US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Vendor

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1EC109

IS GOOD.

Ooo... He's gonna get called into Headmaster Putin's office!...






<O>

[Gerald]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress on Thursday advanced stopgap legislation to keep the federal government operating past Friday when funding expires, seeking to avert a self-inflicted disaster shortly before the Christmas holiday season.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1EF1MZ

Again?

[Skybird]

The ultimate confession of that money is seen as an irrelevance of zero value. In principle the assassination of the idea of bartering and trading, pricing and value, demand and supply, valuable and non-valuable.

If I stand in line at the supermarket and then find I am too short on money for all thwe stings on my arms - I do not conclude that I must put back some things, no - I simply take some leafs of paper , write "banknote" and a wanted number on them, and then "pay" with these.

No cashier in any store would ever accept that. But politicians demand to do right like this all the time. Because they know $h!t about the essence of money, and are clueless on how a producing economy is run.

Gamers know this trick. They call it "infinite money cheat" or "god mode". Doing so spoils the game. Doing so ruins the world.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The ultimate confession of that money is seen as an irrelevance of zero value. In principle the assassination of the idea of bartering and trading, pricing and value, demand and supply, valuable and non-valuable.

If I stand in line at the supermarket and then find I am too short on money for all thwe stings on my arms - I do not conclude that I must put back some things, no - I simply take some leafs of paper , write "banknote" and a wanted number on them, and then "pay" with these.

No cashier in any store would ever accept that. But politicians demand to do right like this all the time. Because they know $h!t about the essence of money, and are clueless on how a producing economy is run.

Gamers know this trick. They call it "infinite money cheat" or "god mode". Doing so spoils the game. Doing so ruins the world.

It's got nothing to do with any of that.

[Skybird]

The whole stageplay has everything and all to do with it.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Vendor

Again?

Threads merged again....US politics.

[vienna]

Hmm...

All that corporate generosity after the tax bill was passed...

Real generosity...or more "swamp" corruption?:


Corporate America's tax-cut generosity: Is it real? --

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...eal/975497001/

After Congress passed the sweeping tax cuts Wednesday, AT&T and Comcast said they would award one-time $1,000 bonuses to a total of more than 300,000 non-management employees. Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bancorp said they’ll raise their base pay to $15 an hour. Wells Fargo also is setting aside $400 million for charitable donations next year and 2% of its after-tax profit for philanthropy in 2019, while Fifth Third is tossing in a $1,000 bonus for workers. Boeing is moving ahead with $300 million in investments, including $100 million in corporate giving.

But is it a coincidence the companies that quickly announced plans after the tax bill passed have received presidential scrutiny?

President Trump has opposed AT&T’s $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner, saying it’s “not good for the country” because prices are likely to go up. The Justice Department is suing to block the merger. The president also has taken aim at Wells Fargo with a tweet that suggested the bank, which has been dogged by a fake accounts scandal, could see its penalties “substantially increased.” And Trump, as president-elect, was critical of Boeing and threatened to cancel a deal for a new Air Force One due to cost concerns. The president also blasted Comcast/NBC Universal on the campaign trail for “trying to poison the mind of the American voter.”

“It is interesting to note that the tidal wave of such announcements are from employers under the gun from government scrutiny and which have been specifically targeted by the president,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor of leadership at Yale School of Management, told USA TODAY.

Interesting, indeed, how 'coincidentally', and quickly, the very corporations with issues needing assistance from the GOP president and the GOP Congress leapt forward; one could even say it might even look, oh, I don't know, what's the word?; "choreographed", "pre-planned", "staged"?...

Gee, I wonder if those corporations will have their 'problems' with the government solved in the coming year?...




<O>

[Catfish]

"anticipatory obedience" ?

[vienna]

"obeisance to tyranny"?







<O>

[Catfish]

Seems so.
Also, some words are now forbidden to be used by agencies.

http://www.iflscience.com/policy/the...e-seven-words/

Ideologically-driven censorship reminds me of George Orwell's "1984"
"Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

[August]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Seems so.
Also, some words are now forbidden to be used by agencies.

http://www.iflscience.com/policy/the...e-seven-words/

Ideologically-driven censorship reminds me of George Orwell's "1984"
"Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

I think if the dem media were to report that Trump had grown fangs and was on the roof of the White House howling at the moon "according to anonymous sources" you'd believe it without question.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, has denied the report, calling it a "complete mischaracterization" of conversations about the annual budget. The CDC says that the words are not banned and that the organization remains "committed to our public health mission as a science-and evidence-based institution."

