The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
By the way, a Democrat won a special election for the Wisconsin State Senate yesterday in a blood red district.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
I'm curious why, of all of the things Trump has said and done, the Shithole remark crossed the line. I'm not being snarky in asking, I am just surprised at how much attention and backlash came out of this. I think the comment is horrible on several levels and would have been a major scandal if any previous President said it, but in the grand scheme of Trump's Presidency, this doesn't crack the top 100, and I don't think the comment was at all surprising from Trump, or out of line with everything else he has said and done over the course of his career.degenerasian wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2018 10:17 am Apologies, I'm fully with you guys now. The media should absolutely bash him. Trump's performance this week was a disgrace. From the tweets to the daca meeting to shit hole to everything. I have often said the media shouldn't pick on him to galvanize the other side. But for me finally the line has been crossed.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Yeah, the only surprising thing about that was that anyone was surprised.
He paid a porn star hush money over an affair and it doesn't even crack the top 100.
He paid a porn star hush money over an affair and it doesn't even crack the top 100.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
He's going to respond to her saying he's a bad lay, right?
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
If it ends up being reported on Fox and Friends, then probably.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Some Details from Slate
And...
Update, 12 p.m.: The Daily Beast reports that In Touch will publish its complete 2011 interview with Daniels “later this week”—and that the interview will cover such subjects as “what he’s like down there.” USA! USA! USA!
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2018 1:37 pmThat is what I'm saying. My employees don't know how much we spend on their health insurance. So if our health insurance obligation disappeared (or went way down), there would be nothing to require us to give all of that windfall to our employees. The way we run our firm, we probably would, because we're suckers like that. (The employee contribution for health premiums has not changed since I got here in 1998.) And even if we did raise salaries equal to the reduction in premiums, that additional salary would be taxable income, whereas the money we spend on premiums is not.
And I don't think most employers would pass all of their savings to their employees.
Meanwhile, everyone's taxes would go up to a noticeable degree.
So with single payer, you would definitely have less overall spending on health care / health insurance. But you'd have millions of W-2 employees whose taxes have gone up and whose pay may or may not have gone up enough to come out ahead.
Meanwhile, people in my position would see employee costs going down, i.e., we'd make more money.
I think at least a decent chunk of it would go to employees over time, since before it become standard to some degree, wasn't health care a perk to attract employees?
Certainly not 100% of it, though.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
More than the original interview, I'd absolutely love it if Trump's people get to her first and pay her off for a new interview: "I've been in lot movies, a Ton of movies, porn movies that maybe you've seen me in, and they're really tremendous, quality, classy flicks, and despite being in all those movies I can say with 100% Certainty that no penis has ever been Bigger than Donald's and that he really knows how to use it for pleasure the best."
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Steve, what I'm saying isn't altruism, we know companies don't engage in that, but an employer health tax. If you're paying 25% of salaries into health care expenses now, you'd pay at a rate similar in the future but as a tax.
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Yeah, if employers didn't have to contribute to a single-payer system, we'd have one already. They (along with the insurance companies and their lobbyists) are the true impediment to it happening though if they took the long view they'd probably see they'll end up ahead by just sucking it up and paying the government a tax for health care instead of having to supply it themselves.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
(Wasn't going to be the guy to bring it up.)
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Hm. I didn't understand you were talking about an employer tax. Replacing what I spend on premiums with a tax would be fine with me - but for employers who don't presently pay for health insurance, or who cover a smaller percentage, wouldn't that be likely to hurt employment by raising those employers' payroll costs by 25%? (We presently pay nearly all of the premiums. The employee contribution is $100 per month for a family plan, and that hasn't changed in the past 20 years.)brian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:08 pmYeah, if employers didn't have to contribute to a single-payer system, we'd have one already. They (along with the insurance companies and their lobbyists) are the true impediment to it happening though if they took the long view they'd probably see they'll end up ahead by just sucking it up and paying the government a tax for health care instead of having to supply it themselves.
