In the age of blinding hatred from the left, I would literally vote for a pile of dog shit before I voted for someone with a D next to their name. Until liberals take a long hard look in the mirror to understand why we'd vote for a guy like Trump every day of the week before we ever vote any of them into office for 2 minutes, Trump and people like him are going to keep on winning.
Perfect example, Antifa is such a terrible organization of douchebags, it makes the average person root for Nazis to win in a fight. Nazis are closer to center of the road than groups that far to the left. Trump inforcing laws is center of the road compared to open border far left democrats.
^blinding hatred. And draining the swamp is already happening. But news flash, your side makes up 80% of the swamp. I'm fine losing the 20% on our side.
Example, Your side literally positioned the people of flint Michigan, and was was somehow reelected in 2016.
The swamp smells like shit, we should all want it drained.
@General you are among those folk that Trump is using wedge issues, to divide and get his way. You guys keep missing the forest for the trees, don’t you realize this newest tempest in a teapot, is misdirection and you’re losing the war.
They don’t give a fuck about the kids it’s just a diversion for Mr Trump, who is attempting to get his fucking wall built on the southern border, instead of as he promised with no taxpayers dollars he’s just picking our pockets, because he knows damn well the Mexicans aren’t going to pay for it. I’m just waiting to see who he picks to build this structure and what his connection to the ginourmous amount of money that will be diverted into private pockets.
A few weeks ago, I predicted that the GOP will gain 5 Senate seats in the midterms. Since then, Trump has continued to make progress on the domestic and foreign front. His poll numbers continue to rise, not just with evangelicals.
Imagine what Trump can do with 56 or 58 Senators, given what he has already accomplished with a razor thin 51.
I like Dennis Hof and I hope he wins... but he kinda blows with the wind a little. He endorsed Hillary Clinton a few years ago, and then became a "Trump Republican" only after the election
mark94 said "Imagine what Trump can do with 56 or 58 Senators"
Not much more than he can do with 51 Senators, given the rules of the Senate. If you're thinking that he'll somehow be able to convince 2 to 4 Democratic Senators to back his legislation when we're heading into a presidential election cycle, I can't agree with you there.
And just remember, IF the Republicans do manage to flip some seats in November, the Democrats they defeat will mostly be the more moderate ones from red states who already vote with Republicans occasionally.
Remember when McCain voted against repeal of Obamacare ? That was one vote that made a difference. Not every vote requires 60 yeahs. A lot can be accomplished in the Senate with a simple majority. Problem is, with only 51 seats, it just takes one GOP Prima Dona to screw things up. Adding 5 GOP Senators, plus swapping out people like Corker, will go a long way.
I'm not going to get down in the weeds and try to convince you or anybody about this or that policy issue. Doesn't matter enough to me. But Nazis? That shouldn't be a liberal vs conservative thing.
I'm not sure if you fell asleep during history class and literally have no relatives who fought in WWII. Or have any Jewish friend. But you do realize the Nazis were responsible for killing 6 million Jews and about the same number of gypsies, queers, and basically anybody the Nazis thought was inferior.
I hope that was just ill-considered hyperbole. Don't like Democrats? Don't vote for them. Don't like antifa? Who does? But if you think Democrats or even antifa d-bags are worse than actual Nazis you should really get on a plane and see the Holocaust museum. Maybe you'll change your mind when you know what actual Nazis did when they had power.
Yes, I do remember that. But that was only possible because they were using budget reconciliation - most bills don't work that way. Personally, I wouldn't care one way or the other if the Senate got rid of the filibuster. Is it even mentioned in the Constitution? But as long as it exists, it is what it is.
As for Corker, he's not exactly a hero of mine. Very meh. But I also don't see where he's opposing the President on most legislation. Oh sure, once in a while, Corker will be on one side and Trump will be on the other. But overall, he still votes with Trump over 80 percent of the time. Don't let Trump convince you of things that aren't true. The reason he doesn't like Corker is because they argue in public. Not because they oppose each other on legislation.
