American Election Discussion

ASLEFshrugged

simonc said:

Alderz, I don't appreciate the insinuation, yes i am still supporting him, I may not agree with everything he is doing but he is still by far the better candidate.
I strongly resent the moral high ground that the left appears to want to occupy, those in glass houses.... Let those without sin...

Care to explain how exactly he was the better candidate?

The Left can take the moral highground because by supporting Trump the Right has totally abandoned it.

Vorselaarhammer

So I see he has now sacked the Attorney General for not backing this law...

It's like a soap opera over there.

MrsGrey

This is ironic...


At her confirmation hearings, Sessions (who is Trump's pick for AG who hasn't been confirmed yet) questioned her. He said, “You have to watch out, because people will be asking you to do things you just need to say no about. Do you think the attorney general has a responsibility to say no to the president, if he asks for something that is improper? … If the views the president wants to execute are unlawful, should the attorney general or the deputy attorney general say no?”

Her answer?

"I believe the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution, and to give their independent legal advice to the president.”

Kuchinghammer

Simonc: thankyou for disagreeing (sort of) with a Trump action. But I still disagree with your view & way of expressing it: saying 'the opposition' would have been worse is an assertion, hypothetical, irrelevant and illogical. Stick to the positive, backed by information, is my advice.
OL: Thanks for digging up useful articles, I'm rubbish with the internet ;bowdown

Vorselaarhammer

WOTSIT Hitler....

Funniest I heard yet...

claretandbluesky

Sacking the Judiciary when they attempt to implement the law when it does not support your aims, regardless of the legality of them. I seem to remember a call for that over here recently, although TM did not go down the route of actually interfering her lack of support for the judges was heavily noted and tinged with more than a little contempt. Maybe her special relationship with Trump will be a genuine meeting of minds.

Swissiron

"The furore over the immigration curbs overshadowed an equally important change: the appointment of Mr Bannon to the principals committee of the National Security Council, the all-powerful decision-making body. Mr Bannon has been granted a permanent seat at meetings, while the chairman of the joint chiefs and director of national intelligence have been relegated to appearances when called. The move caused mild consternation in Washington. Susan Rice, formerly national security adviser under President Barack Obama, described it as “stone-cold crazy.”

Mrs Grey, I really dont think the ISIS initiaitive is good news at all. Nothing he's done or suggested will do anything else than increase ISIS numbers of volunteers. It's like saying that Hitler offered good news in helping to get rid of Jewish terrorist groups. The solution could easily be a nuclear bomb on somewhere like Tehran. Would that be good news? Past US presidents and illiterate US Foreign Policy advisers provided the basis for violent anti-US groups in the Mid East, George Bush created the antecedants of ISIS, Obama unfortunately helped recruitment by failing to eliminate Guantanamo Bay, overturning the rule of law when it came to terrorists (and yes I include the illegal assassination of Osam abin Laden in that) and not getting out of Middle Eastern wars. We (developed world leaders),have been bringing all this on our heads for decades and at least since the administration of Reagan, who started off all the illegality, assassinations, incoherence and incompetence (Contras, North etc) - but not in the first place of course. There is I hope a special place in hell reserved for a few recent US Presidents. Trump will not be alone when he goes there eventually

MrsGrey

;weep I was being sarcastic.

TheMadcapLaughs

This could have been written yesterday. But it wasn`t it was written 125 years ago:

"America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the World for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society."

;bowdown

Putin and Trump are two of the most powerful people on the planet. And both are as mad as a box of frogs. Thank God for democracy.

SuzanneClaret

NEoldiron

Sid, you really do like to quote PK don't you ;wink

simonc

I am not sure where to start or whether to bother answering,
Call me deplorable if you will but everyone seems to be getting their knickers in a twist over a 90 day suspension, this is not a ban, this is a halt on immigration from known terrorist areas until the state dept can get their act together. Do i agree no, as we all know there are bad apples in every barrel so blocking these countries does little or nothing to stop radicals but it does tick off another campaign promise. Call him what you will but he is following through on his promises.



