Politics And Current Events

[Troy Loney]

He was all over the cable news shows Friday, and at no point did I ever think, "Yeah, that guy's on the ball." I mean..... 8-ball, maybe. But in terms of confidence, nope.

I don't expect more from Arnold, but da fuk is Vice doing here?

[Morkle]

There's already a report out there saying that Trump openly regrets signing the separation order last week.

[Troy Loney]

There's already a report out there saying that Trump openly regrets signing the separation order last week.

A position one would expect from a fox news viewer. It's tough to balance that this is the Dem's fault, having to be tough on immigration, and the left is overreacting cause these migrants have it good here in detention.

[Dickie Dunn]

Defense Secretary James Mattis learned in May from a colleague that President Donald Trump had made the decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, and scrambled to get his boss on the phone before a formal announcement was made. It wouldn't be the last time he was caught off guard by a presidential announcement.

A month later, Mattis was informed that Trump had ordered a pause in U.S. military exercises with South Korea only after the president had already promised the concession to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Last week, Trump again blindsided and overruled his defense secretary by publicly directing the Pentagon to create a sixth military branch overseeing operations in space.

The way these recent presidential decisions on major national security issues have played out, as detailed by current and former White House and defense officials, underscores a significant change in Mattis's role in recent months. The president is relying less and less on the advice of one of the longest-serving members of his cabinet, the officials said.

"They don't really see eye to eye," said a former senior White House official who has closely observed the relationship.

Of course they don't see eye to eye. Mattis is sane.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... ls-n885796

[shafnutz05]

Where the criticism of Trump goes from here depends entirely on where Trump goes from here. I think it is entirely fair and accurate to say that given the trajectory of the last 18 months, we have no idea how awful he will be two weeks from now, or two months from now, or six months from now. He's like a well of unending terribleness that finds new and inventive ways to be more terrible than everyone who thought "he'd tone it down after winning the nomination/winning the election/being sworn in/after getting used to being President/eventually/if ever/who cares, he's not Hillary amirite?"

The good news is that Tom Arnold is now on the hunt for the Trump smoking gun.

That appearance on CNN, I believe, was hard to watch.

[shafnutz05]

That’s a really good read. Thanks for posting.

Agreed, that was very enlightening. I've never really believed the nightmare scenario stuff that Trump would speak about re: MS-13. They are absolutely terrible/frightening, and I'd be terrified to live in the same community that they feature prominently in (i.e. Long Island), but I think they will stay niche.

That said--much like Islamic extremism, the more Latinos you have, it's generally likely that will lead to more MS-13 peeps as well. Can't really do much about that though.

[grunthy]

I read an interesting opinion piece in The Hill this weekend. Basically, Democrats and the Left (in general) have continuously ratcheted up rhetoric to throw at Trump throughout his presidency thus far. However, the danger that they are facing is that they may be taking it *too* far, especially with the nearly constant references to Nazi Germany, Hitler, concentration camps, etc. Essentially, they finally blew their rhetorical wad on this border issue, and it already seems like the issue is blowing over.

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/ ... -as-hitler

Others, however, have no such compunction. Members of Congress, former officials, reporters and TV commentators have tweeted comparisons of U.S. detention facilities to Nazi concentration camps or issued none-too-subtle invocations of gas chambers in their tweets about children being led away from their parents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Reporters have peppered administration officials with questions about their “Nazi” tactics.

On Friday, an MSNBC commentator extended the Nazi label to every Trump supporter, declaring: “If you vote for Trump then you, the voter, you, not Donald Trump, are standing at the border, like Nazis, going: ‘You here, you here.’”

Earlier, one magazine fact-checker beclowned herself by mistaking the tattoo of an ICE forensics analyst — a wounded Marine veteran and Paralympian — as a Nazi symbol.

Given that the Obama administration also housed separated children in “cages,” which merited the faintest of peeps from supplicant media, politicians and activists, this newfound outrage comes off as contrived partisanship.

Apart from the historical ignorance in comparing the mechanized genocide of 6 million people with the temporary warehousing of children in detention facilities, going full-bore with accusations of Nazism is a grave strategic error on the part of those opposing the president.

This, then, raises the question: Where do Democrats and their “Never Trump” conservative hangers-on go next, rhetorically, having spent their shot on the border issue? Anything less than full accusations of Nazism will seem tame by comparison. Now that Trump is “actually Hitler,” any compromise by Democrats will be viewed as kowtowing to fascism. Conversely, sticking with the Nazism line of attack cheapens its effect and, frankly, makes its proponents come off as a little more than unhinged, something perhaps already at play given that a Gallup poll has put Trump at his highest approval rating to date.