The last time I checked, the Republican who opposes Trump the most frequently on legislation is actually Rand Paul, not Bob Corker. But Trump and Paul are publicly friendly nowadays, so Trump doesn't criticize Paul. It reminds me of Jeff Flake and the tax cut. Remember when you (and Trump) predicted that Flake would vote against it? Well, he didn't. He asked for a minor concession, got what he wanted, and then voted yes. That's how it's supposed to work.
Trump is a showman so he views style as more important than substance. Don't buy into it.
Not real nazis, the skinheads that think they are nazis. And YES, those guys are better than Antifa. Also, half of the left calls all of the right nazsis like every other day. I hope u point out they should visit a holocaust museum before they keep comparing Trump to Hitler, because letting citizens keep their guns wasn't the top of his list.
And keep watching on how the wall is paid for. Between tariffs and renegotiating NAFTA he'll easily come up with the 20 or 30 billion, and next thing u know, Mexico just paid for it, it's a numbers game.
First, AntiFa routinely lights buildings on fire, starts riots, throws bottles filled with urine at police officers, and punches peaceful people in the face. The neo-Nazis are nutcases, but they're mostly just shouting slogans and marching. The white nationalist who ran that girl over in Charlottesville seemed to do so sporadically, not as part of an intentional coordinated plan. By contrast, AntiFa plans its violent behavior in advance.
As for linking the Democratic party to AntiFa, I don't see it. And I also don't see the link between the GOP and the Nazis. Trump is the only mainstream officeholder I know of who has defended the Nazis at all.
As for Trump's plan to have Mexico pay for the wall, if he's using tariffs that means that WE are paying for it! A tariff is just another tax, and no government has the power to tax another government. Citizens pay the tax when we buy things. You may like it, you may hate it, you may think it's necessary - it doesn't matter, it's still a tax on all of us. Not on the government of Mexico.
^^^ OT, but don't you find it ironic that red is historically the color of socialism, and yet now it's associated with the American Republican Party? At least in European politics colors still have meaning and consistency, I think. Ok, sorry for changing the subject... everyone can go back to regurgitating talking points now
^It’s just a waste of time and energy trying to use logic to explain to illogical morons that tariffs are paid by the citizens of the country imposing them, what do you expect from a bunch of nutcases that think Trump is normal. He’ll be gone soon I only hope the damage he does can be undone.
The TV networks initially ( mostly) used Red for Democrat, Blue for Republican, before 1992. From 1992 onward, it’s been Red for Republican. There are a variety of theories for this. The one I prefer is the Dems didn’t like being associated with the preferred Communist color.
I thought it was after 1992 - more like 2000 - but I could be wrong. I have to admit, the conspiracy theory once crossed my mind. Surveys show that blue is the most popular favorite color in this country, and bad things are often associated with the color red: Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, hellfire, blood, anger, etc.
Also, during the Civil War, the Union soldiers wore blue and, of course, Lincoln was a Republican. The Confederates didn't wear red but they had little red accents on their uniforms and cockades and, of course, the leaders of the Confederacy were all Democrats.
So it makes sense that A) the Democrats have a long history with the color red and the Republicans have a long history with the color blue, B) the Dems would want to shed this baggage, and C) a pliant media would want to assist the Democrats with their makeover. That was my reasoning at the time. But I've since come to realize that it was probably just a weird coincidence, with one network following another's lead for the sake of consistency, and then eventually the parties adopting the colors unofficially, also for the sake of consistency.
There are a few rational people here. In other words, there are a few people who (when asked to really concentrate and think about their positions) will actually engage with the ideas. Namely, you, mark94, RandomMember, Ishmael, jackslash, and 4got2wipe. Probably a few others I can't think of at the moment.
Most of the rest either A) don't talk much about the news/politics here, or B) they do talk about it but they are totally out to lunch. Sure, most of the members seem rational when compared to, say, SJG for example, but when you think about it, they're not very far removed from SJG. They're all wedded to some very bad ideas, and they don't want to hear anything that may upset their preconceived views. SJG is like a shadowy mirror image of our sorry political environment. (Either that or he is responsible for pushing TUSCL's members in a radical opposite direction, much like Obama's false promises pushed America towards Trump - now that's a creative conspiracy theory LOL.)
