The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[Nepenthe]

Lol nothing will happen to any of these Republicans. They're too rich.

In more terrible news, scientists who work for the EPA may have to have their work viewed on a case by case basis by the Trump administration before their work can be disseminated to the public.

They're about to censor science.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

4 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Lol nothing will happen to any of these Republicans. They're too rich.

In more terrible news, scientists who work for the EPA may have to have their work viewed on a case by case basis by the Trump administration before their work can be disseminated to the public.

They're about to censor science.

I guess we should expect biblical studies to be the replacement. or at least pro-oil "science".

[Nepenthe]

Pro fossil fuel/anti alternative energy findings will be more likely to pass if this becomes a thing, because fossil fuel lobbyists have a shitload of money to give out and we still can't let the coal miners in on the fact that their jobs aren't ever coming back.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

2 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Pro fossil fuel/anti alternative energy findings will be more likely to pass if this becomes a thing, because fossil fuel lobbyists have a shitload of money to give out and we still can't let the coal miners in on the fact that their jobs aren't ever coming back.

I really just don't get it. About their destructive selfish greed. Surely one of these people must have realized at some point that this kind of thing doesn't just affect everyone else, it also will harm them as well. We all breath the same air and live on the same Earth; even they should realize that constantly polluting the air for the sake of short-sighted profit is going to come back and kick them in the ass, or at least their descendants. If anything, you'd think they would try to capitalize on the idea of preserving the environment by finding new clean energy to monopolize, which they can essentially get a good profit and everyone wouldn't be getting on their case about them destroying our atmosphere.

[Dejimon11]

10 hours ago, Patticus said:

Someone's desperate to calm his fevered mind about his own legitimacy as president.
 

Inside the post-investigation briefing...

DoJ: "Sir, the results are in. There were only 27 counts of voter fraud, and none of them had a chance to change even local results, let alone state or national."
Trump: "So you're saying there was massive voter fraud, like millions of illegals voting?"
DoJ: "No, no, quite the opposite, this was quite a normal election actually. No illegals were even involved in the fraud cases we turned up."
Trump: "So there was massive voter fraud, with millions of illegals voting illegally?"
DoJ: "No sir"
Trump: "But you just said there was."
Etcetera.

Ok this is starting to piss me off. Why the fuck is he still on about this? He won he should let it go and move on. Christ he's acting a child who's complain about getting everything he wanted for Christmas. What the hell? 

[SenEDDtor Missile]

1 minute ago, Dejimon11 said:

Ok this is starting to piss me off. Why the fuck is he still on about this? He won he should let it go and move on. Christ he's acting a child who's complain about getting everything he wanted for Christmas. What the hell? 

He wants all opposition stamped out. As long as even the slightest bit of doubt or defiance exists against him, whether for real or just in his deluded mind, his narcissistic ego will never let it go.

[AxelPrime]

3 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

Anyhoo, Republicans are set to kill rules on environment, labor, guns, and corruption.

Corruption laws.

But both sides are exactly the same, right? 

27 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Lol nothing will happen to any of these Republicans. They're too rich.

In more terrible news, scientists who work for the EPA may have to have their work viewed on a case by case basis by the Trump administration before their work can be disseminated to the public.

They're about to censor science.

26 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Pro fossil fuel/anti alternative energy findings will be more likely to pass if this becomes a thing, because fossil fuel lobbyists have a shitload of money to give out and we still can't let the coal miners in on the fact that their jobs aren't ever coming back.

If they weren't considered to be some of the most evil people in existence by now, then I don't know who is.

 

[Nepenthe]

Well, that was quick. Emergency rally is being held in New York over the executive orders against immigrants and refugees.

[Tani Coyote]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/fc88427747b243a7aadd2d1f94f7120d

Some good news.

A Nebraska state legislator who made a Tweet about how all the women in the March were too ugly to be sexually assaulted resigned when the legislature (officially  nonpartisan but clearly Republican-affiliated) prepared to hold a vote on expelling him.

It really wasn't an area where I was expecting a victory for equality, but here we go. My guess is that with Donald Trump bringing bigoted remarks into the mainstream (whereas before a Republican member of Congress saying something could be passed off as fringe), the mainstream GOP is going to start cracking down on assholes like this.