As for better than the other candidate (replying to Aslef) - read between the lines, i was adopted & have adopted 2 other children, i may be a bad man to some but i believe in life unlike the other candidate.

alderz

For goodness sake.

MrsGrey

simonc said:

I believe in life unlike the other candidate.

After digging out others for being on the 'moral high ground' I am somewhat surprised to see you doing the same, with your pro-life comments.

As for your substantive comment - you say you don't agree, but then say Well done, he's ticked off a campaign promise so that's a good thing.

Do you not care if it is a promise to do something vile? Racist? Misogynistic?

How about if he got elected on a promise to exterminate Jews? Would you be an apologist for that?

MrsGrey

If there are bad apples in every barrel, why not block ALL immigration.

You know.

Just on the off-chance?

simonc

I for one would not have elected him if he were to campaign on extermination of any group, & i think the american electorate would agree with me

simonc

As for blocking all immigration, as i said i did not agree with this action it simply has no benefit, however it was something he said he was going to do & he did it. Everyone knew it was on the table and some thought it was important & voted for him because of it. That was not my motivation

simonc

Mrs G thanks for the mods, as for moral high ground i simply answered a question as to one of the main reasons i preferred Trump I was not passing judgement on anyone else, unlike Alderz

grey_til_I_dye

Can we remind users

a) to avoid making discussions personal

b) use of exclamations such as jeez, Jesus Christ etc are offensive to some users and should therefore be avoided

Ta vm

grey_til_I_dye

simonc

To suggest that those who support Roe v Wade do not believe in life is the worst kind of rhetorical nonsense.

To imagine that it is OK to foist a personal moral opinion on an entire nation is sheer arrogance.

If the anti-abortion position is so self-evidently obvious, then it is up to its supporters to make that case, rather than simply denigrate those who disagree.

MunichHammer

I don't like Trump. He scares me to death simply because he has no idea of diplomacy. In fact, he reminds me of a story I read when I was little. "What Wanda wants, Wanda must have". As a history teacher I see parallels between the way Trump is behaving now and Germany in the 20s and 30s. However, this is not only the US but it can be seen in Europe, too. Just like there was a move towards left wing parties in the nineties, now we are experiencing a nationalist surge towards the right. The problem I see is that the generations who lived through the horrors of far right governments are mostly gone and many of the voters nowadays are less interested in politics but pliable enough to follow whatever pied piper the extremist parties throw at them. They get the impression that the traditional parties don't work and will vote for anyone who makes enough noise.

Maybe - and I really hope so - the way Trump goes about things will wake up a few people in Europe. Politicians who realize they actually need to start doing a job again and voters who realize that sometimes polititians actually do what they said they would - albeit not in the way many voters thought they would.

A cousin of mine who lives in the US said that Clinton was the only reason that we now have a President Trump. That many voters didn't vote for Trump but against Clinton and that even the pardonned Thanksgiving Turkey could have beaten Trump to POTUS. To be honest, I didn't like either of the two (I do like a nice roast turkey, though) but as a friend of mine said. You don't live here (Texas), you don't know what it is like for us who do and if you did you would probably think that Trump is the answer to our questions.

alderz

For the record, simonc, at no point did I specifically say a thing to or about you until you decided to respond to me for my comments about the general electorate.

;ok

chicagohammer

Munich - I understand the sentiment, but for me the responsibility rests on broader shoulders than Hillary Clinton alone. I have said before that if the Democrats had put a candidate with a broader appeal and less baggage, Trump would have been comfortably beaten, IMO.

I think that both parties carry ultimate responsibility here, most/many Republicans do not like Trump but they were terrified that if they let him stand as an independent, he would have attracted enough of their voters to ensure that Hillary got in - and they really could not stomach that,

The Democrats were so in love with the idea that Hillary was going to win and break the glass ceiling that they were blinded and totally failed to notice just how unpopular a candidate she really was.

