US Politics: them's indictin words

[Kalbear]

Continue!
 

Tuesday we'll probably get to see the actual charges against Trump - about 30 - but even people who are fairly against a Trump run in the future think this is pretty weaksauce. Largely because it involves using state prosecution to potentially deal with federal campaign finance charges. 

Meanwhile Trump has a more than 2-1 lead over DeSantis in recent polling. DeSantis' non-run run is not going so great and Trump being more in the news makes him even more popular. DeSantis' big media blitz around his shipping immigrants to other states seems to have largely petered out. 

[Tywin et al.]

Never ever change, New Yorkers:

 

[DMC]

People were whining about threads.  Really don't care, might as well put it here...

18 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

I don't think he'll change his behavior. I think he'll change who he hires. I also don't think impeachment is a particular danger or foil to him. You seem to think that because he got impeached he won't do it again, or somehow impeachment actually stops his actions. It doesn't. 

Nope.  Again you do not have basic comprehension.  I think how he acted to get impeached demonstrated how he will act.  It's a pretty reliable predictor.  And, if that's the case, it's really nothing to worry about.  You keep on talking about Trump's corruption as a danger.  It is, but we've also - literally - seen people record and laugh at how stupid he is at it.  You assuming he will get better at it is comically naive.  He bleeds staff consistently.  I don't KNOW why, but I think it's a fair assessment that people don't like being around him for long periods of time.

6 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

The gravy train for Ukraine is not actually that much more, and it's not particularly relevant to most states. It's what, 5% of the total military spending budget? What Trump would almost certainly do is propose MORE military spending while also proposing giving nothing of it to Ukraine. Win-win for him. 

You're conflating helping Ukraine with spending money on our military. The two are not the same, and no where am I suggesting or even insinuating that Trump is going to cut military spending. 

Well, I suppose it's good you understand military spending is never going down and recognize the difference between the NDAA, appropriations, and the Ukraine budget.  So, that's progress.  Still doesn't change the fact you are wrong.  Republican leadership in the Senate will be adamantly against any appropriations that doesn't include funding for Ukraine -- no matter who is president in 2025.  This is abundantly clear if you just look up the views of McConnell, Thune, Barrasso, Ernst, and Moore Capito.  

Again, do you think these people are magically going to go away or that the GOP nominee will Green Lantern them into understanding their side?  Because either one is fantasy.  The reality is they are not going to change their positions and, well, most of them aren't going to go away by 2025 (it's quite possible some of them may die -- here's hoping!).

14 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

And yet you keep doing it. Every time anyone brings up negative predictions based on prior experience you go immediately to the 'economy is fundamentally sound' arguments. 

No, I really don't.  I suppose you may think that, because your argument is always chicken little.  So, in that case, what else do I have to argue with?  Often times, I don't respond to the negative argument because I agree with it.  Other times, I actually express the negative argument.  If you weren't so predictable, you'd see this.

[DMC]

45 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Never ever change, New Yorkers:

Feel like it should be clarified that video was from last fall.  It was pretty cool.

[Zorral]

NYers haven't changed their perspective since then either.

53 minutes ago, DMC said:

that video was from last fall.  It was pretty cool.

 

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

On NATO and Trump damaging it. First there was several clandestine meetings and convos with Putin around the same time that he stated repeatedly wanting to leave it. Fortunately we had people like Bolton to save us...ugh. Do you think that'll happen next time?

While he was there, he also questioned our alliance and troop commitments with South Korea and Japan, got out of the Paris agreement, got out of the Asia trade agreement, and withdrew troops from Syria without consulting a single other person.

Now it's worth pointing out that this is a place that congress might actually try to block leaving NATO and might even be successful given that the NATO treaties are wedded into actual US legislation. But Trump still has full control over military response - even with obligation to NATO treaty holdings - and can simply choose to not do a damn thing. Would he? This is a guy who led an insurrection attempt against his own vice president and which most members of congress very much opposed. 

As to the actual actions Trump took? Let's start with WaPo. Under Trump direct spending for NATO via underwriting by the US actually went down to match what Germany does. AWACS also took a hit compared to Biden, though it wasn't very much. Trump withdrew 12000 troops stationed in Germany, though Biden reversed this. Trump didn't want to provide Ukraine with Javelins and when he did forced them to only be stored in Western Ukraine and NOT be used in Donbas. He put a hold on the funding to Ukraine for months until he was forced to change - after 3 months had passed. 