It would be great if it extended to Congress as well. I'd like to see the idiots who try to downplay the significance of rape and the like get thrown out.

I hope Trump makes more offensive comments while in office. He did enough damage to the Republican brand as a candidate, just picture what he'll do as a President. I think the Trump Presidency is a wakeup call not just to those on the left, but conservatives as well - they're getting a clear picture of just how widespread the rot within the Party is. The question is if they will fight tooth and nail to take the Party back from people like him, or simply fall in line behind him to avoid Democratic rule.

1 hour ago, Nepenthe said:

Lol nothing will happen to any of these Republicans. They're too rich.

In more terrible news, scientists who work for the EPA may have to have their work viewed on a case by case basis by the Trump administration before their work can be disseminated to the public.

They're about to censor science.

Thank God we're not a state-run economy where the government is the sole source of such research.

Still a huge blow though, because now he can cut federal funding to science.

[Kevin]

The Republicans are looking at a special budget bill to help fund the border wall.

"Boy, we sure hate government spending and it's totally out of control!" Weren't that their words when Obama was in office? The wall is such a stupid idea that is both expensive and very cumbersome to build and will not solve the problem of illegal immigration.

[Patticus]

2 hours ago, Noelgilvie said:

Thank God we're not a state-run economy where the government is the sole source of such research.

Still a huge blow though, because now he can cut federal funding to science.

Recall that the Bush administration had a nasty habit of altering scientific reports - including those focused on climate change - which resulted in Obama implementing free speech integrity rules across the government's agencies. Except that they're all entirely voluntary, the agencies can choose to ditch them, and unlike in Canada, there are no protections written into agency staff contracts. Damnit, Obama...

[Tani Coyote]

2 hours ago, Kevin said:

The Republicans are looking at a special budget bill to help fund the border wall.

"Boy, we sure hate government spending and it's totally out of control!" Weren't that their words when Obama was in office? The wall is such a stupid idea that is both expensive and very cumbersome to build and will not solve the problem of illegal immigration.

It's okay, they'll just cut spending from social services to make up the difference.

The GOP are basically anarchists who developed a fixation on militarism.

I can't wait to see how much of a shitshow the infrastructure bill is.

1 hour ago, Patticus said:

Recall that the Bush administration had a nasty habit of altering scientific reports - including those focused on climate change - which resulted in Obama implementing free speech integrity rules across the government's agencies. Except that they're all entirely voluntary, the agencies can choose to ditch them, and unlike in Canada, there are no protections written into agency staff contracts. Damnit, Obama...

If nothing else, maybe Trump's term will serve as the basis of future Democratic nominees proposing stronger protection for free speech in the government.

[Patticus]

6 minutes ago, Noelgilvie said:

If nothing else, maybe Trump's term will serve as the basis of future Democratic nominees proposing stronger protection for free speech in the government.

I get the feeling that the weaknesses in Democratic policy that Trump will expose will lead to a great many much stronger policies and protections in the next Democratic administration - for scientists, the environment, renewable energy, marriage equality, immigration etc. I hope that somebody in the Democratic Party is taking meticulous notes on what's being torn apart, and others on how best to fix and strengthen their sundered policies - they'll need to come into January 2021, if they win with some decently sized majorities, with legislative guns blazing, just as the GOP are now.

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/01/25/what-the-rogue-epa-nps-and-nasa-twitter-accounts-teach-us-about-the-future-of-social/#47037b6a5dc0

Trump's gag orders are backfiring spectacularly. A ton of "rogue" sites have formed to protest them, posting scientific facts and the like to fight the administration. So far, NASA, EPA, and NPS all have at least one protest account. Some are staffed by outsiders, but others by current (anonymous) or former staff members.

The administration is trying to quietly shut them down by asking Twitter to suspend them for illegal usage of the government's intellectual property. ...Twitter apparently isn't bothering to respond.

The result: they'll need to take this to court, and even then it's just a simple case of changing the logo, long after the follower counts have increased. There are possible criminal penalties, but the government doing this to protesters isn't likely to go over well. It will be a PR disaster to try any "tough" response, though knowing how Trump tends to be, he's probably going to tell his boy Sessions to get on it.

