Slashdot Mirror
Trump Nominates Lawyer To Lead FBI (bbc.com)
President Donald Trump announced via Twitter on Wednesday that he has chosen a new FBI director. Trump says he's nominating Christopher A. Wray for the position. He described Wray as "a man of impeccable credentials." From a report: Donald Trump says he is nominating lawyer Christopher A Wray who served under George W Bush. Wray more recently represented the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, during the investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane-closing case, in which two of Christie's former aides were convicted of plotting to close lanes of the bridge to punish a Democratic mayor who wouldn't endorse the governor. Christie, who has informally advised the president, was not charged in the case.
Wray would succeed James Comey, whom Trump fired last month amid mounting scrutiny of ties between his campaign and Russia. The announcement comes a day ahead of Comey's scheduled appearance before the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday where he is expected to touch on his firing and claims that Trump asked him to soft-pedal the investigation into former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Wray would succeed James Comey, whom Trump fired last month amid mounting scrutiny of ties between his campaign and Russia. The announcement comes a day ahead of Comey's scheduled appearance before the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday where he is expected to touch on his firing and claims that Trump asked him to soft-pedal the investigation into former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.
I can't be bothered doing a background check on this guy, someone tell me why he's a knob and should be hanged.
"mounting scrutiny of ties between his campaign and Russia."
Reminder, no such ties have been shown to actually exist.
Posting as AC because the last time I went against the Conspiracy Theories someone decided to call my boss and claim I was destroying America.
Ehmm? There are plenty of evidence and the administration have even acknowledged it and fired the people. What open is whether Trump was aware of it, or if it was only his most trusted and most prominent leaders of his campaign that colluded with the Russians.
...was being fired by Trump.
Before being fired: OMG COMEY CONSPIRED WITH TRUMP TO KILL HILLARY'S PRESIDENCY!!
After being fired: COMEY IS A BEING OF PURE ENERGY FROM A HIGHER PLANE OF EXISTENCE WHO CAME HERE TO BRING US PEACE AND LOVE.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Name these people, please.
See that "Preview" button?
Couldn't you be bothered to write an actual summary?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
"mounting scrutiny of ties between his campaign and Russia."
Reminder, no such ties have been shown to actually exist.
Posting as AC because the last time I went against the Conspiracy Theories someone decided to call my boss and claim I was destroying America.
Ehmm? There are plenty of evidence and the administration have even acknowledged it and fired the people. What open is whether Trump was aware of it, or if it was only his most trusted and most prominent leaders of his campaign that colluded with the Russians.
"Contacts" are not evidence of collusion.
And why was Obama so damn wrong about Russia, anyway? Are "progressives" really pining for a return to Ronald Reagan's treatment of the "Evil Empire"?
Jeff session was part of the trump campaign and used trump campaign finances to meet with the russian ambassador, then lied about it under oath, and on government documents.
Manford had russian connections and ran the trump campaign.
Kushner met with the same russian ambassador several times while working on the campaign and doesn't have access to Jeff sessions excuse that he was doing it as a representative of the senate and used the wrong bank account (and no other senator on the same committees he is on has ever had to meet with the russian ambassador or knows why sessions would be meeting with the russian ambassador...).
Trump himself asked russia to locate emails from hillary clinton's servers on public broadcast television.
The ties have been proven. The legality of the ties are in question.
Please consider using reality as a measuring stick of what is true and what is false in the future this fantasy world you are living in with Mr Trump isn't going to change what the investigations that are happening in reality find.
I see. Do you mind providing a citation to the actual evidence, or do you only have here say?
"Well, I don't have Comey's memo, but someone called me who said they were Comey's friend, and he read the doc to me over the phone." Right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections#Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials
Name these people, please.
Flynn, for starters.
Look, I think Trump has a chance to drive some good change for our country. Please note that I thought the same of Obama, based on some of his campaign promises, but was sadly disappointed (I am not holding my breath for Trump). What remains to be seen is whether Trump will actually succeed in that, or whether he will go the route of Obama: expend all his political capital on a single issue, lose the advantage of both House and Senate majorities of the same political party as a result (given the disenchantment of lots of conservatives with lack of progress, this could happen), discard 99% of his campaign promises (Trump already seems headed down this particular path), and then spend the remainder of his time in office trying to shore up the one single accomplishment and then praying his successor doesn't undo it.
That said, pretending that the Trump administration doesn't have serious problems at this point doesn't help anyone: Trump, the administration, or the American people.
Flynn, for one.
I have had liberals threaten to shoot me here on /., and then threaten to sue me because they were so distraught for threatening to shoot me.
Glad I always post AC, I could easily believe they would call your work if they could track you down.
Now I see why they badger people for posting AC. They want a way to track you down and ruin your life. Sad.
Reminder, no such ties have been shown to actually exist.
More than that, Clinton had proven ties with Russia during her campaign. More than that, we should be friends with the only other nuclear power capable of giving us a run for our money. More than that, the whole "Russian ties" nonsense is deepstate/MSM propaganda, glad to see Comey out.
Name these people, please.
About 3 seconds of googling found this: http://www.politico.com/magazi...
Make America break again
Flynn wasn't a member of his campaign, he was someone Trump brought in at the bequest of the globalist RINOs in Washington to get them to stop with the #nevertrump nonsense.
He knows many words.
Hillary had more ties to Russia than anyone on Trump's staff
Wikipedia? Not a reliable source. Hell even Wikipedia themselves admit that.
Off the top of my head... Kushner, Sessions, Flynn, (maybe) Manafort.
There are others of course... but those are the biggies, so far.
Sessions lied about it under oath and on government documents... perjury is criminal.
Flynn had connections he lied about, and committed tax fraud to hide the money, criminal.
Kushner tried to setup backchannels to avoid having the US intelligence agencies listen in to what was being said, which might not be criminal in and of itself, but it leads to a significant amount of questions when you are trying to hide something from the people who are policing you.
Manafort of course was under investigation for money he received from russia...
So two clearly criminal cases to be made, and two where an investigation is ongoing, and we don't know what all evidence there is, yet.
Trump already seems headed down this particular path
He really doesn't, provided you realize his campaign promises were far more than, "BUILD ERR WALL" and "SPOOPY BROWN PPL".
Still, like most presidents, I'm not holding my breath on a good ratio of promises kept. Candidates tend to write a lot of checks their asses have absolutely no authority to cash.
I can't wait until I wake up and read the news that this fucktard was assassinated. Then we need to learn from our mistakes and not elect a blatant liar and con artist again.
Name these people, please.
Flynn, for starters.
Those sound like facts. You're going to have to do better than that here,
Served in the Bush administration
Posting as AC because the last time I went against the Conspiracy Theories someone decided to call my boss and claim I was destroying America.
Right back at you, conspiracy theory.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This is why the media gave him so much free press- they knew that a Trump presidency would be endless source of click-bait fodder. Hillary not so much....
love is just extroverted narcissism
"This man has served for many years, he's a general, he's a â" in my opinion â" a very good person. I believe that it would be very unfair to hear from somebody who we don't even know and immediately run out and fire a general."
- guess who
Also, it seems like Sessions offered Trump his resignation right before the overseas trip and he refused it: http://www.politico.com/story/...
All I think is he served the worst president of all time(GW) and possibly played a hand in bringing us the patriot act among other privacy removing laws brought in through secret courts and other BS.
I had hopes for Trump, but he just seems to be serving the billionaires club.
You'll be lucky if he even makes it to 2020 with the amount of people he's pissed off.
And even if he does, he's been such a colossal fuck up that the Republicans might do something crazy and break with tradition by nominating a new candidate. As far as I know, nothing is forcing them to put Trump up for nomination, and choosing him as a candidate is almost a sure loss unless he really pulls his head out of his ass anytime soon.
Trump has no political capital worth mentioning. If anything he tries succeeds, it's because it's coincidentally what those around him want, not because he's making it happen by cleverness or force of personality. This is not business as usual, where Trump can just move on to the next deal if he fails.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Partisan hack for FBI after Comey I can never trust them again.
Name one.
Different AC here. Your reading comprehension skills appear to be lacking.
What do Trump and his father have in common?
Both have bad judgement when it comes to pulling out.
He described Wray as "a man of impeccable credentials.
Translation: "He is loyal to Trump"
By the time of the election Flynn was (and still is) hated by the Washington establishment, I can't even begin to imagine why you'd suggest otherwise. As far as his involvement in Trump's campaign goes, he may or may not have been involved organizationally, but he was absolutely a top supporter of Trump and at one point was being seriously considered as Trump's VP pick. He made numerous appearances for Trump at Trump's campaign rallies.