Then we have foreign policy. He withdrew from the INF nuclear treaty and the Open Skies treaty. 

So yeah, it could have been worse, and were it not for both Trump's cabinet and NATO leadership NATO itself probably would have died. But that doesn't make it particularly the case that Trump didn't really want to, and it's very clear that Trump himself doesn't care that much about congressional pushback. 

Hey Kal.  Honestly didn't see this earlier.  As to not responding to it though...as the kids say, sorry not sorry.

You say a lot words here, but don't actually demonstrate anything.  The fact is funding for NATO went up during Trump's presidency - both in terms of US contributions and overall expenditures from 2017 to 2021 - see Graph 5, page 4.  Trump was - shocker - entirely ineffectual in changing the status quo and the dominance of the MIC. 

Can you give me any substantive reason to think Trump would in any way change that status quo?  Because it's demonstrably clear it didn't happen in his first presidency, so why should we have any reason to think it'd happen in a potential second?

[DMC]

And BTW, stop mentioning the Paris Accords, or TPP, or the Iran deal as "evidence."  OF COURSE Trump ditched all of those things -- because he could.  Comparing them to NATO is a laughable misunderstanding of how international agreements work in the US since WWII. 

NATO is an Article II Treaty.  It's been approved by the Senate.  All of its members have been approved by the Senate.  Just last August, the Senate approved the membership of Finland and Sweden into NATO 95 to 1.  

Alternatively, the Paris Accords, Obama's Iran deal, the TPP - these were all "executive agreements."  In that way, just like an EO, one president can abolish what his predecessors did.  It was no surprise Trump did so to anyone that actually understands the difference.  Your conflation here clearly reveals you are talking out of your ass.

[Kalbear]

Okay, cool. We have established we agree that Trump will do things because he can, regardless of pushback from his legislation.

So - can Trump ignore article 5 obligations as commander in chief? Can he withdraw all us presence from Europe? 

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

So - can Trump ignore article 5 obligations as commander in chief? Can he withdraw all us presence from Europe? 

Can a president ignore Article 5?  Theoretically, yes, of course a president "can".  A president can theoretically do a lot of things then wait for the courts to see if it's cool or not....and then, maybe, just ignore the courts.  That's the danger of the presidential system.  I've never denied that -- in fact I've emphasized that difference.  Here and otherwise.  It annoys me you act as if I haven't.  

My point is that just because a president CAN do something doesn't mean he WILL.  And we have already seen what Trump will and will not do.  Would he go more extreme than he did in his first term?  Probably, sure. 

But Eeyore - I mean Kal - you consistently and conveniently ignore all the limits McConnell put on him during his first term.  And fuck, not even just McConnell.  @Fez weirdly mentioned the attempted ACA repeal the other day somehow as evidence as the GOP rallying behind Trump.  When in actuality it was something they were trying to do for EIGHT FUCKING YEARS, and failed.

Trump eats dick as a president.  That's an objective statement.  Only thing he got through with unified government his first two years was tax cuts.  EVERY Republican gets tax cuts through.  But his effort made him even more unpopular.  Like, how does that even happen?  Dude couldn't even sell tax cuts.

That was quite the tangent.  Anyway, yes, can you chicken little about the power the presidency --> Of fucking course!  Am I worried about Trump or DeSantis or whomever activating Article 5 of the NATO Treaty because Kal read about it on social media or some leftist blog?  Of course fucking not.

[mcbigski]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

 Republican leadership in the Senate will be adamantly against any appropriations that doesn't include funding for Ukraine -- no matter who is president in 2025.  This is abundantly clear if you just look up the views of McConnell, Thune, Barrasso, Ernst, and Moore Capito.  

Again, do you think these people are magically going to go away or that the GOP nominee will Green Lantern them into understanding their side?  Because either one is fantasy.  The reality is they are not going to change their positions and, well, most of them aren't going to go away by 2025 (it's quite possible some of them may die -- here's hoping!).

I should probably just stand back and watch you and Kal go at it, but it really sounds like we're at least narrowly on the same page here on some level.  I don't think you'd exactly phrase it as corrupted uniparty profiteers are going to keep funding war because graft is more profitable for them than general prosperity, but that's how I see it.

[DMC]

Just now, mcbigski said:

I don't think you'd exactly phrase it as corrupted uniparty profiteers are going to keep funding war because graft is more profitable for them than general prosperity, but that's how I see it.

