***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[deleted]

Kenneth Roth (Executive Director of Human Rights Watch) just made Tucker Carlson look like an absolute fool

 

[RustyShackleford]

 

[moe fab]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/...-field-workers.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

California Farmers Backed Trump, but Now Fear Losing Field Workers

I do need to clarify, it was mostly Central Valley farmers who backed Trump. Those of us who are involved in farming in the coastal and near coastal areas, knew who works for us.

Central Valley farmers, can sometimes be a special species of stupid. Even the cotton planters of old didn't vote to deport their slaves.

They need to switch to drip irrigation too

Word I might have a good claim to the iron throne because I literally can talk about GoT all **** day.

I never seen that show, is it any good?

I was about to post about how my Chinese friends with visas/green cards are afraid to go visit China in case Trump starts some @#%@ while they're gone.

Well thats just ridiculous lol

Pot meet kettle?

The last few pages have been hilarious.

This is true

@Elpablo21 that pic killed it

"Telling a court that he'll see that court in court"

 

[RustyShackleford]

Cong Chaffetz Town Hall crowd chanting "Do your job!" He's having a hard time answering over crowd noise @UtahIndivisible @IndivisibleTeam pic.twitter.com/gO0BXybGy5
— Kyung Lah (@KyungLahCNN) February 10, 2017

 

[RIP sleazyy]

Bout to Google transgender Oprah in the news tab, that is the most interesting thing on that cover tbh

 

[rolaholic]

Besides the cover pic,another thing that caught my eye...China's transgender Oprah? Lolwut? Real life Whiterose?

*word RIP sleazyy

 

[oneilmatt]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

 

[EddieDoyers]

Apparently ICE has started doing raids in LA
They have detained at least a 100 people so far

 

[MVP]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

He very well could get impeached. They're already going after him investigating whether he told the border agents to defy a court order when the ban was first lifted. He's to egotistical to do the smart thing, he'll eventually **** up so bad where they leave the Congress no choice. He has no respect for the constitution.

 

[ksteezy]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

You do know he is the one doing that to himself right? How you holding is responsible for his mistakes?

 

[deleted]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

"Wait and see"

 

[RustyShackleford]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

Where you saying this to conservatives during the Obama era?

 

[Rootin4EverybodyBlack]

Apparently ICE has started doing raids in LA
They have detained at least a 100 people so far

Read this was happening in Charlotte (of all places) yesterday.

 

[gry60]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

We live in a democracy, not a tyranny of the majority. Trump and his sycophants have ignored the people who didn't vote for him. That's not how ****'s supposed to work.

 

[everysingletime]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

The president is deligitimizing himself

It's just a matter of hoping others will see it before it's all too late

 

[rillo561]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Trump to be a one-term president."

Sound familiar?

 

[biggie62]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Trump to be a one-term president."

Sound familiar?

Except unlike Obama, he's actually making that case himself and it's only been 3 weeks

 

[EddieDoyers]

Apparently ICE has started doing raids in LA
They have detained at least a 100 people so far

Read this was happening in Charlotte (of all places) yesterday.

Exec order today probably had an effect on all this happening right now

 

[gordyloc]

Apparently ICE has started doing raids in LA
They have detained at least a 100 people so far

To be fair, ICE was doing these under Obama too. 

 

[RustyShackleford]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

We live in a democracy, not a tyranny of the majority. Trump and his sycophants have ignored the people who didn't vote for him. That's not how ****'s supposed to work.

Trump doesn't even have the majority of Americans on his side.

-He didn't win the popular vote

-Because of the electoral system rural white voters have more power in deciding the make up of government

-Gerrymandering (which is discriminatory) and the cap on House reps make it worst

-The GOP actively try to disenfranchise minority and young voters, especially black people. With voter ID laws, restricting voting access, and disenfranchising former felons

-And the right wing try to keep turnout as low as possible because it suits them

If we had fair districts, and truly representatives voting system, and we tried to promote turnout, Democrats (especially progressives) would roll into power.

In some states, minorities are experiencing the tyranny of the majority. But national wide, conservatives are a ruling hostile minority.

If conservative where interested in making elections as open and representative as possible, and stopped lashing out at minority groups, I would shut my mouth between elections

That is not the case. So Trump stans can miss me with their complaints.

Btw, let us remember, when vile racism was being spewed at Obama from their base, they hardly said a peep.

 

[EddieDoyers]

Apparently ICE has started doing raids in LA

They have detained at least a 100 people so far

To be fair, ICE was doing these under Obama too. 

Yep
That's why he was nicknamed deporter in chief

But the magnitude of the raids today and the timing of it don't seem to be a coincidence

 

[frink85]

Whats the end game here? Defy, mock, resist, and attempt to delegitimize the lawfully elected President at every turn until... what exactly? He wont be impeached. He wont quit. Im just confused as to what the plan is.

We live in a democracy, not a tyranny of the majority. Trump and his sycophants have ignored the people who didn't vote for him. That's not how ****'s supposed to work.

Repped. So just because he won an election we're supposed to blindly follow all of his commands? Do you even America bro?

 

[everysingletime]

I'm hoping Trump continues to **** talk the judiciary system

It'll probably make the SC less likely to vote in his favor.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Apparently ICE has started doing raids in LA

They have detained at least a 100 people so far

To be fair, ICE was doing these under Obama too. 

