US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Bilge_Rat]

here is how you get from the town hall protests to Obama using actual news sources:

1. a group called "Indivisible" put out the booklet on how to disrupt TownHalls:

https://www.indivisibleguide.com/web...r-chapter-four

2. "Indivisible" was founded by former democratic aides specifically to disrupt Trump:

Dubbed “Indivisible,” the group launched as a way for Padilla and a handful of fellow ex-Democratic aides to channel their post-election heartbreak into a manual for quashing President Donald Trump’s agenda. They drafted a 26-page protest guide for activists, full of pointers on how to bird dog their members of Congress in the language of Capitol insiders.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...blicans-234863

3. Indivisible partnered with "Organising for Action":

Obama-Aligned Organizing for Action Relaunches for Trump Era

(...)

And the group has teamed up with Indivisible, a buzzy newcomer to the progressive movement, to offer organizing training that began Thursday night with a video conference. A combined 25,000 people have registered to participate in those trainings, OFA said.

(...)

The goal is to further hinder the already stalling momentum around repeal the Affordable Care Act.

For instance, OFA helped get Obamacare supporters to flood townhalls for Florida Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis, Illinois GOP Rep. Peter Roskam, and California Rep. Tom McClintock, which lead to national news coverage about anti-repeal backlash

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/poli...mp-era-n719311

Personally, I have no issue with Obama being involved, this is just politics.

But it is laughable to argue these TownHalls are not being manipulated by Democratic activists when the evidence is so transparent.

[Oberon]

No, that's how you get to Democrats who worked under Obama, where's the actual link from them to Obama? Where's the memo from Obama telling them to go ahead and do it? As the third of those sources says:

What role Obama himself will play remains unclear.

Of course Town Halls are being gone at by Democrat activists, and I doubt very much they're being paid for it, most Liberals I know would do it voluntarily. The goal is to confront and challenge every single move that the new administration makes, and if that scares the GOP that much then perhaps they should avoid politics because it's a messy world. Look at what happened to Gabby Giffords, she got a bit more than a rowdy crowd, but her town halls kept going even if she couldn't attend because she was in hospital fighting for her life.
Should Liberal activists start fights? No. Should they defend themselves if attacked? Yes. Should they make verbal confrontations of Republican senators? Yes. Should they shoot Republican senators? No.
Freedom of speech. If the GOP wants to come and return the favour then by all means go for it, who knows, if both sides talk at each other enough something might actually stick and some kind of middle ground might be found...but I don't bet on it.
No, this is how it's going to be, the Liberals already consider themselves the 'Resistance', and there's numerically more of them who voted than conservative voters, so you can expect disruption to Republican plans wherever and whenever it can be done. To be fair, the boss probably won't help himself much either by freely giving out soundbites to be used against him, but some people just can't help themselves.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Oberon

No, that's how you get to Democrats who worked under Obama, where's the actual link from them to Obama? Where's the memo from Obama telling them to go ahead and do it? As the third of those sources says:

Agreed there is no smoking gun, but he founded OFA. He has a link to OFA on the front page of his website and OFA is involved in disrupting the TownHalls.

It is not too hard to make the link that he is involved to some degree.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

Agreed there is no smoking gun, but he founded OFA. He has a link to OFA on the front page of his website and OFA is involved in disrupting the TownHalls.

It is not too hard to make the link that he is involved to some degree.

You can make the link, yes, but you can equally not make it. Should you make it, is perhaps the next best question, without that smoking gun. After all, without that bit of evidence, what is to stop it being labelled as 'fake news'?

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

You can make the link, yes, but you can equally not make it. Should you make it, is perhaps the next best question, without that smoking gun. After all, without that bit of evidence, what is to stop it being labelled as 'fake news'?

It's certainly a lot less fake sounding than the claptrap that you find and post here. Just sayin...

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Oberon

You can make the link, yes, but you can equally not make it. Should you make it, is perhaps the next best question, without that smoking gun. After all, without that bit of evidence, what is to stop it being labelled as 'fake news'?

because of how Trump worded it:

He told Fox News: "I think President Obama's behind it because his people are certainly behind it", but added: "I also think it's just politics".