The implication he was somehow forced on an unwilling Trump is absurd. Trump didn't even want to fire him, and has been defending him in public even after Flynn was gone.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Posting as AC because the last time I went against the Conspiracy Theories someone decided to call my boss and claim I was destroying America.
Did you boss pat you on the back for engaging in political debate? A good boss would have. A better boss would have hashed out some of the issues with you. A boss who gives you a hard time for doing so should be your "old boss".
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Michael Flynn
Paul Manafort
Jeff Sessions
Rex Tillerson
Carter Page
They want their foreign policy back.
- Barack Obama
Ah, the good old "But but but but Hillary" whine. It's not every day you have to tell somebody "you won, get over it"
The common denominators amongst Trump supporters appears to be blindness to any wrongdoing by their God Emperor, an inability to take responsibility for anything at all, ever, and being stuck in an eternal election cycle that has already been and gone.
"mounting scrutiny of ties between his campaign and Russia."
Reminder, no such ties have been shown to actually exist.
Posting as AC because the last time I went against the Conspiracy Theories someone decided to call my boss and claim I was destroying America.
Ehmm? There are plenty of evidence and the administration have even acknowledged it and fired the people. What open is whether Trump was aware of it, or if it was only his most trusted and most prominent leaders of his campaign that colluded with the Russians.
Oh, Trump was aware of the collusion and the Russian election meddling in his favour, he would have to be suffering from a severe case of Altsheimers in order not to be aware of it. The question is: was Trump clever enough to separate himself from the meddling thoroughly enough by acting only through loyal minions that his complicity cannot be conclusively proven? l certainly hope not... and if it is proven he himself had a direct hand in the DNC hack and all the rest of it, it should be fun watching the wingnuts eat crow over supporting and hyping up a guy who is turning out to be an utterly incompetent moron.
At least he has not appointed to his horse.
No but the article links to many reliable sources. That is the whole point of wikipedia.
True, but she didn't do what they said.
The contacts are real and documented. What's being investigated right now if there was any collusion between Russia and the Trump administration.
Don't all of us here talk about hiding things from those same police and that hiding doesn't make us guilty?
Not saying trump and crew aren't - but I don't like that particular argument of yours.
What the fuck are you talking about? Even Obama, of all people, warned Trump against hiring Flynn.
Well, he can always pull a CEO and resign, get his golden parachute, and then move on to trainwreck another company.
Long live the U$A.
Look, I think Trump has a chance to drive some good change for our country.
Nothing Trump has promised to do would be good for the country and quite a bit of his agenda will hurt a lot of people. While you are technically correct that he has a chance to drive good change he has given no indication that the change he wants is actually good. I think your optimism that Trump has any interest in being a positive agent for change is misplaced.
Please note that I thought the same of Obama, based on some of his campaign promises, but was sadly disappointed (I am not holding my breath for Trump).
Why? Trump is working very hard to make good on his (frankly horrifying) campaign promises. What you should hope for is that he fails in his attempts to make good on them. Furthermore pretending Obama and Trump are the chickens of a feather is patently ridiculous. The only thing they have in common is the job title. No president can make good on all their campaign promises. They aren't dictators even though Trump clearly has aspirations to become one.
That said, pretending that the Trump administration doesn't have serious problems at this point doesn't help anyone: Trump, the administration, or the American people.
The Trump administration IS a serious problem in addition to having serious problems.
No shit? It's called "politics," with all the connotations that implies, for a reason. Voicing support for someone in politics doesn't necessarily mean you support them, it can also mean you cut a deal wherein you give someone some political clout in exchange for something (in Flynn's case, the end of the "#nevertrump" meme's support from globalist republicans in washington.)
And why was Obama so damn wrong about Russia, anyway? Are "progressives" really pining for a return to Ronald Reagan's treatment of the "Evil Empire"?
The problem is the special treatment of Russia recently, like they can do no wrong. It's possible to remain on non-hostile terms while calling them out on mistakes and trying to guide them onto a better path, but the recent mass love-in is not just suspicious, it stinks to high heaven.
To highlight this, let's take away the name and let's refer to a hypothetical country X for a moment.
Country X is a nuclear power and an effective dictatorship with political opponents repressed, arrested, beaten or worse. The current ruler has set up a personality cult around himself. Oligarchs control most of the wealth of the country, while the majority of the people starve around them. There's widespread abuse of human rights (with consequences like "you will be killed"), and they have been caught interfering in the affairs of other countries, including but not limited to assassinations. They have a history of attempting to annex surrounding regions.
So what is the problem again? Well, that. If I said X was North Korea, you'd have no problem inviting criticism and sanctions against them. The problem is that X is Russia, and somehow you have been brainwashed into the idea that Russia is now fine, somehow.
If someone had told me 10 years ago that the average Republican voter would be pro-Russian and anti-CIA/FBI, they would have been laughed out of the room. What the hell happened? Wake up.
So: presumably you a now going to urge your congressman/woman to support an investigation of Trump?
I well recall during the campaign (when Clinton's alleged behaviour and alleged ties were still relevant) the multitudes of cries to "lock her up!" Presumably then, those outraged republicans (and yourself) now demand the same for Trump?
To do otherwise would be hypocrisy - wouldn't it?
I'm getting really tired of the "Red Menace" newsreel reruns on the news.
I think it's really telling that Dems couldn't come up with anything better to use against their opponent then a 1950's bogey man.
>Look, I think Trump has a chance to drive some good change for our country. Please note that I thought the same of Obama, based on some of his campaign promises, but was sadly disappointed (I am not holding my breath for Trump).
That's two mistakes right there - relying on politicians. And you've probably repeated the same mistake over the course of your voting lifetime.
I'm a firm believer that if you want to maintain your sanity in an increasingly insane world, steer clear of two things - organized politics and organized religion.
FYI, this was stated *after* he fired him,not before.
No? "All of us" certainly don't. That would be stupid considering this is a public forum, and the police can find out it was you even though the site says "Anonymous Coward". I guess the label is only half right in your case.
Again an idiot who doesn't know how to use Wikipedia. Alt Right == Alt Brain. Only there's no "Brain B".
Again, how is that relevant? Politics are politics.
Liberals don't own guns, silly.
He seems awfully apologetic for a guy supposedly fired for lyring to the Vicepresident.
Also, seriously? Trump, who has no reservations in publicly shitting anyone he doesn't like, consequences be damned, treats his former NSA with kids gloves only because the globalist elite told him so? And lets not forget, Flynn was disliked by pretty much everyone in DC. At one point even Obama told Trump no to hire the guy, for pete's sake.
Oh, remember 'drain the swamp'? Trump is King of the swamp
Look, I think Trump has a chance to drive some good change for our country.
What did he actually "drive"?
There was an uptick in confidence among 50% of the population after the election. That helped something, sure, but:
a) Will it last
b) It wasn't due to anything Trump did.
No sig today...
Manford
*Manafort
At least not without getting something for herself out of it.
Russians didn't make me vote for Trump. The Russians did not make people in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida vote for Trump.
>That's two mistakes right there - relying on politicians.
I thought 'Trump isnt a politician' ?
But the actual problem is the ties with wall street of the one single american party (the republicrats).
I think you're underestimating the Strong Misanthropic Principle that got him elected in the first place.
"Make", possibly not. "Influence", definitely.
Trump does NOTHING without financial compensation from his wall street friends
There are loads of ties between Trump associates and Russia. What isn't clear yet is if any of them are illegal, hence the scrutiny.
Take it in context.
We know trump and company were talking to the russians. We know they performed illegal activity to hide this information (Sessions and Flynn). We know that back channel communications systems were requested.
Clearly something is being covered up... if that is illegal or not, the investigations will have to play out to know.
But there is illegal activity in the cover up, and the fact that there was a request to help a cover up doesn't make any one look any better...
Having a tor browser installed isn't a crime, but when you are caught with 10 lbs of cocaine and shipping labels for people who have recently requested drugs from a dealer on silk road (or whatever the kids use these days) the cocaine is the only illegal part, the rest of it is just supporting evidence.
Hillary was the State Department.
She didn't go behind peoples back to make shady deals, didn't lie about any contacts.
FBI agents must have a law degree. Why is it unusual that the FBI Director might be a lawyer. Is that supposed to be something negative?
Unless it is theft from the government.