[Candescence]

A quick reminder as to why China is likely fucking terrified of Trump potentially starting a trade war:

 

A US-China trade war would be an "everyone loses" scenario to varying degress, but China would lose the hardest the moment it stops being the manufacturing base for all the world's shit - its economy would collapse, millions of people would be out of work, and the Chinese would get angry at their government for letting the economy collapse, which could potentially destroy the Communist Party outright. The last part, at least, would be a huge silver lining.

Hell, Russia would probably suffer a lot as well, which cause big problems for Putin.

Still, who knows how damaging a trade war would be globally.

[Tani Coyote]

If not for the fact something equally authoritarian would likely take its place, I'd consider that a good thing for the Communist Party to fall from power. If they became a democracy, it probably wouldn't be that hard to befriend Russia; one big reason Russia is wary of being too close to the USA is because China might view it the wrong way. I can only imagine the world (literally) of good China, Russia and the USA/EU could obtain if they were all mostly on the same page.

Meanwhile, this happened:

Former President of Mexico took the gloves off.

[Patticus]

Trump administration to publish (likely to great fanfare) weekly immigrant crime stats:

Quote

Donald Trump has ordered his new administration to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by immigrants.

The US President’s sweeping new executive order on immigration, which he signed on the fifth day of his presidency, includes a paragraph mandating the Secretary for Homeland Security to “make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens” in the US.

The list will also include details of so-called “sanctuary cities” that refuse to hand over immigrant residents for deportation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-publish-weekly-list-crimes-immigrants-commit-refugees-aliens-executive-order-us-a7546826.html

Immigrant crime rates can't hold a candle to citizen crime rates, but okay, let's ignore the country's endemic socioeconomic issues at the root of its crime problems and pour the hate on immigrants instead. This will accomplish nothing, and will probably get good people hurt or killed.

Meanwhile, Trump doesn't understand the Middle East, thinks resource-grabbing military adventures in region torn apart by previous regime change military adventures a good thing...

Between this and his "Maybe we'll get another chance to get Iraq's oil" aside from a few days ago... he's going to go back to Iraq to take their oil, and that will constitute his "plan" to "defeat" ISIS, isn't he? As if that'll do anything but pour fresh gas on the region's fires, providing fresh propaganda to bring more people into ISIS' fold.

[CleverSonicUsername]

2 hours ago, Patticus said:

This will accomplish nothing,

I disagree, I think it will accomplish precisely what Trump's administration wants, but none of that is a good thing. It's clearly an attempt to further paint illegals as a dangerous element in our society, strengthening tensions and allowing the Trump admin to get away with whatever they want. It coaxes an ill-informed public into supporting future legislation that will disenfranchise minority groups, build more power for the Trump administration, and create a scapegoat for them to use in the future.

Of course those of us who are informed know that those statistics will likely show nothing worthy of being alarmed about, but that's not who it's meant for. It's meant for the uninformed base that the GOP is so eager to cultivate.

Six days into this shit, I have a lot of anxiety over what we'll look like in four years.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Wow man.

[Johnny Boy]

47 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

Wow man.

I bet Hillary is laughing her ass off right now. Jesus only 7 days in and already things are starting to go to shit. 

[AxelPrime]

1 hour ago, Mayor D said:

Wow man.

First he complains how Hillary has ties to Wallstreet, had an unsecure phone that can jepordize the country, and is unfit to serve...

Now he hires Goldman Sachs and other Billionares for his cabinet, is insecure about crowd sizes and his public image, and now this.

This man is a bloody hypocrite.

[The Chairman Of The Board]

6 hours ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

I disagree, I think it will accomplish precisely what Trump's administration wants, but none of that is a good thing. It's clearly an attempt to further paint illegals as a dangerous element in our society, strengthening tensions and allowing the Trump admin to get away with whatever they want. It coaxes an ill-informed public into supporting future legislation that will disenfranchise minority groups, build more power for the Trump administration, and create a scapegoat for them to use in the future.

Of course those of us who are informed know that those statistics will likely show nothing worthy of being alarmed about, but that's not who it's meant for. It's meant for the uninformed base that the GOP is so eager to cultivate.

Six days into this shit, I have a lot of anxiety over what we'll look like in four years.