I'm 100% sure I'm smarter than 25 on every level imaginable. Tariffs are part of the negotiations, part of NAFTA. Watch and learn retards. Suck that Democrat cock a bit longer, continue to lose and blame Russians or or red necks or whatever u want to, we'll clean up...hold or gain in 2018, trump in 2020 hands down, maybe even regain style wins. But u keep calling me racist, keep calling me all the names u want to, we'll do more with this country in 8 years than you could undo it 40. Suck a cock, eat a dick, fuck a dude, whatever u want we are still winning.
Little bit of booze in me at the moment, but fuck ya'll retards.
Step 1: Germany uses tariffs and regulatory enforcement to prevent import of US-manufactured vehicles for 50 years while exports of 40% of GNP make their country wealthy
Step 2: Trump says this is no longer acceptable. Trade terms must be reciprocal. Threatens 20% tariff on European ( mostly German ) auto imports
Step 3: Media unleashes on Trump. He’s an idiot who doesn’t understand trade. He can barely tie his shoes. His administration is in chaos. He has offended our allies.
Step 4: Daimler, BMW, VW CEOs, recognizing this threatens their existence, come out in favor of reciprocal trade.
Step 5: Angela Merkel is given 2 weeks notice by her party leaders to fix the immigration crisis, or step down as Chancelor ( if you think the timing of this is pure coincidence, I’ve got a bridge to sell you ).
Trump understood the leverage point, the German auto industry, and played it perfectly. The EU will eventually open up to US imports. Whether they first go through a period of tariffs, and resulting economic pain, is up to them.
Gee general you must be a Mensa member, I don’t remember calling you a racist or a red neck but if the title fits, wear it proudly. I’m sure you must be one of the elite, from the sound of your posts, come on down to Mar-A-Lago, you’ll fit right in I bet.
"Step 1" is really not true. Germany's average tariff rate as a percentage of the nominal cost of the product is down by about 75% from its most recent peak in 1990. Also, I'm sorry, but exports DO NOT automatically make a country wealthy. Otherwise Vietnam and India would be some of the wealthiest places on earth (which they clearly aren't).
But back to Germany... Germany assesses a 10% tariff on imported cars, while the US assesses only a 2.5% tariff on imported cars. This is true. But the US also assesses a 25% tariff on imported SUVs and pickup trucks. Detroit is happy with this arrangement. They say that trucks and SUVs are much more profitable for them anyway, and the Big-3 say they want to slowly scale back on cars while investing heavily in trucks and SUVs.
But it's important to note the reasons why Germany has such a high trade surplus with the US, especially with cars. First, their currency is artificially weak, being dragged down by Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal. This prevents their trade surplus from self-correcting. (And remember, Trump says he wants a strong dollar, right? Well the stronger our dollar gets, the less we'll export to the rest of the world.)
Second, Germany's gas-tax rate is over six times as high as our average state-and-federal combined gas tax rate. As a result, German consumers prefer very fuel efficient models which Detroit has long struggled to produce. Tariffs won't do much to help this.
But the thing is, more than two-thirds of German cars that are sold in the US are actually manufactured in the US, not in Germany. Trump says he wants them to "build them here" and they already do - foreign automakers have been building cars in the US for decades. BTW, American automakers also manufacture cars overseas - Ford has been manufacturing cars in Germany since the 1920s, for example.
BulingtonHoFactory, no disrespect but I think you're just wrong.
Here's the thing: symbols mean something. Nazism is a powerful symbol. One everybody should think about before invoking.
I'll give General credit in one area. He did clarify that he mean "actual Nazis". I'll clarify my comments out of respect for that. Yes, I think any who yells "Nazi" about anyone, unless they are actually a Nazi, should think twice about the analogy. Then they should think again. And if they still want to use "Nazi" they should actually learn about who and what Nazis were.
Unless they're talking about Rwanda or Bosnia or ISIS burning people in cages, I doubt the Nazi analogy is apt.