Sessions was a Senator on the foreign relations committee. Meeting with Russians was his job.
I thought a lot of people missed this:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-election-exclusive-idUSKBN17L2N3
"A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said."
i.e. the change of plan was to switch to attacking the election, and sure enough Trump switch message:
October 16th Trump: "The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary - but also at many polling places - SAD"
Yet he does try to interfere...
Which is also illegal.
That's one of the problems. The other is using that one problem as an excuse to pretend both parties are interchangeable. There's a hell of a lot more to governing than whether you're pro-megacorp.
Look, I think Trump has a chance to drive some good change for our country.
Nothing Trump has promised to do would be good for the country and quite a bit of his agenda will hurt a lot of people. While you are technically correct that he has a chance to drive good change he has given no indication that the change he wants is actually good. I think your optimism that Trump has any interest in being a positive agent for change is misplaced.
To me, the single most positive change needed in the US is for the public at large to wake up from the lie that either the Democrats or Republicans have their best interests in mind, take action to remove the established politicians, and reform the system at large. Sadly, the only way that is going to happen is if the elected government is so terrible, the electorate is forced to action.
In that vein, there's the possibility Trump could be a driving force for positive change, though as time goes on, I'm not sure even he's terrible enough for the job.
Ok, Mike Flynn (by the way, he is the only person known to be the victim of an actual crime here) had contact with a Russian ambassador, which was pretty much his job definition (Incoming National Security Adviser) at the time.
See that "Preview" button?
Make America Grate Again
Zombie Garcia for FBI Director 2017!
At least he has not appointed to his horse.
He has appointed a number of horses asses though...
Nixon was the only president to ever resign.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I have had liberals threaten to shoot me here on /., and then threaten to sue me because they were so distraught for threatening to shoot me.
Glad I always post AC, I could easily believe they would call your work if they could track you down.
Now I see why they badger people for posting AC. They want a way to track you down and ruin your life. Sad.
You take the Internet way too seriously.
i see a bunch of people have replied but of the couple dozen or so that I read none seem to have pointed out the obvious. There is mounting SCRUTINY, not mounting evidence. It is a fact that the investigation has been ramped up, regardless of whether they find anything or not.
did they influence ballot machines?
Don't be so sure. I was under the impression that nominating him last year was a guaranteed way to lose.
I completely underestimated how terrible of a candidate the DNC would choose.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
/. is loosing touch with what people wants!
People aren't buying the Russia! Russia! Russia! hoax. The troll campaign seems to have backfired.
Hillary is the one that illegally had top secret information stored on a personal server. I'm pretty sure she influenced a lot of people to vote for Trump.
We know for sure that the investigation is happening: this is objective fact, not a hypothesis or paranoid delusion. There's smoke and people are looking for fire. Perhaps mistakenly.
And the investigation is why he fired Comey.
You're right that Trump hasn't been caught in a crime yet, but he has already made powerful efforts to cover up whatever did happen. (And if fire is found, then the Comey thing turns into obstruction of justice.) But maybe there's no fire, maybe you're right.
What do you think happened? And then, after you've answered that, why do you think such an innocent, legal act by the president was worth such a high-profile, high-risk move of firing the person who was investigating this totally innocent and legal act?
FBI agents are cops. They do not need to have law degrees, and very usually do not.
The fact that third parties still only got about 5% of the vote is a really bad sign. The Rs&Ds had their worst candidates in living memory, and people still voted zealously (95%!) for them.
Even when America pretends to be angry and disappointed, it gets on its knees to suck off its top two enemies. You're right: he's not bad enough. Nobody can ever be bad enough. We want R&D dicks in our mouths, and we'll pay any price to get them. If Hitler and Stalin are resurrected and run for president, we'll vote against them, but if you put R and D next to their names, then our next president would definitely be Hitler or Stalin. Nobody is bad enough, as long as they have the required R or D seal of approval. Then we must have them as our president, no matter what.
Trump and Clinton voters, you are the problem. You had one job to do, and you failed spectacularly. Fuck you all. KYS. I want to hear stories of mass suicides. Leave this as your note: "I voted Republicrat AGAIN, knowing that it was wrong. What was a I thinking?! There's only one way for America to get better, and that's for voters like me to leave it. Good bye and good luck, America!"
The people Trump is pissing off is an indicator of his success. Deeply embedded insiders can never understand this. So they need to be simply scrubbed out and replaced. It's a big job, but we are up for it.
This is why the media gave him so much free press- they knew that a Trump presidency would be endless source of click-bait fodder.
Were they thinking that far ahead? They usually just print whatever people will read. Or, these days, play whatever people will watch. Everyone knows Trump supporters can't read. (Trump voters, on the other hand, were wealthier than Clinton voters, so presumably their reading skills are up to snuff as they can afford education.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I completely underestimated how terrible of a candidate the DNC would choose.
Yep. When it became clear that the populace supported Sanders, then it seemed like Trump would lose. But when the DNC made it clear that they weren't going to let us have Sanders, then it seemed like Trump could win. And then he did.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Got bigger ever since Trump was elected. The only thing he changed is the size of the Gators swimming in it. They went from large to YUuUUuGE.
Nothing Trump has promised to do would be good for the country and quite a bit of his agenda will hurt a lot of people.
Everybody thinks in terms of trickle-down economics, and so believes moving the average price of pants from $15 to $150 would be good for America if Americans were making pants instead of importing them from China.
They don't understand that then Americans in total would have less capacity to buy things, because they don't grasp that a potential 178,000 jobs in making pants (in this example) is trivial compared to the 125,000,000 employed: they think adding 0.14% more jobs by making everyone else poorer "keeps the money in America", and equate money to wealth. Too bad the same money doesn't buy so much, meaning...
They don't understand that those lost purchases mean fewer potential jobs. You might get +106,000 instead of +178,000, with low enough American wages in the factories. That's a best-case scenario of paying the American factory workers as little as possible--minimum wage, minimum benefits. You lose purchasing ability in the form of, at minimum-wage salaries, 40% as many pants sold.
With that 40% loss in pants shipped and retailed, you lose jobs. A truck carries 20,000 pairs in a 40-foot shipping container (large trailer). 192.6 million pairs imported, now Americans make and buy 115.6 million, that's 77 million fewer pairs, 3,851 fewer truck shipments per year. 981 register scans per hour by a retail worker, 77 million fewer items sold, no longer need ~78,526 retail workers.
There's additional loss in logistics, stocking, and some other stuff. The reduction in items sold is enough to close a couple stores, technically, although you'd only eliminate at best 2,000-3,000 employees in total through that route. The cost of shipping also includes things like truck tires, fuel, and maintenance, and the demand for those goods goes down when we can't afford as many goods (the prices of which already include those costs): a couple mechanics, Goodyear factory workers, and the like lose their jobs. Nothing major, like the huge bomb dropped on retail.
Call it 80,000 jobs. You can create 106,000 minimum-wage factory jobs and eliminate 80,000 other jobs by manufacturing pants in America instead of China. That assumes that the only cost in running the factory is the factory workers; you create fewer jobs and lose more jobs when you also factor in the cost of organization (managers, etc.), equipment, buildings, fuel and electricity, and so forth, all of which exceed the respective costs in the Chinese manufacturing theater.
At the same time, those minimum-wage workers produce pants which cost ~66% more. For a minimum-wage retail worker, a $15 pair of pants costs 1.8 hours of labor; for the minimum-wage factory worker, the $25 pair of pants costs 3 hours of labor. They have to work 1.2 hours longer to draw the wages to produce them.
The cost by number of hours worked to earn the wages to buy the product gets larger if we raise the factory-worker's wage; the number of jobs created shrinks; and the number of jobs lost elsewhere increases. You quickly go from ~26,000 new jobs and 300,000,000 poorer Americans to a direct loss of jobs and even poorer Americans when any of the involved costs increase.
See how many steps you have to work through to get that far? All people see is, "Well, factory workers! Jobs! New jobs!" and "Oh, well, pay the factory workers more and they won't be so poor!" Never mind that paying them more will actually make it harder for them to afford the products they're making--it'll let them afford more Chinese import products, though.
Best part: the end result of a gain or loss in jobs--in employment rate, really--is an adjustment of the labor force to either consume the available additional jobs or reduce the number of job-seekers. In other words: short- and long-term changes keep us around a certain stable employment rate (it's ~5% in
Support my political activism on Patreon.
So Trump can be gracious at times, and it counfounds you. Did you have anything important to say?