Yep
That's why he was nicknamed deporter in chief

But the magnitude of the raids today and the timing of it don't seem to be a coincidence

Yes, we have to remember at the end of the day, ICE and Trump are following the law on this.

The difference is (like Rex mentioned before), give other evidence we know Obama is not a racist person. He wanted to get immigration reform done, and he tried to keep families together (he was rebuked by Congress and the courts)

Trump on the other hand is a racist. And seems to have no motivation to pass sensible immigration reform, just wants to kick people out.

Trump and Obama actions may be similar, but their underlying motivations and probably much different.

 

[rolaholic]

@DefenseOne: Why Did Trump Pick a Fight with Putin Over the Nuclear Weapons Treaty? http://buff.ly/2ksBg2h

President Trump took a hard line over New START with Russia. It's an odd battle to choose -- and a dangerous one.
BY JOE CIRINCIONE

President Donald Trump has already picked a fight with Russia’s Vladimir Putin over nuclear weapons and the New START treaty. It is a curious battle to choose. The treaty enjoys the overwhelming backing of America’s top national security leaders and military commanders. Trump reportedly didn’t know what the treaty was but seems to be adopting the rhetoric of the far-right and their losing battle to block it in the Senate since 2010. To back out now would uncap the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world, worsening a burgeoning new arms race. Even more worrying, it could leave Russia’s arsenal dangerously uncounted.

We learned Thursday, in yet another leak to the press from concerned White House staff, that Trump railed at Putin in their recent phone call, denouncing the 2010 New START nuclear arms limitation pact as a “bad deal.” It should have been a routine courtesy call. But according to Reuters, “When Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty… Trump paused to ask his aides in an aside what the treaty was.” He then reprised campaign rhetoric about how one-sided the treaty is, claiming that it gave Russia a strategic nuclear advantage.

Approved by a vote of 71-26, New START is a modest arms reduction treaty that trims U.S. and Russian “operationally deployed strategic weapons” to 1,550 on each side and extends crucial inspection and verifications procedures, allowing each side to ensure that the other is complying with the limits. It expires in 2021. Putin’s effort to simply extend the agreement failed to get an answer from the irate Trump.

Here’s the reality: “The New START Treaty has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership — to include the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of the service chiefs, and the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, the organization responsible for our strategic nuclear deterrent,” said then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2010, who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “This treaty deserves [to be ratified by the U.S. Senate] on account of the dangerous weapons it reduces, the critical defense capabilities it preserves, the strategic stability it maintains, and, above all, the security it provides to the American people.”

Then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen agreed, “I believe, and the rest of the military leadership in this country believes, that this treaty is essential to our future security.”

Some Senate opponents of the treaty blocked it for purely political reasons; not wanting to give the Democratic president a victory is a crucial election year. But others took their cues from hardliners such as Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, who warned that because of Russian aggression “the United States, its allies and interests are at greater risk by the day. New START would actually reward the Kremlin for such behavior, rather than end it.” They preferred an arms race to arms control, calling then, as now, for an increase in nuclear weapons with more “usable” designs and a broader range of potential targets.

Military leaders warned about the consequences of this approach. Former commander of STRATCOM Gen. Kevin Chilton, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “If we don’t get the treaty, the Russians are not constrained in their development of force structure and…we have no insight into what they’re doing. So it’s the worst of both possible worlds.”

Seven former commanders of U.S. Strategic Air Command and Strategic Command backed up Chilton, writing the Senate Armed Services Committee, “Although the New START Treaty will require U.S. reductions, we believe that the post-treaty force will represent a survivable, robust and effective deterrent, one fully capable of deterring attack on both the United States and America’s allies and partners.”

Another reality check: Under New START the U.S. is still capable of deploying 240 nuclear missiles on America’s submarine-launched nuclear forces alone; each carrying up to 8 nuclear warheads for an estimated 900-1,000 warheads deployed at sea almost around the clock. We also keep 400 intercontinental ballistic missies, or ICBMs, ready to launch at a moment’s notice, and 60 strategic bombers capable of carrying 1,168 nuclear weapons.

This “bad deal” allows the United States to keep enough destructive force to destroy all of human civilization several times over. Forget deterrence, we are still well into Mad Max scenarios.

What if Trump backs out of this treaty?

“Without New START we will be compelled to waste military resources, not to mention tax dollars,” warned retired Lt. Gen. John Castellaw,a 36-year veteran of the Marine Corps “A precise accounting of the Russian arsenal and predictability going forward informs our strategic force structure. Frankly, it is to our advantage to verifiably reduce the Russian deployment because it allows us to use our resources more effectively.”

As former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger and Colin Powell wrote in 2010, “Obviously, the United States does not sign arms control agreements just to make friends. Any treaty must be considered on its merits. But we have here an agreement that is clearly in our national interest, and we should consider the ramifications of not ratifying it.”

Nor does it seem that the president consulted either his secretary of state or secretary of defense prior to launching his diatribe. Both support the agreement. Before Trump turns his tweets about a new nuclear arms race into a terrifying new policy, the new president might want to listen to the people who actually know what they are talking about.

Bad deal for no other reason than because Obama made it