I'll also point out that jackslash started this thread with a funny story about brothel owner running for office associated with the US political party that has, in recent history, been associated with evangelical christianity. That's funny. Somehow the Nazi talk takes away my ability to laugh.
It just strikes me that sometimes politicians of both parties do funny things. It's sort of sad that people have to turn every discussion vaguely linked to politics into an end of the world ideological confrontation. Again, it is cool that you and mark94 are having a discussion about tariffs and transatlantic trade and I'm not going to disrespect either of you for that.
It's just that there are times I'd like to have a laugh about evangelical Christians voting for a brothel owner without thinking about anything more. Certainly not Nazis. It think those are the kind of laughs that would do everybody a world of good!
I agree that the Democratic party misses the boat a lot, but liberals are almost always right when it comes to moral judgements. History has taught us that eventually a liberal philosophy has won in the end. People like Trump only make that trend continue.
@Mark94. I guess you missed the news today about Harley-Davidson moving some production overseas to India or Thailand, direct response to Trumps tariffs, stock tanked, and by moving production overseas jobs will be lost both on the manufacturing (Harley) and they will be using foreign suppliers, careful what you wish for.
4got2wipe said "It's sort of sad that people have to turn every discussion vaguely linked to politics into an end of the world ideological confrontation."
I couldn't agree more. One of the keys to winning in politics is creating a sense of urgency. As a result, people think it's the end of the world if the other side wins, and this carries over into our day to day interactions with each other at the water cooler.
Frankly, having rockstar celebrity-style politicians (such as Obama and Trump) just makes this problem worse. Everyone should just take a deep breath, remind themselves that, at the end of the day, these people are really just bland boring government functionaries who end up enacting very similar policies anyway, and we all just need to take a chill pill.
As for the Nazi thing, reasonable people can disagree. I definitely don't like them and I won't defend them. But that doesn't mean that it's ok to assault them.
Also, I agree that comparing everyone to Nazis is just retarded. It's unimaginative, lame, and hyperbolic. I was amazed at how often George W. Bush was compared to Hitler during his term. But then Obama broke his record. And Trump is now gaining on Obama, and will likely be the record-holder by the end of his first term. Are any of these assholes really on the same level as Hitler? Really? And of course, 10 years later, Bush now has a 51% approval rating among Democrats! That's right, the same folks who used to compare him to Hitler now have no problem with him at all!
I also agree about Dennis Hof. In fact, I was the only person other than you who mentioned him in the comments above. I'll just say this, the article makes it seem like Nevada is part of the Bible Belt or something, but it's actually a pretty secular state. There's no way that a guy like Hof could be elected in a place like Alabama, for example. It's one thing to be accused of rape in Alabama, but don't you dare pimp women - that's God's Country!
I don't think most Trump supporters would even care. And that's assuming that they even know everything that's been going on. Trump has been very effective at innoculating himself from media criticism by calling it all Fake News, giving his supporters an excuse to tune it all out.
My prediction about the tariffs and the trade war is that Trump will eventually realize that this isn't working. Much like healthcare and immigration, he will come to the conclusion that it's not as easy as he said it would be.
To help him save face and end this fiasco, one of our trading partners (presumably China) will throw him a bone and offer a small meaningless concession on trade that will allow Trump to declare victory, undo the tariffs, and "win" the news cycle. Then, with the tariffs lifted, Canada, Japan, and the EU will work with us to pressure China to be more respectful of intellectual property. And Trump will claim victory once again, pretending that he's the first person in history to ever try to address the "theft" of intellectual property in China... even though very little will really change.
> To help him save face and end this fiasco, one of our trading partners (presumably China) will throw him a bone and offer a small meaningless concession on trade that will allow Trump to declare victory, undo the tariffs, and "win" the news cycle.
All that sounds about a million billion times better than the TPP.
^ You'd be surprised Random I'm a member of HOG and there are plenty of guys like me, true more of us are Right leaning guys,but there are very few Trump fans here. The fans he had are disappointed, especially lately because of the volatility he is causing in the stock market, with his erratic behavior, and many dislike the personal pettiness.