Gunpowder, employers started offering health insurance as a perk right around WW II, I believe. Wages were frozen, so employers competed by offering better benefits, and then it came to be expected. (Which is really too bad. If that hadn't happened, we would definitely have some kind of government-funded health care like the rest of the world.) But there seems to be a lot less competition for employees nowadays, as shown by the fact that real wages haven't really risen much in the past 30-40 years. So I don't think we could assume that wages would naturally rise back up to cover what employers are currently spending on health care.
I agree with Mister D that an employer tax would probably be the best way to limit the windfall to employers from having the government take over the obligation to provide health insurance.
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
The Sybian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:54 amI'm curious why, of all of the things Trump has said and done, the Shithole remark crossed the line. I'm not being snarky in asking, I am just surprised at how much attention and backlash came out of this. I think the comment is horrible on several levels and would have been a major scandal if any previous President said it, but in the grand scheme of Trump's Presidency, this doesn't crack the top 100, and I don't think the comment was at all surprising from Trump, or out of line with everything else he has said and done over the course of his career.degenerasian wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2018 10:17 am Apologies, I'm fully with you guys now. The media should absolutely bash him. Trump's performance this week was a disgrace. From the tweets to the daca meeting to shit hole to everything. I have often said the media shouldn't pick on him to galvanize the other side. But for me finally the line has been crossed.
I was talking about this with a friend yesterday, he had asked pretty much the same question. My hot take:
I agree with you guys that he's said other and done other stuff that might be considered more salacious. But in a POLICY discussion about immigration, to make this comment... That cracks the top 10, for me at least. This wasn't a campaign rally or at some dinner party.I think this one got the coverage it did in part because of the momentum and overall vibe that is going on due to the Fire and Fury book. The media, for the most part, has been trying to keep their collective shit together, to varying degrees. That book comes out and says what a lot of them have known and witnessed but didn't have the space or appropriate venue to say. "The president is a moron who is treated like your racist grandpa by his and we're scared shitless" is just not something you're gonna see on CNN, and certainly not on the nightly news.
But these comments were so fucking racist, and it just gave them all the opening to just call it what it was.
It's not simply saying those countries (Haiti and African nations) are shitholes, it's coupling that with saying he wants more immigrants from countries like predominately white Norway. It just doesn't get more racist than that, and you don't even need the shithole comment in there to make it incredibly racist. I think a lot of people are missing that part of it.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
It hit personally. I come from a shithole country. I've always separated race from issues. Being a person of race I never want race to come up. I often argue the left goes way to far to bring in race for every issue. So a black guy gets shot by police, is it 100% because the cop is racist or did the cop just panic and fired. I don't like blanket statements, issues should be treated case by case. Same with immigration, to say immigration is a race issue is crazy. The rules to immigrate from Norway is the same as from China.The Sybian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:54 amI'm curious why, of all of the things Trump has said and done, the Shithole remark crossed the line. I'm not being snarky in asking, I am just surprised at how much attention and backlash came out of this. I think the comment is horrible on several levels and would have been a major scandal if any previous President said it, but in the grand scheme of Trump's Presidency, this doesn't crack the top 100, and I don't think the comment was at all surprising from Trump, or out of line with everything else he has said and done over the course of his career.degenerasian wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2018 10:17 am Apologies, I'm fully with you guys now. The media should absolutely bash him. Trump's performance this week was a disgrace. From the tweets to the daca meeting to shit hole to everything. I have often said the media shouldn't pick on him to galvanize the other side. But for me finally the line has been crossed.
What I thought before (and I frustrated all of you) was that the left was waaay left and the GOP were shitheads and Trump actually does some good things. He was on a decent path repealing DACA and getting congress to work out a new immigration plan that the US needs. The shithole comment blows everything I believe in out of the water. I believe in fair immigration, not Norwegian guy is better than Haitian guy. You can't make this distinction in a policy discussion. It's shows a fundamental lack of understanding of immigration. And before that the joint public DACA meeting. Trump didn't have a clue. "You guys do whatever, I'll never veto anything" WTF? What good is a president if he doesn't threaten his veto power. When the Democrats take over both houses this fall, is he going to not veto anything?