At the end of the day, with Obama stepping down, there were 16 or 17 candidates in the republican side who were willing to put their hat in the ring and go for the top job, on the Democratic side, we really only saw Hillary and feel the burn Bernie.

The writing should have been clear to see as actually, Bernie gave Hillary a real run for her money, despite being a bit of a marginal candidate himself, surely the Democrats should have opened the race up and encouraged a couple of capable up and comers that they surely must have within their ranks.

Therefore, my take is that both major parties have done the electorate a significant disservice which has resulted in the swearing in of Donald J Trump into the office of President of the United States.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought it possible.

simonc

Here we go again Grey take it for what you want, i voted for a Conservative, Christian Supreme Court, & a business driven economic policy. Thats it in a nutshel & i am prepared to take the good with the bad to get there. Next up tax cuts

alderz

When you say good with bad though, are you saying you are happy for sexist and racist policy to be implemented so long as it gets the end result that you want?

That's not me saying you are sexist or racist, btw, before you say that I am. I'm legitimately asking, because that is how it reads.

chicagohammer

There are historical precedents for some of the rhetoric, after Pearl Harbor when the USA fully entered the war, whilst a different time and very different circumstances, the authorities rounded up everyone of Japanese descent and placed them into internment camps, I can only assume that many of those interned were US Citizens.

Despite the broad mindedness of today's more rounded, tolerant and educated population, a strong element still exists, deep within the DNA that responds very positively to an America First message - the tragedy is that amongst many of those who support that message, they have a very narrow interpretation of what exactly constitutes, America.

Just for clarity, this is purely an observation of mine covering behavior I see around me, it is not directed at anyone in particular.

;sofa

AdMeus_CaputFilius

Alderz,

That is not really a fair question, after all there are plenty of discriminatory policies that have been advanced and been put in place with legal standing in the UK for the 'betterment' of society that a lot of people seem to go along with and happily accept on the basis of the 'ends justifying the means', particularly when they or their section of society is benefitting from it.

IMO it doesn't matter how you badge it or spin it discrimination is still discrimination and should not be tolerated in any form - and putting in place policies and legislation that gives one section in society an advantage over another (even with the best intentions) is just wrong, particularly using the argument "we have been discriminated against for years so its only fair it now works the other way around" - two wrongs don't make a right. In the long run it only causes resentment by the new sections of society being or who feel they are being discriminated against. Trying to excuse it or justify it be prefixing it with an additional word such as 'positive' to give it some sort of legitimacy is a cop out - there is never a justified excuse for discrimination.

The only rule/law their should be is the everyone, irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability, age or background shall be treated as equal.

That is one of life's principles I have learned, particularly through my travels, so on meeting someone for the first time I will always treat then in the way I would expect them to treat me. If subsequently they don't, I will change the way I treat them but still remain cordial (if possible).

OutcastLondoner

Chicago, yes I think the children were citizens but the parents had already been banned from becoming citizens.

Unfortunately, the Trump campaign did cite it as precedent. In support of a registry instead of as a warning.

alderz

Adme

I agree with you on so much of that. But, to me at least, it is clear that this is a different administration than what we (or rather, I) have seen before.

Also, I can't quite wrap my head around the idea that because it's happened before in some manner or other we shouldn't be angry about it now. It's like the whole "Hilary was worse" argument. The past is the past, and hypotheticals don't matter now. The fact is the (arguably) most powerful nation in the world is being run by someone with a neoNazi whispering in his ear.

MrsGrey

simonc said:

i voted for a Conservative, Christian Supreme Court

See, this bothers me.

It comes back to a discussion from yesterday, on another thread.

Judges should absolutely NOT be influenced in execution of their duties by their religious beliefs.

And I think anyone who thinks judges should, is utterly wrong. So to vote for a President in order to ensure that happens, is imo wrong.