OT: Politics

[PBSteve]

There's just something so hilarious about Trump's lawyer getting nailed for campaign finance violation for paying a porn star hush money at the direction of Trump.

#draintheswamp #GOPfamilyvalues

[cockerpunk]

if its a felony for cohen (and it is), then its a fellony for trump.

cohen's lawyer claims to have evidence (probably tapes), showing trump's knowledge of the russian hacking before it happened too.

the president of the united states has been implicated in at least 2 fellonys in the last 24 hours. and cohens lawyer claims to have evidence of treason.





if this had happened to obama, on a scale of seconds, to milliseconds, how long would it take for republicans to impeach him? odds republicans turn on trump now? odds republicans admit they don't actually give a rat's ass about any crimes of trump's, they just hate brown people?

[PBSteve]

I have to say, I didn't expect it to go anywhere but I did hope beyond reason Trump's brashness would pay off in North Korea. The Kims seem to like that kind of thing.

Bummer that it failed entirely and we're weaker in the region because of it.

[cockerpunk]

hes also now claiming to have a deal with mexico on nafta, but of course, there is no deal. also doesn't include Canada (you know, our largest trading partner).

[PBSteve]

Well, it makes sense given the increase in friendliness with the Saudis, Canada is the only country we import more oil from. By a wide margin.

Gotta love that dependence on middle east oil. But you just know it'll be the libs fault for trying to stop a single pipeline - not the result of overarching trade policy (or complete lack thereof).

[ironyusa]

*sigh https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...t-rules/?amp=1

This damage will be almost impossible to undo. Governement owned and run infrastructure may end up being the only way to fix this in the long run.

[cockerpunk]

*sigh https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...t-rules/?amp=1

This damage will be almost impossible to undo. Governement owned and run infrastructure may end up being the only way to fix this in the long run.

economy will crash in less than 9 months, so don't worry about it.

Q1 numbers were decent, only because everyone shuffled everything they could into Q1 because of tariffs, now everyone is looking at 50-250 million black hole in there budgets for the end of the year. shits gonna be bad. and tech isn't going to get get a bailout like farmers did, because blue state things. we don't get no socialism here, just for poor ass red state farmers who voted for getting fucking the ass.

just in time for trump to blame the newly elected democratic house! and his base will eat it up.

hell, i think its obvious that his base doesn't give a rats ass about anything. he could be colluding with russia while sodomizing a pregnant russian whore he is choking to death, and they wouldn't care. cause "pwning the libs" and brown people.

[ironyusa]

I am so politically confused right now. I wouldn't identify myself as liberal, but I seriously hate most GOP policy. As it relates to telecom, we can watch the Akamai "State of the Internet" reports and see correlative data for the impact of the FCC policies. The environmental policies are, perhaps, a bit more difficult to unravel. The budget deficit is pretty self-evident. I mean what the hell are we even doing? I don't care about republican/ democrat rhetoric, but as a nation we're digging a hole so deep that eventually the dirt we try to excavate while digging deeper just starts burying us alive.

Things like immigration, well... I take a hard stance that illegal immigrants are criminals. That doesn't mean I am opposed to immigration reform. I mean, if you want to be an American citizen, then I don't think we should make that a difficult process. Pay your taxes like everyone else. From that, I believe the obfuscation of the healthcare system becomes more clear. I can't speak for everywhere, but I have spoken to several board members at major hospital systems in Texas and it's the uninsured/ non-citizens that drive the costs out of proportion. I don't know what type of national policies solve these problems, because what we're doing now is so blurred. I do think mental healthcare is FAR underplayed, particularily, by republicans.

I'm not so sure, however, that Trump won't win re-election barring a major collapse linked directly to his policies. IMO, a moderate democrat is the biggest threat to Trump at this point, but the 2-party system seems to be pushing more extreme candidates. The whole "move to the center" for election mentality is dead.

[cockerpunk]

I am so politically confused right now. I wouldn't identify myself as liberal, but I seriously hate most GOP policy. As it relates to telecom, we can watch the Akamai "State of the Internet" reports and see correlative data for the impact of the FCC policies. The environmental policies are, perhaps, a bit more difficult to unravel. The budget deficit is pretty self-evident. I mean what the hell are we even doing? I don't care about republican/ democrat rhetoric, but as a nation we're digging a hole so deep that eventually the dirt we try to excavate while digging deeper just starts burying us alive.

Things like immigration, well... I take a hard stance that illegal immigrants are criminals. That doesn't mean I am opposed to immigration reform. I mean, if you want to be an American citizen, then I don't think we should make that a difficult process. Pay your taxes like everyone else. From that, I believe the obfuscation of the healthcare system becomes more clear. I can't speak for everywhere, but I have spoken to several board members at major hospital systems in Texas and it's the uninsured/ non-citizens that drive the costs out of proportion. I don't know what type of national policies solve these problems, because what we're doing now is so blurred. I do think mental healthcare is FAR underplayed, particularily, by republicans.

I'm not so sure, however, that Trump won't win re-election barring a major collapse linked directly to his policies. IMO, a moderate democrat is the biggest threat to Trump at this point, but the 2-party system seems to be pushing more extreme candidates. The whole "move to the center" for election mentality is dead.

this is a classic "i dont think im a liberal because here is what i think on this list of issues (lists all democratic party platform positions)"

ie, path to citizenship, everyone covered health insurance system, free internet, not cutting taxes for the rich and blowing up the deficient etc etc etc

i think there is a very good chance trump could win again. nothing effects his base. there is no bottom. there is no level of dehumanizing shit he does that they care about. they even don't care about there own economic well being, so long as trump's pwning the libs. they will support a pedophile over a democrat, there is no bottom. if democrats are morons (and oh boy are they) and try to impeach him, and its not 100% bi-partisan, he stands a very good chance at re-election.

2018 is about stopping him. 2020 is about replacing him and undoing the damage.

[Lurker27]

Liberals shoot themselves in the foot by focusing on extremely unpopular social issues. Gordon alludes to it, but democrats are getting outplayed like crazy in a metapolitical, or purely political sense. Intelligent strategy would completely de-emphasize LGBTQ, racial, and immigration issues and focus entirely on economic self-interest.

The economy at least as defined by stock prices is as overbought as it's been, with the exception of the tech bubble:
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/...on-july-update

Even considering lower corporate taxation won't help that much since the effective rates were so low due to loopholes.

Just saying it will be hard to lay the correction purely at the feet of the tariffs, though I think the global implications for monetary velocity are important. It actually does seem to have affected China, and China 2025 is legitimately scary in terms of being set up to takeover global economic leadership. It's possible defensive economic action is warranted, though the implementation of the tariffs (including Europe and Canada, why?) is not structured intelligently.