James Comey is also a Lawyer, who practiced Law and worked for the DOJ prior to heading the FBI. Prior to Comey, we had Robert Mueller who was also a Lawyer and also worked for the DOJ. Pickard who served a whole 71 days was not an attorney, but prior to him Louis Freeh was.. can you guess? An Attorney.
In fact, why not run through the list and see how many FBI directors were of all things, a "Lawyer". The only reason for this thread to make it to the front page is for clickbait and post count. It is not a "story", and not "news"
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Stop buying every narrative the media hands you! Stop focusing on the narratives they hand you!
Ever think that Trump-Russia-Gate may be a distraction by keeping us bickering so that we miss the forest for the trees!
Wake Up!!!
Nothing Trump has promised to do would be good for the country and quite a bit of his agenda will hurt a lot of people.
Well, that of course is your opinion. Reigning in the federal government, both in terms of power and size, is something a lot of us want to see, along with fiscal responsibility. Trump at least promised those kinds of things, and we all know Clinton couldn't care less about changing the status quo in those areas. The "America first" concept also has merit in this day and age, as it sure seems our government is throwing billions of dollars every which way globally, to prop up and otherwise fund any number of governments and organizations. I'm not saying that isn't necessary or in our best interests, but it surely seems excessive at first glance.
Better known as 318230.
Also Manafort, Kushner, and Sessions. Maybe Carter Page and Roger Stone, too? I can't remember. Actually, far from being unable to name people, it's getting hard to keep track of all the people from the Trump campaign who have been caught lying about some kind of suspicious dealings with Russia.
Not me. It seems to confound the parent poster which believes Flynn was somehow imposed to Trump.
My point is Trump likes Flynn and wouldn't have fired him if it weren't for public pressure after his Russian ties were published.
Similarly, Obama's Nobel Prize was not for anything he had done. I am certain that the people given hope by Trump's potential are terrifying to the political elite. Thus the shrieking that we witness daily. Which is hopefully the indication of a fever breaking.
I'm not sure what those critters will do when they've been tossed out. I suppose there is always a role for used car salesman and telephone sanitizers. Can we load them on the ship?
All the campaigns had contact with the Russians. Even Stein, though why the Ruskys bothered is beyond me.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
People talk about the deep state but don't understand what it really is. The real challenge for the deep state is to convince the people that US democracy actually works. This is why despite knowing that Russia hacked the US election and made Trump the victor, they will not admit it. Imagine all the chaos that would ensue if the truth came out? How could the government demand an elected president step down because of fraud? Who would trust the US election system again? How much power would the US acknowledge Russia has and how would Russia react if it's actions were confirmed to have an impact? How would those that support the president react if their president was removed for foreign hacking? You sheep are too blind and naive to realize what is really going on. Anyone with sense can see Trump is a Russian Patsy. The deep state government is struggling at what to do about it. It can try to let it ride but that is allowing Russia more control of the US. This is also why the Russia propaganda bits continue to swarm. The US is tasting the same propaganda tactics it used during Obama's campaign in the middle East to spark the Arab spring. US citizens are falling for the divide and conquer strategy in droves - either join the socialists or the Nazi fascists. The center is collapsing. Russia is winning. Fools.
The investigation should prove interesting. And if it ends up revealing a DNC insider was involved it might even prove delicious. Flamethrowing pundits is refreshing to witness.
After the servers were down and Hillary had stonewalled on providing the data to the FBI.
I don't care who has the emails. They should post them for the world to read.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Again, i'm not arguing against this. Just trying to explain that believing Flynn was imposed on Trump is, at best, naive. He likes him.
"Yeah, because it is totally inconceivable that a person is good, and yet lied about something innocuous (or even forgettable) like having a conversation.". You should raise that point to the current administration. They didn't give him the benefit of the doubt.
That screeching sound of metal scraping metal as the frame of the structure collapses. It's discordian but some of us enjoy discordian music. Varese, Schoenberg, even Throbbing Gristle.
Democrat queuing theory...No. First we investigate/imprison Hillary. We'll get to Trump after he is out of office and there's a chance of doing a real investigation.
Any Trump investigation under his administration would be just as much a bad joke as investigations of Hillary under Obama were.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"You don't want a criminal _lawyer_... you want a _criminal_ lawyer."
- Jessie Pinkman
Scarce, scared, scarred, sacred... -Col. Bruce Hampton
No, it wasn't "his job". No one on the foreign relations committee meets with ambassadors. No one in the history of the foreign relations committee has met with the Russians in their role as committee members. (That could very well be considered treason!)
You bought a great big line of bullshit.
Members of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations are not ambassadors. They deal with legislation related to foreign policy, confirmation of high-ranking state department officials, and funding foreign-aid.
They own them now, they don't know how to shoot them though.
Checkout the Antifa gun-club video. They are shooting rifles at about 25 feet and are kicking up dust 20 feet from the target. Gonna shoot each other.
If it 'goes to guns', the liberals will get slaughtered. They better form a plan B.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Says the AC that's been wrong about Trump for two years running.
Investigations are good. They vent out the gasses that otherwise inflate conspiracy theories. When everything is known, and complicity has been disproven, a whole lot of people can shut the fuck up.
They won't, of course, but we can dream.
There is a difference between honest debate and debating a rock.
Arguing with most liberals and all antifa/reds is debating a rock.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I don't think he really made that separation strong enough for US politics. It's probably good enough for "corporate America", ie the world where he was actually the "boss" and could operate with complete authority and with zero transparency. But he's operating in an entirely different situation now. In the business world, if he said "the sky is green" people would always agree. He could issue edicts, demand whatever, do shifty deals, firm whomever. Yet he's not operating in that world now. The corporate world doesn't have "special FBI prosecutors", Congressional oversight committees, etc.
>Trump's potential are terrifying to the political elite.
LOL. Oh, you actuallly believe trump hasnt been bought by the swamp ? let me laugh even louder : HAHAHAHAHAH !!!
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Some of us work for bosses who are plain nuts. I like Trump being President, but I work for a boss who is a right wing jackass nut. It's best to just not bring up politics at work.
I feel we have a leadership issue.
The Democratic party and the Republican party are at odds idealistically, and I tend to favor somewhat of a conservative approach to progressive socioeconomic policy. Even so, the problem isn't exactly ideals, so much as it's wild radicalism: the Republicans and Democrats both leverage fear, uncertainty, and polarized idealism to grab at American mind share. Each party ups the ante at every opportunity, whether that be by loud shrieks and tantrums or by smug self-importance and thinly-veiled insults.
It is, in principle, possible to elevate a party above these behaviors. In the political scene, you have ... issues. The hysterical fanaticism coming from the opposition will drive people to lean toward whatever wild claims they make, regardless of merit.
If the Republicans begin calmly laying out plans to "bring jobs back to America" without screaming about threats from foreign nations sucking our economy dry, the Democrats can gain mind share by screaming about the damage to the working-class American by the poverty brought by loss of trade; whereas if the Democrats calmly discuss such economic consequences of protectionism, the Republicans can scream about America's hard-working citizens losing their jobs to China and India, about factories falling apart from disuse, and so forth. The Democrats would actually have the economics right in both cases; the screaming baboon in the room would have the vote.
To actually make progress, you need a well-reasoned plan and a forceful campaign to draw the support of Americans. It doesn't need to be a campaign of fear and volume; it only needs to provide a sense of security to the voter.
The Democrats and Republicans have the spotlight; the Greens and Libertarians are loony, and frequently have pretty bad political behavior as well. The smaller parties often behave in a manner suggesting they would be even worse than our two mains. It's a leadership issue: we need to replace these children with the adults in the room.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I don't blame them for Flynn's firing. Or Comey's either. They should have autonomy to administrate as they see fit, within the bounds of what is legal and "ethical".
They left's attempts to make everything "ethical" is problematic, especially for the left (eventually). Because the right is paying attention, and guess what, those tactics will be used by the right against the left in the next (D) presidency. The left is very short sighted in this regard.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
LOL. Oh, you actuallly believe trump hasnt been bought by the swamp ? let me laugh even louder : HAHAHAHAHAH !!!
Considering the media is still acting like someone with rabies and is schizophrenic, the chances that he hasn't been bought is still pretty good. Then again it could simply be that the media *really* is in Trump's tank, and by acting this insane they're going to get him elected for another 4 years. As it stands now he likely will be, simply because "fly over country" will want to jam their fist into the elitists mouths.
Om, nomnomnom...
