's doing a plea deal.  Stone had famously said he would never roll / flip on Trump (which as has been pointed out seems like an admission of criminality), but I suspect he does sing in the end like they all do.   

Homeboy has a tattoo of Nixon on his back. A person who does that isn’t likely to flip on people he’s loyal to.

[Ormond]

6 hours ago, maarsen said:

What name would you give to the trait of  wilfully disregarding facts and evidence when making a decision? 

 

Extreme narcissism. If it was just stupidity, the disregarding of facts and evidences wouldn't be willful. If you don't have the capacity to understand what the facts and evidence really are, that's stupidity.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

A few wild thoughts just came to me on the Trump / Roberts spat.  I was thinking how idiotic it seems for Trump to pick this fight with a lifetime appointment judge who could rule against him big time down the road.  But then I got to thinking...will someone eventually tell Trump to pack the court beyond 9 if he doesn't get what he wants?  There'd been that renewed talk of the left doing this down the road to claw back some of what's been lost, but what's to stop Trump the great norms recognizer from doing it?

I've brought it up before, we all need to pray that he doesn't learn that people have tried to pack the court in the past. Thank god he's not a student of history.