So your telling me that a large majority of illegals don't kill people and cause damage?? Also by calling them illegals you yourself are saying they don't belong here. They are illegal. Illegal means what?? It's something outside of the law. That means they are breaking the law and have to be deported. Also I love educating ignorant liberals. I don't mean ignorant derogatorily, simply as you don't know the facts. Tell me, how is President Trump and his administration doing anything to disenfranchise minority groups?? The only minority group is blacks. Anything else like Chinese or Mexican or anything like that is an ethnic group. So tell me what is he going to do to disenfranchise black people?? He's already started to help the poor families in the inner cities, even enlisting the help of Steve Harvey who said that he was very sincere. So please tell me. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I love how in the several questions you asked that you steered it straight from minority disenfranchisement to just the topic of poor black people being disenfranchised and using one black man as a representative of the whole group.

Of note: the chinese, mexicans, and black people (which are a group we call africans) are both ethnic groups and minorities, dude. Minorities are by definition groups that are smaller than the majority, hence why the chinese and mexicans among others are also called minorities.

[Nepenthe]

1 hour ago, The Jolly Chairman said:

So your telling me that a large majority of illegals don't kill people and cause damage??

If you got any of your news from outside of alt-right sources you would know that most people of any demographic outside of "murderer" don't go around murdering people.

Quote

Also by calling them illegals you yourself are saying they don't belong here. They are illegal. Illegal means what?? It's something outside of the law. That means they are breaking the law and have to be deported.

Immigrant status is a range of states versus a strict binary. Not being a citizen doesn't mean you are necessarily illegal. Green cards, visas, marriage, DREAMERS-- we have a range of immigrants here who are in a sort of limbo. This is on top of the fact that our judicial immigration system is backed up to hundreds of thousands of pending court cases where people are sincerely trying their hardest to attain a permanent legal status but simply cannot because there's not enough lawyers and judges to deal with the workload, meaning deporting these people now is punishing them for the inefficiencies of our system. This is also to say nothing of children who were either brought here and are too young to begin the process of naturalization or children who were born here who rely on their parents of differing status for support. This is also not taking into account the fact that many Latinx, natives, and others who are coming from south of the border are legally classified as refugees as they are escaping cartel violence.

If you are an advocate for just deporting anyone and everyone who "doesn't belong here," well, first of all, white people wouldn't be here on these pretenses because y'all came over here by force and didn't give a fuck what the natives had to say about it (y'all still don't care about natives considering Trump is about to ram the Dakota Access pipeline down their throats). And in general it's a legally and morally-complicated issue that requires at least some kind of general knowledge of all of the systems at play and empathy for your fellow man. By saying "deport all illegals," you are at the very least automatically condemning children with no say in this to either to a life of foster care away from their real families or even certain death in their original country due to cartel violence there. If you're okay with that then that's fine, but you don't get to claim any actual moral high ground because "well, it's the law" anymore than people who returned runaway slaves to their masters had any kind of moral high ground because "well, it's the law."

Quote

Also I love educating ignorant liberals. I don't mean ignorant derogatorily, simply as you don't know the facts.

You're a Trump voter. Don't be so presumptuous about how much you know, because--

Quote

Tell me, how is President Trump and his administration doing anything to disenfranchise minority groups?? The only minority group is blacks. Anything else like Chinese or Mexican or anything like that is an ethnic group. So tell me what is he going to do to disenfranchise black people?? He's already started to help the poor families in the inner cities, even enlisting the help of Steve Harvey who said that he was very sincere. So please tell me. 

You have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

Black people are an ethnic group just like Chinese people are. Mexican is an etonym denoting where one lives and is raised, like "British;" there are multiple ethnic groups who are from Mexico (Louis CK has ethnic Mexican blood in him despite being white). A "minority" is any social group that has disproportionate sociopolitical under-representation within a given society which, in the case of America means black people, Chinese people, Latinx people (not Mexican) and every other non-white ethnic group are "minorities."