Ok then. Well, I don't know much about human dignity (this is TUSCL after all), but I do know that TPP was intended to counter the regional dominance of China. It's bizarre that the same people who have been paranoid about trade with China for 20 years now were nonetheless opposed to TPP.
Trump is tweeting this morning about threatening Harley-Davidson with some sort of "special" tax. As if we can get the IRS to tax companies that Trump doesn't like personally:
My water heater was acting up last week, and the repair guy said that all new water heaters had gone up in price by $200 in anticipation of higher steel costs. Tariffs ripple through the economy in ways you can't really anticipate.
The tariff issue is yet another example of Trump's Dunning-Kruger syndrome -- i.e, he doesn't have the necessary cognitive abilities to understand his own lack of cognitive abilities. Much like your uncle Fred who rants on at Thanksgiving without a fucking clue about anything. You should never give someone like that any real decision-making power.
Meanwhile, Trump has 90% approval among Republicans (15% among Democrats) and there are very few GOP members in Congress with the necessary backbone willing to speak out. PredictIt has the chance of Dem control of the house down to about 60%.
Yeah, @Mark93 doesn't like to be challenged and prefers to live in his Fox-News bubble.
I agree with all of that, but I'm just wondering, how did you feel when Obama used punitive tariffs and bashed Nafta? It's true, Obama and Trump sound very different from one another: Obama sounds like a worldly law professor from Harvard, while Trump sounds like a plumber from Staten Island who farts at the dinner table... but sometimes they agree on bad policies:
@RandomMember said "Trump is tweeting this morning about threatening Harley-Davidson with some sort of "special" tax. As if we can get the IRS to tax companies that Trump doesn't like personally"
I just thought of a few other relevant events. How about that time Chuck Schumer wanted to levy a special tax on companies that set up overseas call centers?:
Yes, it's not the same exact thing that Trump is proposing, but the intent is clearly the same: if you want to leave the country, you will be forced to pay a higher tax... even though you're only leaving because of conditions that were created by the government in the first place (high taxes and high tariffs). So did you disagree with these proposals when Democrats made them?
Also, I know you won't see the similarity, but how about the time that Democrats wanted to levy a 100% tax on bank bonuses? Yes, it was only proposed for the employees of banks that took TARP money - including those banks which didn't want the bailout but were forced to accept it anyway:
My point is that, once again, polticians targeted a group of unpopular companies with higher taxes... just like Trump is currently doing with Harley Davidson (and other companies). No matter who does it, I think it's wrong and totally unconstitutional. But something tells me that some people will only find fault when Trump does it.
Yes, I get it @Burlington -- I'm an over-emotional liberal hypocrite who can't be objective and above it all, like yourself. Please don't Google me to death, I might lose sleep over it. Or maybe you just need to go out and get laid?
GW Bush also tried for tariffs on steel and failed. The thing is, Trump's trade war could be something more like Smoot-Hawley than Obama's tire tariffs; Taking on China and the EU is orders-of-magnitude more nutty than anything Bush or Obama did. One the Nobel Prize winners in international trade has called out Trump, Ross, Navarro as being clueless on trade. But luckily we have @Mark93 here to set us all straight.
Ok, fair enough. Yes, I remember Bush's steel tariffs, too, and I've mentioned them a couple of times in the past. And, much like Obama's tariffs, they ended up costing more jobs than they saved and they were ultimately reversed by the WTO.
You're absolutely right that Trump's global trade war is more insane and potentially much more damaging than his predecessors' smaller actions.
My bigger concern with Obama was his frequent attacks on Nafta during the campaign in 2008 (see YouTube video above for a refresher). Obama was appealing to the brain-dead populism and protectionism which had infected the Democratic Party for decades, and which had boiled over into insane conspiracy theories during the Bush years. Obama promised repeatedly to renegotiate Nafta.
By the way, as it turned out, this renegotiation took the form of the TPP, which simultaneously made Nafta both better and worse from my perspective: better in that it helped to further break down tariffs and trade barriers, but also worse because it forced American labor and environmental standards on our trading partners. But ultimately, TPP would also have resulted in more global trade with more countries, which I think is a very good thing.