The military industrial complex is - literally - what is in all of your American Government textbooks when we have to teach about the influence of interest groups and, subsequently, "Iron Triangles."  Over the last decade-plus I've taught, pretty sure, six different textbooks, and every single damn one uses it as the example.  The relationship between the DOD, the Armed Services committees, and defense contractors is one of the most enduring and reliable aspects of American politics since the beginning of the Cold War. 

And yes, it's "uniparty" - this is one time your whining about the "establishment" is actually entirely accurate.  Additionally - this attempted ban on TikTok looks like it will divide partisan lines in a similar fashion.  New days!

[Fragile Bird]

Speaking of TikTok, what do people think about the moves made against it so far? Ever since the Biden administration ordered the app deleted off government issued cell phones, countries around the world have followed suit. Will it be banned in the US? Trump talked big but nothing really happened.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Will it be banned in the US? Trump talked big but nothing really happened.

There is very strong bipartisan support to "ban" TikTok.  Although the federal government is too technologically inept to write a bill that would ban it.  It just wouldn't be available on major companies' apps.

Anyway, what I was mentioning in the above post is there's opposition rising on both the left and right against a ban.  You got Rand Paul and AOC agreeing with each other. 

More importantly, young people DO NOT like it.  Mentioning this to my students a few weeks ago was the first time they actually woke up.  This week I used making fun of incels, but I'll need this again.

[Kalbear]

I'll be brief here, but my contention has never been that the military will be reduced in funding. As we have shown for a while we do not need an active war to justify any defense spending, even when the military itself says it doesn't need it. Ukraine ain't an excuse for large amounts of funding. Trump would argue that money should go to mcbigski to enforce whatever local pogroms he wants to do, but he wouldn't be reducing it. He'd just be telling Ukrainians to get fucked while.ordering bombings of immigrant caravans.

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

Trump would argue that money should go to mcbigski to enforce whatever local pogroms he wants to do, but he wouldn't be reducing it. He'd just be telling Ukrainians to get fucked while.ordering bombings of immigrant caravans.

Well, wouldn't go that far, but sure, maybe that is what Trump would argue.  And then we get to the actual appropriations. 

Biden continues to argue for decreased defense spending.  It was one of his main campaign promises!  But he's miraculously failed in that regard.  What presidents argue and what actually happens are often very different things.  Especially when it comes to defense appropriations.  I was joking around earlier, but it seems you really do need to take POS 2041.  Again?

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Speaking of TikTok, what do people think about the moves made against it so far? Ever since the Biden administration ordered the app deleted off government issued cell phones, countries around the world have followed suit. Will it be banned in the US? Trump talked big but nothing really happened.

Call in the mods and BAN IT 

Be strong. The kids will forget about it in a month. Literally. Their brains don't work so good no more. 

Get them back on Twitter. Nice, barely working, American owned Twitter. (Elon is American right? I don't care). Or the meta or whatever that sociopath is building under the sea... or is that Google? Whatever. 

My social media policy boils down to: 

If anyone is going to be puppeteering the massive mass of asses in America then goddammit it better be an American! 

These platforms are not your friends. Letting countries who aren't your friends use them to control the information your children see is... um, stupid. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Didnt get to the last few pages of the last thread so apologies if this was poted earlier-

Its being reported tonight that at least one of the purported 34 counts Trump will face is a Felony.
 
 Trump facing at least one felony charge in Stormy Daniels hush money case 
 
https://nypost.com/2023/03/31/trump-charged-with-at-least-one-felony-in-stormy-daniels-case?utm_source=drive&utm_campaign=android_nyp
 

[ThinkerX]

I don't see Trump winning the 2024 GOP nomination, let alone the primary. He'll run, but it will all be a scam...and even some of his supporters will realize it.

[polishgenius]

13 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Didnt get to the last few pages of the last thread so apologies if this was poted earlier-

Its being reported tonight that at least one of the purported 34 counts Trump will face is a Felony.
 
 Trump facing at least one felony charge in Stormy Daniels hush money case 
 
https://nypost.com/2023/03/31/trump-charged-with-at-least-one-felony-in-stormy-daniels-case?utm_source=drive&utm_campaign=android_nyp
 

Saw some speculation that he might have tried to file the payoff as tax-deductible or whatever. I dunno how credible that is but I do hope it's true.

[Larry of the Lawn]

The Trump charges probably are weak as hell but just getting him through a trial should be interesting.  Do we really think he can get through a trial without trying to bribe or intimidate a witness, or jury tampering?