Lol yeah I'm sure someone doxxed you through your Slashdot username
Posting as AC through Tor to make it more difficult for Russian hackers to target me
Firing someone in order to obstruct an active investigation* is neither legal nor ethical, even if you are the president of the United States.
*Despite the administration's cliams that Comey was fired because of the Hillary fiasco, his "relieved great pressure" comments to the Russkies make a prima facie case that obstruction was the real reason behind the firing.
If being ethical means you're a left-winger, then sign me up to the Communist Party today!
Although I'm not sure where Comrade Trump fits in there. It's a conundrum when you're both buddies with the Russians and the poster child for "Ethics are for Other People" and standard-bearer for your party in that regard.
And Obama said that instead of blowing up an Syrian airbase, he made an agreement to get chemical weapons out of Syria. Why did Trump bomb a Syrian airbase again?
Sessions was a Senator on the foreign relations committee. Meeting with Russians was his job.
This. I would also add that the interactions he had with Russian foreign dignitaries were in groups of other committee members, not one on one closed door meetings.
No, it wasn't "his job". No one on the foreign relations committee meets with ambassadors
You're repeating bullshit, sounds like you're a paid troll, maybe for Claire McCaskill. Yet another member of of the "foreign relations committee" who's met with multiple ambassadors including the russian amabassador, and french, and british, and german. Oh would you look at that? I guess we'd better start an indepth investigation to see if McCaskill is actually a russian agent. It would be such a shame for the democrats if that was to happen wouldn't it....
Then again this appears to be a much bigger scandal. Especially since Debbie Wasserman Schultz threatened the capital police and tried to directly interfere with a criminal investigation. Oh boy, just what have the democrats really gotten themselves into...
Om, nomnomnom...
No, it wasn't "his job". No one on the foreign relations committee meets with ambassadors. No one in the history of the foreign relations committee has met with the Russians in their role as committee members. (That could very well be considered treason!)
You sooooo obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Have you worked on the staff of any senator or representative? Have you ever even been to Washington DC? If you had any clue what you're talking about, you would know that meetings with foreign dignitaries happen ALL. THE. TIME.
Name these people, please.
Flynn, for starters.
Actually, Flynn resigned when he was asked to do so. Comey and some DA's where fired, but Flynn wasn't. Yea, I know it's a fine point, but hey, let's be accurate.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
"the chances that he hasn't been bought is still pretty good."
are you f%cking kidding me ? the media is small potatoes. you should look at BANKS. goldman sachs for example.
I don't think Fox News, Breitbart, or infowars will have anything, though when I searched "ties between trump and Russia" links to CNN and Reuters came up. But those are probably regarded as "fake news"
took office.
I can't remember where, but he stated he would not be retaining his position even if requested by the president after that shitshow, then a couple months later did exactly that.
Hmm... is that a single or double Windsor?
And I had Russian dressing on my salad..... Ho Boy, a *CONNECTION*!
What doesn't exist is any evidence of collusion (or better conspiracy) between the Russians and any Trump associate to "hack the election" which has been the whole justification of the "investigations" going on.
Come on.. PLEASE engage in some critical thinking. What is being alleged here that is a crime? Once you figure that out, then look at the evidence and tell me what we have that supports somebody associated with Trump did it...
So, PLEASE respond with 2 things.. 1. What is the alleged crime... AND 2. What is the evidence you think shows it might have happened?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
All the campaigns had contact with the Russians.
Yes, people forget what the "facts" are supposed to prove, partly because I don't think we ever knew. It is just "blah blah Russians."
If you started out with, "He promised Russia diplomatic concessions in Syria/Ukraine in exchange for hacking the DRE voting system in Pennsylvania to tip the state for him," then that is clearly serious but "facts" don't support it. "Contact" is clearly not, yet is made to seem so by words like "collusion" which are then supported by facts that show contact.
Delivering facts that actually mean something on this issue is an incredibly heavy burden, and Democrats have delivered hysteria instead. For example, the NSA leak that Russians did in fact attempt to hack electronic voting, which is closer than we've ever got before and as close as we can expect to get, is still way short:
- was it directed by Russian government or random hackers doing it because as American and German hackers have been saying for so long, it's incredibly, egregiously easy?
- was it successful? "Days before the election" seems too late to phish a voting machine vendor's office and get results; you should start earlier, or go directly for the installed machines in the field.
- was the aim to tip an election for Trump? for Hillary? to get the result early and speculate on stocks?
- was it done as a quid-pro-quo with a candidate, or because they felt it in their independent self-interest? Even if they did hack the election, the actual voting machines not just propaganda drops, the fact Russia likes one candidate more than another isn't a strike against him.
- is the NSA release "fake news"? Deep state influence undermining democracy scares me more than Russian influence because it means we are becoming a country run the way Soviet Russia used to be run, which is scarier than having a close election tipped by a foreign power.
so I sympathize that it's hard to deliver "facts" even if something terrible is at foot, but they still need to be delivered, and the bar still needs to be set in a rational way, not a vague cheerleading character-assassination way.
I'm not saying stuff on this list is ok, just they aren't equivalent to "Trump colluded," whatever that means. "Colluded" only feels like it means something if you hate Trump and are sloppy. If you like Trump, you will say, "wat," and if you are not sloppy but hate Trump you will say what Greenwald says. While there are reasons to hate Trump, he should be hated for those reasons. This news cycle is about the level of birtherism.
maybe you should read the following and re-assess the character of your president : http://boingboing.net/2017/06/...
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
I always think it's funny when Trump and Left/Right are mentioned together.
Trump isn't a Republican because he's a right-winger, he's a Republican because it's profitable for him to be a Republican. When it was profitable for him to be a Democrat, he was a Democrat.
The policies he pushes aren't Right-Wing policies that he agrees with ideologically. They're policies that will benefit Donald J. Trump. Or the friends of Donald J. Trump who might thus be inclined to return the favor. Being Right-Wing is secondary.
The sole exception to this is is Trump's stance on abortion. Trump gets weepy-eyed over babies with no particular thought to his own profit. However, unlike most in his party, I do think that Trump might actually care about more than just babies that are unborn. Under the right circumstances, he might even care about the ones who have been born and thus no longer deserving of Conservative concern.
okay, I'm sorry - I won't call again (now that I know it's you :) )
CAP === 'backstop'
maybe you should read the following and re-assess the character of your president
If by president you mean prime minister, and if by prime minster you mean Justin Trudeau. I guess I will. Or, I could simply make my point that US and world media is so unhinged along with the average anti-trumper that they need tranquilizers.
Om, nomnomnom...
Meeting someone's husband, whom your dept is investigation, on a tarmac "by chance" is not ethical. The bullshit excuse of talking "kids and family" was probably accurate.
It would be a shame if something happened to your kids ... and family
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Then why did he lie about it?
Being Ethical means it doesn't matte which party is doing it. Both (R) and (D) excuse unethical behavior of their people all the time. Being Ethical doesn't include being selectively ethical.
Bill Clinton meeting Lynch on the tarmac was a gross violation of all sorts of ethics. But way too many on the left doesn't care.
And for the record, confiscatory taxes aren't ethical, which every progressive seems to enjoy promoting.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Except it wasn't his job, he acts as a member of a committee, he doesn't get to act alone for such meetings, and none of the committee members knew about it, or knew why he was going to such a meeting.
And even if it WAS his job, he can spend money from his JOB instead of the TRUMP CAMPAIGN to travel to the meeting.
And even if he did screw up and use the wrong account for reimbursement (which has it's own legal ramification of misuse of campaign funds), lieing about it under oath was certainly not part of his job... nor was falsifying government documents.
I member.
Petridge farm members.
There is a difference between honest debate and debating a rock.
Arguing with most consevatives and all Tea Partiers/Trump Followers is debating a rock.
Fixed for showing the other side
No there isn't. This is just a deranged narrative to avoid personal responsibility by the losers. Anyone that stepped outside the liberal bubble could see this. Flyover country that's constantly insulted by liberals doesn't need any help from the Russians to hate Hillary.
Pushing her was as stupid and arrogant. it was the same kind of arrogance the Republicans showed when they came up with Palin.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Nixon was the only president to ever resign.
Apparently it is only a *bad* thing in the US to resign as politicians generally hang in by their claws until unseated rather than resign. Prime ministers resign all the time in the rest of the world (generally when their parties perform poorly in an election). Of course this behavior is infectious in the US and resignations have stopped happening even below the presidential level (e.g., Nancy Pelosi went from majority leader to minority leader which also has little precident).