Also, it's racist as shit that you think Trump meeting with one black person and treating them as a damn spokesperson is somehow solving things in a sincere way. Black people in general do not give a flying fuck about these kinds of PR stunts. The fact is, Trump called black neighborhoods- my neighborhood- war zones on the campaign trail, when the fact remains that from an individual perspective I probably have a higher quality of life than a shitload of the poor-ass white people who voted for him. I just graduated from one of the top and most expensive animation schools in the country and my parents just bought a goddamn Bentley and had it shipped from Chicago like it was nothing. So this insistence that all of my people are poor savages living primarily in war-torn ghettos is the kind of racist ignorance that can only be described as typical of the GOP and their constituents. Y'all can kiss my ass with that.

But you want to know what Trump has actually done to disenfranchise black people? He redlined his own housing to block black people from buying any of it and got sued for this shit twice. He took out a full page ad demanding that five black boys who were exonerated from false rape charges with DNA evidence be put to death anyway. He has played around with the endorsements of KKK leaders- a terrorist organization- and in general done nothing to distance himself from it. He treated his black casino workers like garbage. He uses individual black people as shields from criticism. He attacked John Lewis, a friend to Martin Luther King and one of the most respected people and civil rights leaders still alive today. And ultimately, he was the one who led the charge that Obama wasn't born in the US on the basis of nothing but the color of the man's skin. 

In general, his plan to solve the disproportionate socioeconomic inequality in black communities? Is it to address the fact that this country has systematically wiped out black-owned wealth cyclically over the years, by creating programs or grants or funds for these areas to create their own start-ups and businesses and jobs? Is it to do something about gun availability? Is it to stop the War on Drugs which criminalizes a goddamn health issue (which further gets on my nerves; black people are primarily being thrown in jail for marijuana, one of the most harmless drugs in existence, and have been given no real care for issues like crack cocaine addiction which the FBI all but outright admitted to introducing in our neighborhoods for the sake of fucking with us, while I'm now hearing white people call the increased heroin and opioid usage in poor white communities in the west and Bible Belt an "epidemic" that must be "helped." Funny how drug use only becomes a problem worthy of empathy when it's killing white children. Where were these bleeding hearts back in the 70s and 80s for black people?) Is it to address the harassment and statistically-unsupported overpolicing and ticketing that only serves to burden poor black people with fines and court dates that interfere with work and thus the ability to escape poverty? Is it to address the school-to-prison pipeline? Hell, is it even to say racism exists? Nope; it's to do none of that. It's to send in more militarized police to crush and oppress my people even more.

Fuck Trump, fuck his administration, and fuck the notion that his ass isn't racist against black people.

[CleverSonicUsername]

2 hours ago, The Jolly Chairman said:

So your telling me that a large majority of illegals don't kill people and cause damage?? Also by calling them illegals you yourself are saying they don't belong here. They are illegal. Illegal means what?? It's something outside of the law. That means they are breaking the law and have to be deported. Also I love educating ignorant liberals. I don't mean ignorant derogatorily, simply as you don't know the facts. Tell me, how is President Trump and his administration doing anything to disenfranchise minority groups?? The only minority group is blacks. Anything else like Chinese or Mexican or anything like that is an ethnic group. So tell me what is he going to do to disenfranchise black people?? He's already started to help the poor families in the inner cities, even enlisting the help of Steve Harvey who said that he was very sincere. So please tell me. 

 

Nepenthe already summed up everything so succinctly that there's very little I can add to it, so I would refer you to their post.

 

1 hour ago, Nepenthe said:

But you want to know what Trump has actually done to disenfranchise black people? He redlined his own housing to block black people from buying any of it and got sued for this shit twice. He took out a full page ad demanding that five black boys who were exonerated from false rape charges with DNA evidence be put to death anyway. He has played around with the endorsements of KKK leaders- a terrorist organization- and in general done nothing to distance himself from it. He treated his black casino workers like garbage. He uses individual black people as shields from criticism. He attacked John Lewis, a friend to Martin Luther King and one of the most respected people and civil rights leaders still alive today. And ultimately, he was the one who led the charge that Obama wasn't born in the US on the basis of nothing but the color of the man's skin. 

 

Don't forget his appointment of Jeff Sessions, a guy who tried to dismiss a lynching case and then begrudgingly accepted it later. People tout him following through as some big win for civil rights when he was really just doing his job.

Edit:

Or that time during a presidential debate where he defended stop and frisk.

Or that time Little John had to explain to Trump why calling him Uncle Tom was not ok.