The Post report is based on an account from an anonymous source who was present for a 90-minute briefing about the annual budget and said "other CDC officials confirmed the existence of a list of forbidden words."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...umps-d-c-hotel

[vienna]

There's been one thing that keeps tripping up Trump and his minions: cold, hard facts. Even when Trump or his minions are actually caught in a lie or gross misrepresentation, they seem to think all they have to do is shriek "Fake News!!" and they are shielded from reality. Pity there is so much evidence of their deceits due to nagging little things like video and audio recording. Its really, really hard for something to be "fake" if the "real" is there to be seen or heard; just ask this Trump-appointed mook, who happens to be an official diplomatic representative of our country, and who got caught not only lying outright in denying something he had stated previously, he also got caught lying about his lie and trying to foist it off as "Fake News!!"; I guess the stupidity, ignorance, and duplicity really does trickle down in the Trump administration:


Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands just got caught lying about the Dutch --

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.748578ec57e8


Gives a whole new twist to the words "ugly American"...

I kinda like the final two paragraphs in the article:

After Trump announced Hoekstra's appointment, Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant observed that Trump “put a Dutchman in the Netherlands — but it is a Dutchman from the Netherlands of the ’50s.”


Of the appointment, liberal politician Sophie in ’t Veld said: “We are looking forward with interest to cooperating with Mr. Hoekstra. We will certainly remind him his roots lie in a country that values tolerance, equality and inclusion. … We expect the representative of our friend and ally the United States to fully and wholly respect our values and to show that respect in all his acts and words.”

<O>

[Catfish]

No hoax, August. The EPA under Pruitt has already changed words Trump dislikes, months ago. Now censorship is spreading to other agencies.

Reuters:
"Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have seen directives from the newly minted leadership seeking to limit how they communicate to the public, according to multiple sources.
The moves have reinforced concerns that Trump, a climate change doubter, could seek to sideline scientific research showing that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming, as well as the career staffers at the agencies that conduct much of this research."

Independent:
"The report is the latest episode where the Trump administration has apparently tried to ban certain terms or words, notably climate change.

• In August, the UK-based Guardianreported that the staff at the U.S. Department of Agriculture had been told they must use the term "weather extremes" instead of "climate change."

• In September, The Washington Postreported a former Trump campaign aide in charge of vetting Environmental Protection Agency grants instructed EPA grant officers to eliminate references to "climate change" in the subject in solicitations."

And so on.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN15822X

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1EB014

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...nder-diversity

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a8113996.html

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ort/957996001/


@August I do not want to anger you, or impose something to you (would not be successfull anyway i know ), but i find this alarming. Maybe it's all not so bad as it looks? I really don't know for sure, but for me this all fits togehter in a bad way, or so i think.

[vienna]

I heard a report on the CDC matter yesterday where it was suggested the imposition of a ban on certain words was not a 'top down' act but an effort by some in the CDC to try and avert projects and initiatives from being dismissed or halted out of hand by Trump and his minions because they saw certain 'trigger' words; its sort of like you'd like to extend or start a program, but if you do use certain words or phrases known to be anathema to the Trump administration, either by the administration directly and explicitly proscribing those words or phrases, or felt to be even possibly be taboo to the administration's ideology, you might have an otherwise broadly beneficial program terminated or not started at all just because of the 'trigger'. It is sad when the free flow of ideas and solutions is clogged with the petty and narrow prejudices...







<O>

[August]

Originally Posted by Catfish

@August I do not want to anger you, or impose something to you (would not be successfull anyway i know ), but i find this alarming. Maybe it's all not so bad as it looks? I really don't know for sure, but for me this all fits togehter in a bad way, or so i think.

I'm not angry Catfish. Mostly amused really. Trumps detractors dislike him so intensely that they will believe just about anything and i'm sure that this is just another attempt at political mudslinging.

I mean can you show me some actual proof of any of this? Some published documents, written orders, covert video, Wikileaks, anything? Anonymous sources quoted by hostile media organizations, who then quote each other (half your links quote the same WP story), imo really aren't something that one should put much stock into.