And for the handwringing anti-China crowd, TPP offered a means to counter Chinese economic dominance. So it was a remarkable, if unsurprising, demonstration of stupidity when Trump abandoned TPP. TPP gave him everything he said he wanted: being "tough" on China, while lowering Canadian and Mexican trade barriers for US goods.
Anyway, it's amazing that Trump, Wilbur Ross, and Peter Navarro all have Ivy League degrees in economics and business. They are all embarrassments. And all three of them were registered Democrats until very recently, btw. But what I've noticed is that, while many Republicans have criticized Trump and his team, Democrats seem congenitally incapable of criticizing Obama, even when his policies are similar to Trump's. Go ahead, I dare you, say something bad about Obama. LOL
By the way, I didn't have to Google these events; I remembered them, although I did need to search for the articles to post the links. But Google *did* help me to learn one amazing fact about Peter Navarro: apparently Jared Kushner discovered Navarro while browsing on Amazon.com to do research on China for Trump during the campaign. Seriously, that's how they crafted policy and that's how they found this guy... basically by reading the summaries and reviews on Amazon. You can't make this stuff up.
Its the cigars. Its what people say, that he has severely limited front room friendliness, in effect spoiling the quality of the back room delivery. NV law is part of the problem, but this guy seems like he wants to make it worse.
I have no idea why any Evangelicals would back him, or Trump.
I don't really go along with the idea of someone making money that way.
Nixing the front room friendliness makes such places rotten, bleak, like the Wild WIld West.
DV ran into the same legal barriers in Pahrump, so they did what was right, they went to TJ and have made a no regulations front room fun place.
"I have no idea why any Evangelicals would back him, or Trump."
I don't really think Nevada's GOP is quite as religious as the GOP in, say, Mississippi. Remember back in 2011, when Senator Harry Reid came out in favor of ending legal prostitution in NV, while Senator John Ensign defended legal prostitution by saying it was a state's rights issue? Reid is a Democrat and Ensign is a Republican and they both represented Nevada at the time. Enough said.
As for Trump, serious religious conservatives only seem to care about the courts. That's why they supported Trump. But more casual religious conservatives (the base of the GOP) supported Trump because they believe his enemies are their enemies and his grievances are their grievances. I think most Republicans also like his stance on trade, immigration, and middle-class entitlements. The base of the party was just never as laissez faire as the elites of the party believed. Trump proved that.
"Remember back in 2011, when Senator Harry Reid came out in favor of ending legal prostitution in NV,"
Yes I do remember that. He wanted a federal law. Fortunately it did not happen. We have never had such.
You might be right about the courts. Enforcing the 1965 Civil Rights Act on Bob Jones University in Greenville South Carolina is why evangelicals turned against Jimmy Carter.
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Perfect example, Antifa is such a terrible organization of douchebags, it makes the average person root for Nazis to win in a fight. Nazis are closer to center of the road than groups that far to the left. Trump inforcing laws is center of the road compared to open border far left democrats.
Example, Your side literally positioned the people of flint Michigan, and was was somehow reelected in 2016.
The swamp smells like shit, we should all want it drained.
They don’t give a fuck about the kids it’s just a diversion for Mr Trump, who is attempting to get his fucking wall built on the southern border, instead of as he promised with no taxpayers dollars he’s just picking our pockets, because he knows damn well the Mexicans aren’t going to pay for it. I’m just waiting to see who he picks to build this structure and what his connection to the ginourmous amount of money that will be diverted into private pockets.
Imagine what Trump can do with 56 or 58 Senators, given what he has already accomplished with a razor thin 51.
Not much more than he can do with 51 Senators, given the rules of the Senate. If you're thinking that he'll somehow be able to convince 2 to 4 Democratic Senators to back his legislation when we're heading into a presidential election cycle, I can't agree with you there.
And just remember, IF the Republicans do manage to flip some seats in November, the Democrats they defeat will mostly be the more moderate ones from red states who already vote with Republicans occasionally.