As you can see, his claim is 100% accurate, so it is not "fake news".

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

It's certainly a lot less fake sounding than the claptrap that you find and post here. Just sayin...

Love you too. Besides, one mans claptrap is another mans news, haven't you figured that out yet? This is how it is now.

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

because of how Trump worded it:



As you can see, his claim is 100% accurate, so it is not "fake news".

That's fair enough.

[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

That's fair enough.

At least until the next thing that gets you upset right?

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by eddie

Why is the US taxpayers paying for Secret Service Protection for Trumps son's when they go on business trips that will only benefit the family business? If they were on Govt business that would be different, but this is private family business, makes a big difference! I'm not saying they shouldn't have protection, but they can afford to pay it themselves, not us. Tight wad bastids is all they are, thinking we owe them everything.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/video...ers/vi-AAnAcNf

For the simple reason that

A. By law, the USSS is required to provide protection to the president's immediate family

B. There is no proviso in the law that allows the president to substitute their own private protection services

c. Whether the president's family can afford private protection services is not considered when assigning USSS protection.

D. There are no laws that state that presidential family members can't do private activities.

E. There are laws that restrict presidential family members from conducting official government business.

That's why.

[Bilge_Rat]

actually I like our little chats. Oberon is a tough opponent.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by August

Only place they needed to show up was the voting booth and they did. Too bad for you eh?

Yeah, but not enough of them to give him the popular vote majority or to fill all those vast empty space at the Inauguration, a couple of things Trump still has a burr in his saddle about and about which he still whines like a little, spoiled brat. It's time for him to put on some big boy pants, grow a spine and do a lot more walking and a lot less talking. He still hasn't effectively broken through the 50% approval rating, just as he wasn't able to get more than 46% of the actual voters to choose him and his views. He is still a minority POTUS and if he wants to remedy that position he needs to stop looking for other people to blame and prove himself by actually accomplishing something beneficial to the US populace, not just to his cronies. So far, all he's done is make big promises and issue questionably enforceable orders; issuing orders is not progress or accomplishment: if you want an example of how an EO means nothing til its done, look no further than Obama and his order closing Gitmo. You can have all the elaborate EO signing ceremonies you want, but if it doesn't pass muster with Congress and/or, particularly, the Fed courts and SCOTUS, all you really have is a fancy looking piece of paper. You don't win a race by just starting: you actually have to cross the finish line...

There are more US citizens and actual voters who didn't want Trump in the White House and there are far more of them at rallies against Trump than at those for Trump. What that means for the Mid-Term Elections and for Trump's reelection, if he lasts that long, is not looking good for the GOP or Trump...

Too bad for him...and you, eh?...



<O>

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by August

At least until the next thing that gets you upset right?

Got to keep you on your toes.

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

actually I like our little chats. Oberon is a tough opponent.

Thank you, you're pretty good yourself.

Don't get me wrong, as liberals go I'm not the most lefty lefty that you'll find, you just need to look at how highly I view our current Labour party leader to work that out, so there's some areas that we'd probably find common ground on, but there are other areas where we definitely won't, and that's how it goes. There were plenty of upset conservatives over the last eight years, and there'll be plenty of upset liberals over the next eight. After that? Who can say.

Coming back to the present though, it seems that the Donald and the Republican Congress could well be about to butt heads over the cuts to the State Department and Foreign Aid. Will be interesting to see how he reacts to that on twitter if they decisively chuck it out.

[August]

[Oberon]

Ok, that's brilliant.

[Onkel Neal]

http://www.azcentral.com/story/opini...what/98547708/

Just weeks after embarking upon a massive crackdown of immigrants here illegally, President Trump is now saying that he’s open to an immigration overhaul that would grant legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants who don't have serious criminal records.

If true, he's done. His signature position out the window, may as well join the Democrats, quit my job, and get signed up for some benefits. Where'd I leave my fishing pole?