Not that I'm defending Nixon, but maybe it would actually be *better* if more US politicians resigned rather than cling on past their expiry dates... Historically, perhaps the US might have been better off if say Ulysses Grant actually resigned. At least Warren Harding had the decency to die before he would have dug in his heels and resist resignation...
Except the states, but that's not really how it is supposed to work.
"Trump himself asked russia to locate emails from hillary clinton's servers on public broadcast television." Completely tongue-in-cheek to mock Clinton. Only an imbecile would take that seriously.
Here in Britain we have our general election tomorrow (Thursday 8th) and it is absolutely fascinating in its own kind of way, and it ties in very strongly with the AC's comment above in my mind.
10 years ago Britain was in much the same position as the USA - a mostly leftist party (Labour) and a mostly rightist party (Conservatives) took turns to have a go at being in power for a few years, pissed everything up after a while and then the other party had a go. It had been that way since WW2.
But in the 2010 election it all changed, and the smaller parties took a massively more prominent position. We've always had a small third party in the Liberal Democrats (a sort of left-centre party with a small component of what Americans would recognise as Libertarianism, but much more tame than the US variety). For 5 years from 2010 they were part of the government.
I now live in a constituency with the country's only Green MP. UKIP, a minor party who have only ever had 1 MP, essentially forced the EU referendum.
In Scotland the previously minor third party is now the Government.
It always seems slightly odd to me that a country as vast and diverse as the US, with your federal system where each state is like its own country, that you don't have any significant third parties, even as far as I can really tell at the state level, let alone the federal. I wonder if any Americans feel like giving me their opinion on why this is?
Well, that of course is your opinion.
That is the opinion of the majority of the US citizens. Or did you forget that he won the election but lost the vote?
Reigning in the federal government, both in terms of power and size, is something a lot of us want to see, along with fiscal responsibility.
Fine goals as an ideal but HOW you go about it matters greatly. Trump certainly is not going to be the guy to get you there. Fiscal responsibility? Don't make me laugh. The republicans haven't given a shit about fiscal responsibility since Reagan took office. That's why we have this absurdly large debt. They want to have their cake (medicare and a large military) and eat it too (no taxes) which simply isn't possible. The republicans had 8 years to propose sensible fixes to the Affordable Care Act and they did nothing. They simply refused to negotiate. Once Trump was in office they rush through a monstrous bill that will hurt millions of people and you call that fiscal responsibility? Fuck off...
Trump at least promised those kinds of things, and we all know Clinton couldn't care less about changing the status quo in those areas.
Trump never promised to reign in the federal government. You just assumed he did. In point of fact he has quite explicitly attempting to expand federal power influence to suit his world view. Disagree with Clinton's policies all you want but at least she wasn't a hypocrite about her views on the role government should play. Yes she wasn't interested in small government and a majority of the votes cast agreed with her that that was fine. Just because you favor small government doesn't mean you are right or that it's necessarily the best solution to our problems.
The "America first" concept also has merit in this day and age, as it sure seems our government is throwing billions of dollars every which way globally, to prop up and otherwise fund any number of governments and organizations.
"America First" is merely code for xenophobia and isolationism and protectionism. It's an appeal to nationalism instead of logic. The US is already the most powerful country in the world by most reasonable measures. It already IS america first. Pretending that we do not live in a global economy is absurd. Trump is promising nonsense like returning manufacturing jobs to the US that he cannot possibly make happen.
Ah, the good old "But but but but Hillary" whine. It's not every day you have to tell somebody "you won, get over it"
The common denominators amongst Trump supporters appears to be blindness to any wrongdoing by their God Emperor, an inability to take responsibility for anything at all, ever, and being stuck in an eternal election cycle that has already been and gone.
Yes, and CLEARLY the dems/libs aren't doing this at all. No sirree bob, not at all.
Yeah, it's annoying, isn't it? Reminds me of the days of "But Bush". Hopefully you'll remember how idiotic it is next time your team is in power.
Maybe influence. But CNN and NYT and WaPo, most of europe and every damn celebrity was trying to influence me to vote Clinton, so I don't see the problem.
Nothing Trump has promised to do would be good for the country and quite a bit of his agenda will hurt a lot of people.
Well, that of course is your opinion.
No, that is not an opinion. "I think coal waste is a delicious cereal topping" is an opinion. Trump is the most unfit, unqualified, unhinged POTUS to ever come along. History will prove me correct.
no. what's being investigated right now by the trump administration is ways to make this "go away", and which people to bring on to make sure it does, to preserve this dickhead's full term.
Reigning in the federal government, the grand slogan with no meaning. The bulk of all federal employment is military. The bulk of all spending in government goes in 3 containers, Military, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Eliminating everything else the government does including a whole lot of stuff you want them to do would save about 2% of the budget.
The only way to reduce the federal government is to slash military spending.
I don't see why the power and size of government is in and itself a bad thing. What is challenging is that it not as effective for the American people. I grew up in a country where starting a business required installing a generator to ensure that power was available and had to hire security guards to make sure that the facility was safe and had to build their building out of fireproof material because there was no fire service available.
Americans grow up in a country where starting a business requires figuring out 401(k) plans and health-care plans and workman's comp. In many other countries, the government has decided that these things are not a burden to be passed on to business, but a thing to be managed centrally so business and employees don't have to worry about health care when onboard or charging jobs. In addition, costs go down because the government can negotiate for lower prices. Government involvement is win for businesses and a win for employees.
Government is a platform. Government is infrastructure. Government is scale. All of these are positive. Government actions can actually make a huge difference. For example, we could further reduce our dependence on oil and put more recurring money in people's pockets by subsidizing the conversion of oil-heated homes into natural-gas-heated homes. It increases economic activity, increases disposable income, and reduces oil imports. The investment costs could be recouped through a temporary tax (which will have no *real* impact because of all the other benefits). No one except the government can do this.
What has happened that the Republican Party is in the pocket of people who are trying to break the laws. They benefit when (a) there are no laws or (b) they can pervert the laws to their own ends. So, you see these people intentionally governing poorly and passing laws preventing the government from negotiating drug costs or buying from Canada. And the response instead of kicking these people out of office seems to be, "Take away the power of government". I find it amazing that the Republicans have convinced Americans that it is brilliant to cut off their nose to spite their face.
The Washington Post was exposed as holding clandestine fundraisers with the DNC after their own lawyers forbade them to. Given the heavy reliance on anonymous nonsense that appears to be invented whole cloth, you'll have to prop up those "reliable sources" with actual facts.
The worst you can establish that the Russians allegedly did is to expose DNC corruption. That's hardly a damning claim. If other countries want to do that, I say they should be free to expose our corruption, including that by the Republicans.
With all the data you have presented here, I only see one possible solution:
we have to stop wearing pants
> The other is using that one problem as an excuse to pretend both parties are interchangeable
It's a reasonable argument to make. It is true that the parties will pass different laws and attempt to drive society in a direction chosen by their voters, to some degree- you can expect team red to try to hassle abortion providers (and possibly women getting abortions), you can expect team blue to try to hassle gun manufacturers and owners, and both of these positions and policies are driven by unusually strong support for these issues amongst their voting base.
But when it comes to spending money, both sides will fill the coffers of their chosen companies. Both will swell the ranks of friendly organizations and companies with contracts and favorable legislation. Both seem to have roughly identical views on foreign policy- I know it doesn't SOUND that way when they state their policies, but outside of a few deviations (Obama on Iran, arguably Bush on Iraq), we spend blood and treasure in a reasonably predictable way regardless of who we elect and what they claim to support while campaigning.
Calling this a uniparty is reasonable from several perspectives. No, not all of them, but if you were an alien documenting the actions of America, whether the leader wears a red or blue hat would be a footnote, and not something you would need to go into detail on unless you were like, a specialist.
No sitting president has ever been unseated by impeachment. Nixon resigned to escape impeachment. Everywhere else, politicians resign because they're embarrassed.
Shit, I sent a dick pic to a girl I met at a bar and she told her friends. Better quit working toward social progress in the United States.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Everyone has repeated this same simple argument for years. We get it, free trade creates more total wealth.
Tell me, what happens to me if the money supply in my country increases, but my spending power goes down?
Obviously, it means that I have lost spending power. If people like me are in the majority, then more total wealth creates more losers than winners when its created by free trade.
"We love lawyers!"
The willful ignorance is strong in Trump apologists.
Which makes it even more confusing why he didn't disclose it when he was legally required to do so. It's like a software engineer saying "nope, never used a computer." Not sure if he's lying, confused, or an idiot.