Is this perhaps the last, desperate gasp of the president’s critics? Do they double down and ride the Trump-as-Hitler narrative — and themselves — into the ground until November’s midterms and beyond? Undoubtedly, the president is ready to chum the waters with another carefully manufactured outrage to distract the pundit class.

Despite what should have been a slam-dunk for critics of the president, the overwrought rhetoric of Democrats may have handed the modern-day Teflon Don another victory, and harmed their longer-term prospects in the process.

Essentially, once you have proclaimed that the president is *literally* Hitler, where do you go from there?

The biggest problem with this analysis is that is stupid.

It is very true that children were housed in ramshackle conditions under Obama. That was in response to an unprecedented surge in unaccompanied minors arriving at the border. And in the rare instances when a family unit was broken up in detention, there was always an accompanying aggravating circumstance, like an outstanding warrant on the adult, or a suspicion of trafficking activity, or the like. And there was in almost every case near immediate reunification, and eventual release with some kind of monitoring. (I read one story that asserted voluntary release had something like 99% compliance with subsequent obligatory appearances in the immigration/asylum process)

The problem now is that the Trump policy created unaccompanied minors through the mandatory separation of all families, regardless of any aggravating circumstances. It is a deliberate action that they undertook with the express stated on-the-record aim of doing the very thing that's happening in the hopes that it would serve as a deterrent. Where families were broken up in the past, there would be a handful every month, so that in a year you might have 70-80 such instances; in the few weeks the Trump policy was in place, they ended up with 2400 kids separated from their parents, and they have no idea how they can reunite them. Once the kids are peeled off, they are turned over to HHS, and entered into a different system, with no apparent cross-referencing; under the old process, the adults were never in the ICE system, and so there was never any need to cross-reference with a different agency, which was something of a moot point, because they weren't detained longer than 20 days.

They have taken an immigration issue and turned it into a refugee crisis.

Where the criticism of Trump goes from here depends entirely on where Trump goes from here. I think it is entirely fair and accurate to say that given the trajectory of the last 18 months, we have no idea how awful he will be two weeks from now, or two months from now, or six months from now. He's like a well of unending terribleness that finds new and inventive ways to be more terrible than everyone who thought "he'd tone it down after winning the nomination/winning the election/being sworn in/after getting used to being President/eventually/if ever/who cares, he's not Hillary amirite?"

[MWB]

That’s a really good read. Thanks for posting.

Agreed, that was very enlightening. I've never really believed the nightmare scenario stuff that Trump would speak about re: MS-13. They are absolutely terrible/frightening, and I'd be terrified to live in the same community that they feature prominently in (i.e. Long Island), but I think they will stay niche.

That said--much like Islamic extremism, the more Latinos you have, it's generally likely that will lead to more MS-13 peeps as well. Can't really do much about that though.

Well, based on the article, it hasn’t grown over the last 10 years. I don’t know what immigration numbers have been over that time though.

It was also interesting to read that most of the victims of the gang are people tied to members in some way, not so much random people in the area.

[grunthy]

Laura Ingalls Wilder removed from book award over racist language

https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCWorld/sta ... gr%5Etweet

[Troy Loney]

That said--much like Islamic extremism, the more Latinos you have, it's generally likely that will lead to more MS-13 peeps as well. Can't really do much about that though.

oof

[MWB]

Laura Ingalls Wilder removed from book award over racist language

https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCWorld/sta ... gr%5Etweet

So dumb. Instead of making things like this something teachable, let’s try to hide it.

[shafnutz05]

That said--much like Islamic extremism, the more Latinos you have, it's generally likely that will lead to more MS-13 peeps as well. Can't really do much about that though.

oof

Mara Salvatrucha is a Latino gang. There's a reason why MS-13 has become so prominent in multiple communities on Long Island, where there are significant pockets of Latino population. This isn't meant to be controversial, so I'm sorry if it came off that way, I was merely talking in terms of statistics/percentages.

[tifosi77]

It makes sense, considering MS-13 was founded in Los Angeles. And, like most gangs, was formed as a protection racket for new Salvadorans against the more established gangs comprised of mostly Mexican (18th Street) or African American (Crips and/or Bloods) members.