So I was wrong, plain and simple.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
In a bubble, sure, but this would be a massive shift all around and I'm sure you could mitigate that elsewhere. Maybe there are outsourcing penalties that offset some of the burden, maybe the universal savings could lead to small business tax exemptions ... who knows. We know its "working" now with massive middle-man profits, there has to be a way to streamline to the benefit of the masses.Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:28 pmHm. I didn't understand you were talking about an employer tax. Replacing what I spend on premiums with a tax would be fine with me - but for employers who don't presently pay for health insurance, or who cover a smaller percentage, wouldn't that be likely to hurt employment by raising those employers' payroll costs by 25%?
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Odds that Trump yells "who's your daddy" in bed are 120%.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Just a reminder of what the office of President used to mean.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
I dunno, That prick sometimes didn't stand to shake another mans hand.
You know what you need? A lyrical sucker punch to the face.
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
To be fair, it was also Warren Harding writing raunchy sex letters and letting his boys run wild in the government.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Well, if we’re focusing on sex and marital fidelity, that wasn’t FDR’s strong point, either.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Beer on the screen!
But FDR wasn't waving his wang at none of them fan dancers.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
It's all a perfect storm, in my opinion. The word "shithole" is very direct in description. I'll use it until the end of time to describe Shreveport, LA. (Hell, my OIC used or yesterday to describe north LA and he's from there.) But...I don't use it in the manner of reflecting one's character. I don't think people from Shreveport are bad people. I just think the area is bad. The president did the opposite and juxtaposed majority non white nations with majority white nations in doing so.The Sybian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:54 amI'm curious why, of all of the things Trump has said and done, the Shithole remark crossed the line. I'm not being snarky in asking, I am just surprised at how much attention and backlash came out of this.
Plus, since it was a direct quote, it gave the media license to say it...and say it and say it and say it. Which allowed Trump enablers on Fox etc to defend it over and over. There's a power in language that the media refused to used in this entire time with the Trump presidency. This finally gave it that push.
In America bad words are the be all, end all won't you think of the children a bridge too far. Extreme violence and distasteful entertainment are forced into our psyche at a young age via commercials, music, TV shows, and movies, but the words and female nipples are bleeped/blurred every time. It's not so over in Europe where the opposite is the case.
And going back to Trump's juxtaposition with Norway, they are the standard bearer for how a nation should conduct itself socially. The Pod Save America guys were in Norway last week and one of their discussions was about how humane the prisons are.
So the whole scene speaks to a level of ignorance that is just palpable. The linear non-logic thinking is infuriating. Norway is good country. Filled with good white people. Not shithole. We want Norwegians. But the bigger smack in the face is the question Why in relation to who comes here. Why can't we have Norwegians over Haitians and Africans? Sickening. Especially when my goddaughter is Haitian and I've actually been there to see what lost hope actually looks like.
I mean, the Statue of Liberty basically says says "give me people from your shithole country because they matter and you don't care about them. We do."
How far we've come.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
More divisiveness in this new world of Trump, even within the same newspaper.
The owner and publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, John Robinson Block, published an editorial justifying Trump's shitthole comment about African countries. The editorial was attributed to the entire editorial staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette instead of to Block. The editorial can be found here.
The staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tried to publish a rebuttal but Block would not allow it to be published in his newspaper. So they published it here instead. I wonder if any staff will be fired for this open revolt.
The owner and publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, John Robinson Block, published an editorial justifying Trump's shitthole comment about African countries. The editorial was attributed to the entire editorial staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette instead of to Block. The editorial can be found here.
The staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tried to publish a rebuttal but Block would not allow it to be published in his newspaper. So they published it here instead. I wonder if any staff will be fired for this open revolt.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
I can see why they were pissed off to be associated with that shitty editorial. What garbage.degenerasian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:08 pm More divisiveness in this new world of Trump, even within the same newspaper.
The owner and publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, John Robinson Block, published an editorial justifying Trump's shitthole comment about African countries. The editorial was attributed to the entire editorial staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette instead of to Block. The editorial can be found here.
The staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tried to publish a rebuttal but Block would not allow it to be published in his newspaper. So they published it here instead. I wonder if any staff will be fired for this open revolt.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Seriously. The whole editorial was bad, but this line at the end is utter garbage and almost astoundingly ignorant:
We need to confine the word “racist” to people like Bull Connor and Dylann Roof.
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season.
Noli Timere Messorem
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
If the NRA gets taken down along with the Trump presidency, it would make me so happy.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
It got worse...
Simply astoundingly asinine.We need to confine the word “racist” to people like Bull Connor and Dylann Roof. For if every person who speaks inelegantly, or from a position of privilege, or ignorance, or expresses an idea we dislike, or happens to be a white male, is a racist, the term is devoid of meaning.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Jimmy Kimmel found a lost porn video Trump shot with Stormy Daniels. Disturbing, but funny.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Johnnie wrote: ↑Wed Jan 17, 2018 9:00 pm... But the bigger smack in the face is the question Why in relation to who comes here. Why can't we have Norwegians over Haitians and Africans? Sickening. Especially when my goddaughter is Haitian and I've actually been there to see what lost hope actually looks like.
I mean, the Statue of Liberty basically says says "give me people from your shithole country because they matter and you don't care about them. We do."
How far we've come.
Damn, Johnnie. This is fucking brilliant.
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
That was Eleanor.
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
If this is true, then it should be the end of the NRA, right? Not necessarily in public opinion, since most Trump supporters don't care about legality of a foreign country funneling money through a non-profit, but seems like it would be a massive legal blunder that would be hard to survive.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
I need more than "investigating whether" ...
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Obviously. I'm still speaking in hypotheticals here though. If the SPLC or some organization like that were funneling money from another country to Democratic presidental candidates, Fox News would be Defcon One.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
Seems like it would not be the end. I assume they have a private army at this point.
Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
The "2nd amendment types" are the private Army. People don't seem to be hip to that.tennbengal wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2018 3:53 pm Seems like it would not be the end. I assume they have a private army at this point.
Ever notice how the only people who think the government is going to "take yur guns" are the same people, who in the current state of affairs, are in love with Republican control?
Notice that when "2nd Amendment Types" protest the "gubment" it's with firepower and the police do nothing, but if it's a group of black people or leftists or whatever they've painted "ANTIFA" as, the cops use their firepower to control everything?
I think it was Charlottesville with, not just nazi wannabes with tiki torches, but actual militia type groups just armed walking around.
There just seems to be this underbelly of festering hate just waiting for a signal or moment to be given the green light to conduct violence and the state will give subtle approval while the media will call for fair debate on both sides. Not like a Kristallnacht type deal, per se, but something to the effect.
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Re: The Indictment Thread (Trump Admin Meltdown Thread Part II)
To be fair, I can't take full credit for pinpointing that exact phrasing. In my head I was like, "it's not the swearing that should get everyone riled up, but that's the front and center because America. It's the comparison of white over black." So when I read a comment saying the Why is the real evil, the light bulb went off.
But the Statue of Liberty stuff was on my mind because it's been quoted multiple times through this presidency and the movie The Boondock Saints keeps playing in my head because of vigilante justice and my hope that it doesn't have to come to that to get out of this ordeal unscathed. (They quote the phrase on the statue in the film.)
mister d wrote:Couldn't have pegged me better.
EnochRoot wrote:I mean, whatever. Johnnie's all hot cuz I ride him.