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Peter Thiel Is Joining Donald Trump's Transition Team (theverge.com)
Peter Thiel's time spent campaigning for Donald Trump during the election season has paid off. According to a statement released today, Donald Trump has named Thiel to the executive committee of his presidential transition team. The Verge reports: Thiel, who donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign late in the election cycle, mostly stood alone among colleagues in his support for Trump, who was publicly disdained in the Valley. Thiel's support came at a cost to businesses like startup accelerator Y Combinator, which soon attracted negative publicity for having Thiel as a part-time adviser. Thiel also brought criticism to Facebook, where he is a board member, although Mark Zuckerberg defended his place at the company. Thiel further angered First Amendment supporters by bankrolling the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that brought down Gawker. Thiel said before the election that he would find some way of working with the Trump administration, and although his final role is unclear, his appointment to Trump's executive committee signals the relationship will indeed continue.
Good. I want the Republicans to go all in: have Roe v. Wade overturned, ban abortion, eliminate the fillibuster, repeal the ACA, lower taxes on the top earners while shifting the tax burdern to the lower and middle classes, have gay marriage overturned, everything. Make things as painful as possible for as many people as possible. Most people, it seems, only respond to pain; make them feel it.
Once burned twice shy, we can only hope the voters learn from experience. Trump appears to make things up as he goes along, in a job that requires planning, due diligence, and attention to detail. I expect he'll dig a very large hole to bury the Republicans in. I really hope this doesn't happen, as that really big hole will likely have plenty of room for mass graves of the innocent as well. He doesn't need to hit the "Big Red Button" to kill people, his conventional military forces are fully able to kill a hundred thousand humans a month.
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "Give Trump a chance", and "let's judge him when he gets to office" by people who voted against him, but are practical enough to want a good leader.
However, this seems to be a pattern with Trump - using donors or people who already agree with him in key positions and advisors. His economic team consists of big donors, and discredited hacks like Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow (this is non-partisan; even economic advisors of previous republicans presidents don't agree with Moore). He takes an climate-change skeptic (Myron Ebell) to lead the EPA transition.
Yet, I haven't heard a peep from most people who supported Trump about this. The "blue collar" crowd who supported him was about people sick of "Establishment politics", and instead wanted someone "looking out for the working class". Trump's isolationist and trade-war leaning policies, and embrace of supply-side economics have a proven record of hurting workers. Together with clear cronyism (to be fair, this was obvious before the election), I'm surprised that the "blue collar" crowd isn't even slightly upset.
Trump's supporters seem to still be in the post-game high - "Our team won!"; are they going to hold him to his (crazy) campaign promises? Are they going to expect him to loosen libel laws, build a wall, bring back sweatshop factory jobs? A co-worker remarked "Trump's victory speech was a step towards healing", instead of realizing that the stirred up crazy is still out there; he doesn't get credit for not being as crazy enough to follow through on his campaign promises.
My sister similarly has major health issues and relies on a number of provisions of Obamacare in order to stay alive. Losing insurance for her would be a death sentence. Several provisions of Obamacare are helping to keep her alive and a productive member of society:
- Nobody can be turned away due to pre-existing conditions.
- All medications must be covered (minus deductible) though some may require petitioning.
- No lifetime limits on care
As it is, my family has to help subsidize her care since the monthly deductible on one of her medications is $500/month and she's on a teacher's salary that doesn't pay a lot. Without insurance her medication jumps to $5000/month.
My mother also at one time had to have a procedure similar to an abortion when the fetus died and had to be extracted. If they're so anti-abortion, why not work on ways to make it much less needed by offering more birth control and pre-natal healthcare to women? To me it just seems that they want to make women second-class citizens by legislating their bodies rather than help make it so the procedure is needed far less. People like Pence also seem to go out of their way to make it harder for wanted children by fighting against programs like CHIP.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Remind me who were the ones screaming people down with accusations of "racist, misogynist, nazi, hitler",
True - as one of the people who feared the election of Trump as a very bad thing indeed, I have to admit that people on my side did tend to do that, and that was wrong.
The marxists that make up today's left-wing movement absolutely despise the American system and the constitution. They detest free speech and free elections and would just prefer to use government force to cram their ideals down everyone else's throats. They are always demanding more and more power be given to the federal government, not caring about the abuses of power it results in, because they believe it will be THEIR power to use against their opponents. With their loss of this election, they are are slowly realising why such power is not to be granted. Their opponents now wield this power, and they are terrified of it being used against themselves.
- but as this illustrates, your side engage in exactly the same tactics. And that is why American politics is broken: there is no honest and open-minded debate to be found, at least not in public. It is tempting to point the finger at lack of education or blinkered religion, both of which probably contribute, in some way, but I have met people who were both illiterate and deeply religious, but still managed to teach me a thing or two about open-mindedness and being willing to listen.
I don't know the solution - I don't think any of you guys do either - but I think it is very likely that the way to the future, from where we are now, can go two ways: either towards ever deeper conflict between two almost exact halves of the population, perhaps ending in civil war, or people can decide that they have to start reaching out to their "enemies" and seek compromise and understanding. There is still time to make the better choice, but the longer you continue down the path of division, the harder will it be to heal the wounds.
So, why don't we start the process here and now? It isn't really all that hard - it is of course necessary to state your viewpoints and your grievances, but it is also your duty to be willing to listen to the other side and try to take on board some of it. Let me give you an example: I think the Trump is an absolutely appalling twit - based on the way he appears to insult without thinking, and apparently lies without shame and so on. This is my subjective view of him, and I may be wrong. I absolutely understand and accept the anger that is felt by his supporters; they happen to be mostly male, white and working class, but the gross indecency of the ever growing inequality in the US is unversal and hurts all except the few that richer - one of whom happens to be Trump, by the way. So, there you have it - it may only be a small, symbolic gesture by one individual, but that is all any of us have to give, and it is genuine; I really do want the situation to improve, and I really am willing to give Trump the chance to prove himself, but it won't matter unless everybody else is willing to do the same.
The debate on abortion in the US is legally messy. There's one faction that campaigns for abortion on demand without restriction, one side that campaigns for a total ban with maybe the narrowist exception to save life. The majority of people don't actually support either position, but because of the importance of the Roe case it's not possible to campaign for a compromise: The pro-choice faction needs to defend Roe at all costs, and they know that if they lose it the pro-life faction will sieze the chance to rush straight to the opposite extreme in many states. There is no possibility for anything in between.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/...
Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, first made her self-described "confession" in a Washington Post column on Thursday. Since it published, she told Costello, she has received a torrent of abuse on social media. It's a symptom, Nomani insisted, of an increasingly hostile "liberal honor brigade."
And that is what the left doesn't understand... and it is one of the reasons Clinton lost...
Liberals, self-proclaimed "tolerant" people, attack anyone who doesn't hold their values.