[shafnutz05]

I went back and looked at what Maxine Waters said the other day.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/39387 ... lic-spaces

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Saturday called on her supporters at a rally to confront Trump Cabinet officials in public spaces like restaurants and department stores to protest the administration's policies.

"I have no sympathy for these people that are in this administration who know it is wrong what they're doing on so many fronts but they tend to not want to confront this president," Waters said at a Los Angeles rally on Saturday.

"For these members of his Cabinet who remain and try to defend him they're not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they're not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they're not going to be able to shop at a department store, the people are going to turn on them, they're going to protest, they're going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they're going to tell the president 'no I can't hang with you, this is wrong this is unconscionable and we can't keep doing this to children,' " she continued.

I mean...this is pretty bad, right? Peaceful protests are one thing, but it seems to be that Rep. Waters is pouring gasoline on a fire. I can only imagine the way it would be received if a prominent Republican was encouraging the harassment and confronting of Democratic lawmakers and officials when they are out with their families eating, shopping, driving, etc. I get people not having sympathy for executive branch officials, but this strikes me as inciting some already unhinged people.

[tifosi77]

You mean like, say, putting pictures of them on posters with rifle scope reticles over their faces?

[Troy Loney]

That said--much like Islamic extremism, the more Latinos you have, it's generally likely that will lead to more MS-13 peeps as well. Can't really do much about that though.

oof

Mara Salvatrucha is a Latino gang. There's a reason why MS-13 has become so prominent in multiple communities on Long Island, where there are significant pockets of Latino population. This isn't meant to be controversial, so I'm sorry if it came off that way, I was merely talking in terms of statistics/percentages.

The general assumption that more latinos and more arabs equals more MS-13 and more terrorists.

It might actually be an inverse, like if there are stronger positive influences in those communities, that the violence is minimized. I obviously don't have anything to cite here, but buying into the approach that every Central American is a potential MS-13 and every arab is potential terrorist leads to things like the travel ban and imprisoning toddlers.

[Troy Loney]

https://news.gallup.com/poll/235955/tru ... 52041%2525

He got a one week summit bump.

[Freddy Rumsen]

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin has cracked a rib of U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill while performing the Heimlich maneuver on the fellow Democrat when she began choking.

(link: https://apnews.com/50d47e02c43b45d180379a7dbcefffdf) apnews.com/50d47e02c43b45…

[Freddy Rumsen]

You mean like, say, putting pictures of them on posters with rifle scope reticles over their faces?

#whataboutism

[CBear3]

You mean like, say, putting pictures of them on posters with rifle scope reticles over their faces?

#whataboutism

I think the distinction here is violence.

In the meantime, I think shad is right though. While the message that if you see a public servant you don't think is serving the public well, it's okay to tell them that in person is fine, the problem is you've got too many Tom Arnold's out there who will go off the deep end. And then before you know it you've got shots fired at the Congressional Softball game.

[shafnutz05]

You mean like, say, putting pictures of them on posters with rifle scope reticles over their faces?

Were there members of Congress that were publishing/tweeting those photos? I remember what you are talking about very well, but surely you understand the difference between the acts of some right-wing groups and one of the most prominent, influential, and senior members of Congress, right? Granted, she is also one of the more radical members of Congress, but nevertheless...

[Freddy Rumsen]

I assume Tif meant the Sarah Palin targeting districts thing, which every campaign known to man had used up to that point. Even though every rational person knows Jared Loughner had no political motive for his attack on Gabby Giffords, but totally the same as a sitting congresswoman asking folks to harass people.

[grunthy]

I assume Tif meant the Sarah Palin targeting districts thing, which every campaign known to man had used up to that point. Even though every rational person knows Jared Loughner had no political motive for his attack on Gabby Giffords, but totally the same as a sitting congresswoman asking folks to harass people.

It’s only ok for a liberal politician to incite possible violence.

[AuthorTony]

I read an interesting opinion piece in The Hill this weekend. Basically, Democrats and the Left (in general) have continuously ratcheted up rhetoric to throw at Trump throughout his presidency thus far.

Trump's critics on the left need to stfu until the midterms because all they're doing is firing up his base and encouraging to get out to vote R. If Trump runs and wins in 2020, it'll be because the left couldn't keep their mouths shut.

[MR25]

Little Devil's Advocate here:

If the left/Trump critics stops bringing up all of the things that Trump is doing (lies, scandals, etc), then we've reached a point of no return, and when he does do something really egregious (and he will, because it's that kind of administration), no one will say anything because they're afraid it'll hurt their "brand".

And that's a dangerous place to be in.