John Oliver's description of this as "Stupid Watergate" is very apt.
You mean the one where she didn't get any money, was just one of ~10 people who approved it, and disclosed all of her discussions with the russians? Also, she hasn't praised the russians and their dictatorial leader.
I think you're proving that they are not at all the same thing.
It's partly structural and partly psychological. The main parties control the levers of government and do everything they can to maintain control. Third parties are excluded from numerous resources and don't have the established networks the main parties enjoy. The mental effect is powerful - many people hold their nose and vote for a candidate they don't love just to avoid seeing the monster from the other party elected. Third parties are seen as not viable, and this has become a self reinforcing prophecy.
Many people would prefer a third party, but until enough people are willing to "throw their vote away" it won't happen. A third party could get a popular majority in a presidential election and still not be elected.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I'm not certain that it was ever clear that the population supported Sanders but it could/would have supported him with less hesitation, had he been the nominee.
WikiLeaks showed how the DNC intentionally sabotaged Bernie and had further plans to escalate into anti-semitism if he had been able to overcome their previous meddling.
Hillary had the effect of pushing a lot of voters into the Trump column. Voters who would have otherwise stayed at home or voted third party if she wasn't the nominee. Voters like me.
I wouldn't have voted for Bernie but I do have a lot of respect for him. I believe him to be an honorable person. I can have an honest disagreement with an honorable person and retain that respect. Hillary is not honorable.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
So you voted for Trump because you somehow think he is more honorable than Clinton...
I wouldn't say that Trump is more honorable. I do happen to think that she is less honorable than Trump but I voted for the one person who had a chance of stopping Hillary.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This kind of sounds like the "Hillary has a 100% chance of winning" headline the media was enforcing itself to believe.
As a Republican, I would like to ask that you continue to look at the odds this way.
Trump overthrew conventional thinking, but it has to happen every generation.
Hillary is the one that illegally had top secret information stored on a personal server. I'm pretty sure she influenced a lot of people to vote for Trump.
Please. Stop perpetuating the BS. There was nothing there. Comey did the influencing by announcing ANOTHER investigation shortly before the election.
Reigning in the federal government
And that's the problem. trump wants to "reign" as in "hold royal office; rule as king or queen."
He needs to be reined in.
Exactly! The guy gets 2 SCOOPS OF ICECREAM for dessert! We are doomed!
Try to realize that half the country could replace the name Trump in your note with the name Obama and agree 100% with what you said 8 years ago. That same half of the country actually thinks the things Trump promised will be good for the country. The problem is that people don't like or want to compromise. The people who supported Obama felt he did a good job, the people who opposed him felt he almost destroyed the country. In their eyes he was a dictator for 8 years. COMPROMISE is the only thing that will bring the country together. You CANNOT have everything your way whether you are Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or something else. YOU HAVE TO COMPROMISE!!! Why is this so hard for everyone to get? Just because you think something is good for the country and just because your supporters think something is good for the country doesn't mean it's good for everyone. COMPROMISE helps you find something that is actually good for most of the country, instead of something that's only good for less than half the country.
I wouldn't have voted for Bernie but I do have a lot of respect for him.
Would you have stayed home? I think there's a lot of people in that category, maybe even more than the number of people who have outright stated that they would have voted for Sanders but voted for Trump to oppose Clinton.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not considering who the 3rd party candidates are
Shachar
I would have most likely voted for Darrel Castle as a protest. In 2012, I cast a protest vote because I couldn't support Romney or Obama.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Trump himself asked russia to locate emails from hillary clinton's servers on public broadcast television.
The ties have been proven.
Here's the actual quote:
"I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” Source
You could have said, "Trump hopes Russia is able to find Hillary's missing emails", but you chose, "Trump asked Russia to locate emails from Hillary Clinton's servers."
Which sounds more nefarious? Which one is more accurate?
Wasn't Wray connected with a firm that represented a Russian Oil company ?
That makes sense. I voted for Stein as a protest, since she's the only candidate who really cares enough about the environment in my book. That she panders to anti-vaxxers is no impediment; Trump panders to racists.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm dazzled by your intellect.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You actually think Democrats and Republicans are different, and that they aren't controlled by the same masters, who also control Russia.
My bet though, is you've fallen for CNN's version of the lie, they way to so elegantly extrapolate all of CNN's recent talking points.
You are completely mind controlled, and the measuring stick of your reality is Network Cable and your mother's cold lonely basement.
Only an imbecile would take that seriously.
You forget that Trump IS an imbecile.
As a republican you vote for anyone that calls themselves a republican.
You are rather dim if you think any sort of request from a candidate on TV (which certainly appeared like a sarcastic joke to everyone else) is evidence he colluded with Russia. If I go on TV right now asking for things from Russia, will I get it?
You say that like it is a bad thing.
The only thing Flynn has been accused of is not reporting completely legal side jobs that he did for Russians. This may not even be a crime, unless he failed to report that income on his taxes as well as his SF-86.
Of course, being a tax cheat is hardly enough to kick someone out of the government, much less impeach the President for it. Anyone remember Timothy Geithner - "TurboTax Tim" himself - that not only cheated on his taxes, but as a reward for that was put in charge of the US Federal Reserve and then promoted to US Treasury Secretary?
Nuh ah, Trump is already making major strides against terrorism by causing everyone in the middle east to stop talking to Qatar. That was all him and the power of that glowing ball he was touching. He told me so in a tweet.
Nothing Trump has promised to do would be good for the country and quite a bit of his agenda will hurt a lot of people.
Everybody thinks...
I never made it past these two words. Seems like a waste of effort writing whatever it is you wrote next...
It will never "go to the guns" because chickenshit chickenhawks talk a big game, but never follow through.
A perfect word to describe the "Alt-Right" folks: Altsheimers!
The way Democrats blamed Bernie supporters for Clinton's loss (the people squealing about "Bernie bros") made me wish I did not vote for Clinton.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
News would be "Trump selects Joe Schmoe for position", instead of the labels tagged on everything. Did Obama select "Lawyer Lorretts Lynch" as the AG? How about "Lawyer Eric Holder"? Did Obama hire "Lawyer Comey" as the head of the FBI? Was "Lawyer Clinton" selected for Secretary of State? How about "Lawyer Kerry"? If you don't see the FUD here, you are simply not looking. Sensationalizing everything you dislike in a negative way is not "news", it's propaganda.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Can't attack the argument, attack the data. Politico cites every claim they make. You can research it all yourself. You find it not credible because YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
Hey jackass, why do you think 3 articles about that NSA leak were posted on /. yesterday? It said they were trying to. Being a /. nerd, you ought to know the hallmark of a good hack is that you won't know you've been compromised until the payload goes off. We have evidence they were trying and failed several times. You cannot say with any certainty that they did not succeed since, in theory, their tracks should be covered.
No but the article links to many reliable sources. That is the whole point of wikipedia.
Which, in turn, use wikipedia as their source
Wikipedia is not worth its bandwidth. Use google scholar instead.
With respect to Hillary Clinton, if you think she needs yet further investigation there is no reason that that could not occur in parallel. Since she is not in public office and holds no executive power, I suspect most people will think that a lesser priority.
Political capital is... Well I think sometimes it's used as a way to describe political favors, but most of the time it's a way of describing the good will of the electorate. A person who wins an election by a large margin is said to have a lot of political capitol, because that implies that a lot of people are supporting that person. Other politicians will more easily acquiesce to that person's agenda in order to curry favor with his supporters.
Trump did not win the election by a large margin (or any margin), and polls show that he's unpopular and his popularity is continuing to decline. So you would typically say that his political capitol is low. However, the fact that the election was such a surprise works to his advantage, particularly among Republicans - it showed that there is an mostly unknown, or at least unpolled, group of people of significant size who are associated with the right and who vote in an unpredictable way. So the fact that polls show Trump is unpopular isn't necessarily good enough to cost him his capitol. He will likely have substantial, but cautious, support among Republican politicians unless and until they lose in the midterms.
The same little group over and over.
Why is a country as large as the USA run by a bunch like a small town high school tennis club?
Funny, because I blame Clinton supporters for Bernie's loss.
Also, is this new FBI director related to Link Wray?
Give it a few months and you'll get over it.
Do you mean income tax with money taken out of salary/wages or do you mean something else?
Liberals don't own guns, silly.
That is a myth. Another myth is that we are or ever were coming to get your guns. I mean, look at all those guns Obama got.
The Democratic establishment and the Clinton camp are completely refusing to do any honest introspection about their loss.
Hillary lost because she was the WORST POSSIBLE CANDIDATE for the election.
She lost to Trump, the worst Republican candidate in three generations and it's nobody's fault but her own.
She failed to learn the lesson of Romney's 47% comment and insulted roughly 1/4 of the voting public by calling them Deplorables.
She ignored the concerns of people in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. She assumed that they were just going to be her states. She just assumed that it was her turn and she couldn't lose. She insulted a very influential force in middle America by declaring the NRA to be her enemy.
The DNC pulled dirty, underhanded tricks to deliver the nomination to her and they paid for it in the general election. Seth Rich's leaks of their internal emails put all of their dirty business up for public scrutiny.
They're completely refusing to acknowledge that they were wrong or what happened.
Hillary is still making excuses about misogyny, Russian hackers and James Comey.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
>Trump's potential are terrifying to the political elite.
LOL. Oh, you actuallly believe trump hasnt been bought by the swamp ? let me laugh even louder : HAHAHAHAHAH !!!
He's been part of the swamp since birth. His family were deep in doing political deals for their own financial advantage and he's kept up the tradition. ... Hillary" post after this, and the only answer to such stupidity is that what she did wrong doesn't excuse Trump.
Of course there will be some "but
You DO realize this is a conspiracy theory, right? All the Democrats are pizzagators with child slaves in their basements, and everyone who ever talks to Trump is secretly a Russian agent. Conspiracy theories are absolutely wild these days.
Get real.
Entirely true but it appears the Russians decided to stir the pot a bit anyway. They had nothing to lose and certainly have gained a lot going by the last NATO meeting. I think Trump has given them more than they dreamed they would get.
She's on death's door. If she's going to wear orange it has to be soon.
Trump has to actually commit a 'high crime or misdemeanor' first. Not an imagined one...
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Ah - the guy that suggested giving weapons to extremist Islamic terrorists is OK but whistleblowing is not is back with another distortion of reality.
Why did you run away and not answer my question?
Yes, Rupert Murdoch has been doing that shit for decades.
So it's not so much thinking ahead than following a tried and tested formula.
Christopher A. Wray will be fine!
As long as he swears personal loyalty to Trump. And "let's go" of investigations the Trumpmeister doesn't like. And is willing to back up even the most laughable statements Trump makes, with a straight face, à la Conway and Spicer. And shows Twister-level flexibility when the boss directly contradicts you, makes you look like dribbling fool, or on the "outs" regarding briefings.
Loyalty is a must and may be rewarded with a sweet, sweet Presidential Pardon some day. Morality, integrity, devotion to Institution, Constitution or Country, or any sense of right and wrong are fireable offenses, as per James Comey.
That was not the opinion of the majority of US citizens. That was the majority opinion of the low amount of citizens who voted. Well, you can't even claim that because some percentage of those votes likely agreed with 'America first' but disagreed with Trump on too many other issues to vote for him. But then perhaps we could ignore those votes as some people voting for Trump wouldn't be voting for him for said reasons. The world isn't black and white.
What about the global economy requires us to invade other countries? I'm not saying anything about Trump. American first is not about xenophobia, we shouldn't waste resources trying to tell others how to rule themselves. We shouldn't try to be an Empire.
Or you could improve the general health of the population and reduce the overhead and corruption in our medical system. More money spent wisely can reduce money wasted elsewhere. Sometimes adding is better than cutting.
Trump has to actually commit a 'high crime or misdemeanor' first. Not an imagined one...
I note that in the space of a few hours you've changed your tune on this crucial point - previously, you supported an investigation, but now you claim to know, with certainty, the content of what was discussed between Trump and Comey. Do you have tapes we are unaware of?
Again: presumably you a now going to urge your congressman/woman to support an investigation of Trump?
Investigations are good. They vent out the gasses that otherwise inflate conspiracy theories. When everything is known, and complicity has been disproven, a whole lot of people can shut the fuck up.
Is that what happened when Hillary Clinton was investigated?
And the recording of that meeting can't be released because of National Security.
See that "Preview" button?
Yup, Flynn was such a bad dude that Obama's administration renewed his security clearance.
See that "Preview" button?
Ahem.
See that "Preview" button?
Why? Are you too retarded to use Google. Start with the first two campaign managers. Does the name Manafort ring a bell?
Where did I suggest that? By the way what race is muslim again since you're so strong in your belief that a religion is muslim.
Om, nomnomnom...
That leads into my earlier question again - why did you initially phrase religious intolerance as racism but then get extremely critical of me for not correcting you but instead letting your mistake stand?
Thank you for this post. There are painfully few people who seem to understand how and why Trump won.
Remember that part where you implied that religion = race? No? don't worry you did remember? Remember the part where I told you that in the past like with rotherham the reason nothing happened was because multiple authorities didn't do anything for fear of being labeled racist? Apparently you did forget.
Om, nomnomnom...
That was you, here it is:
I disagreed very strongly with that statement of yours.
You've now twisted that strong disagreement into some sort of agreement that there is a race called muslim or some other bizzare shit - talk about getting things backwards and inside out!
It's a special kind of pathetic to be attacked by someone for something you have not only not done but they have done themselves.
They are investigating. It might lead somewhere, it might not.
Have been paying any attention to what happened today? It's now confirmed that Bill and Lynch conspired to interfere with Hillary's email investigation.
There is a difference between supporting looking into issues and having already decided he's guilty (and Hillary is innocent).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Ask your unnamed IWW friend from Washington state how that works. If he's out of the ICU.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So your bitch got whipped by an imbecile? What does that make her?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They are investigating. It might lead somewhere, it might not.
Seems like it has already gotten somewhere.
Have been paying any attention to what happened today? It's now confirmed that Bill and Lynch conspired to interfere with Hillary's email investigation.
Who and Who? Are either of those names nicknames for the sitting President of the United States?
There is a difference between supporting looking into issues and having already decided he's guilty (and Hillary is innocent).
Exactly. Which is why I'm interested to know whether you will support a prosecution of Donald Trump, should the investigation determine his guilt (which seems increasingly likely).
Hillary, Bill and Loretta go first.
No impeachment necessary, and they already collected _plenty_ of evidence, but dismissed the charges against themselves.
Trump investigations will, no doubt, be carried out with the same objectivity and fairness as the investigations of Hillary under Obama...you guys should plan on waiting 7.5 years.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Hillary, Bill and Loretta go first.
Hmm, no I don't think so, at least not on the strength of what you've posted. They are of course private citizens and so the part where not prosecuting endangers the security of the nation doesn't apply - unlike the far more serious and far better supported allegations against Trump.
No impeachment necessary, and they already collected _plenty_ of evidence, but dismissed the charges against themselves.
It seems that the charges were dismissed exactly in the way that charges are normally dismissed. Trump chose to dismiss any charges against his subordinates by perverting the course of justice. And then boasted about it to America's enemies.
Trump investigations will, no doubt, be carried out with the same objectivity and fairness as the investigations of Hillary under Obama
That will be good. Given Hillary was denied the presidency becuase of these 'charges' seems fair to expect the actual, serious crimes comitted by Trump (allegedly) to deny him the presidency as well.
.you guys should plan on waiting 7.5 years.
"you guys"? You mean Australians?
And there is no need, because he can be impeached, and the trial can begin without delay. Then everybody wins!
Except Trump of course.
That was you, here it is:
I disagreed very strongly with that statement of yours.
You've now twisted that strong disagreement into some sort of agreement that there is a race called muslim or some other bizzare shit - talk about getting things backwards and inside out!
No, I stated what came from the royal report over rotherham. Perhaps you're too stupid to get it?
Om, nomnomnom...
From this post here:
https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10697895&cid=54545899
What is the point of lying about it?
It takes a very special sort of person to blame others for your own words. Are you sure you want to keep on being that sort of person? What would your parents think of you turning into that sort of person?
'You guys' meaning people wanting Trump indicted/impeached.
You thought it was fine when Obama did it...it's fine when Trump does it too. Enjoy the Clinton trial.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
'You guys' meaning people wanting Trump indicted/impeached.
Which (if you above remarks are to be believed), must include you - unless you are a hypocrite?
You thought it was fine when Obama did it.
Did what? I don't recall Obama being either impeached or indicted?
..it's fine when Trump does it too.
It will be fine to see Trump indicted. Don't you think?
Given that Trump has only had authority for 6 months, how could he already be king of swamp?