I'm not going to get down in the weeds and try to convince you or anybody about this or that policy issue. Doesn't matter enough to me. But Nazis? That shouldn't be a liberal vs conservative thing.
I'm not sure if you fell asleep during history class and literally have no relatives who fought in WWII. Or have any Jewish friend. But you do realize the Nazis were responsible for killing 6 million Jews and about the same number of gypsies, queers, and basically anybody the Nazis thought was inferior.
I hope that was just ill-considered hyperbole. Don't like Democrats? Don't vote for them. Don't like antifa? Who does? But if you think Democrats or even antifa d-bags are worse than actual Nazis you should really get on a plane and see the Holocaust museum. Maybe you'll change your mind when you know what actual Nazis did when they had power.
Yes, I do remember that. But that was only possible because they were using budget reconciliation - most bills don't work that way. Personally, I wouldn't care one way or the other if the Senate got rid of the filibuster. Is it even mentioned in the Constitution? But as long as it exists, it is what it is.
As for Corker, he's not exactly a hero of mine. Very meh. But I also don't see where he's opposing the President on most legislation. Oh sure, once in a while, Corker will be on one side and Trump will be on the other. But overall, he still votes with Trump over 80 percent of the time. Don't let Trump convince you of things that aren't true. The reason he doesn't like Corker is because they argue in public. Not because they oppose each other on legislation.
The last time I checked, the Republican who opposes Trump the most frequently on legislation is actually Rand Paul, not Bob Corker. But Trump and Paul are publicly friendly nowadays, so Trump doesn't criticize Paul. It reminds me of Jeff Flake and the tax cut. Remember when you (and Trump) predicted that Flake would vote against it? Well, he didn't. He asked for a minor concession, got what he wanted, and then voted yes. That's how it's supposed to work.
Trump is a showman so he views style as more important than substance. Don't buy into it.
And keep watching on how the wall is paid for. Between tariffs and renegotiating NAFTA he'll easily come up with the 20 or 30 billion, and next thing u know, Mexico just paid for it, it's a numbers game.
You're both very wrong.
First, AntiFa routinely lights buildings on fire, starts riots, throws bottles filled with urine at police officers, and punches peaceful people in the face. The neo-Nazis are nutcases, but they're mostly just shouting slogans and marching. The white nationalist who ran that girl over in Charlottesville seemed to do so sporadically, not as part of an intentional coordinated plan. By contrast, AntiFa plans its violent behavior in advance.
As for linking the Democratic party to AntiFa, I don't see it. And I also don't see the link between the GOP and the Nazis. Trump is the only mainstream officeholder I know of who has defended the Nazis at all.
As for Trump's plan to have Mexico pay for the wall, if he's using tariffs that means that WE are paying for it! A tariff is just another tax, and no government has the power to tax another government. Citizens pay the tax when we buy things. You may like it, you may hate it, you may think it's necessary - it doesn't matter, it's still a tax on all of us. Not on the government of Mexico.
Lastly, Trump doesn't seem to prioritize letting citizens keep their guns either... at least, not consistently: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli…
I thought it was after 1992 - more like 2000 - but I could be wrong. I have to admit, the conspiracy theory once crossed my mind. Surveys show that blue is the most popular favorite color in this country, and bad things are often associated with the color red: Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, hellfire, blood, anger, etc.
Also, during the Civil War, the Union soldiers wore blue and, of course, Lincoln was a Republican. The Confederates didn't wear red but they had little red accents on their uniforms and cockades and, of course, the leaders of the Confederacy were all Democrats.
So it makes sense that A) the Democrats have a long history with the color red and the Republicans have a long history with the color blue, B) the Dems would want to shed this baggage, and C) a pliant media would want to assist the Democrats with their makeover. That was my reasoning at the time. But I've since come to realize that it was probably just a weird coincidence, with one network following another's lead for the sake of consistency, and then eventually the parties adopting the colors unofficially, also for the sake of consistency.
There are a few rational people here. In other words, there are a few people who (when asked to really concentrate and think about their positions) will actually engage with the ideas. Namely, you, mark94, RandomMember, Ishmael, jackslash, and 4got2wipe. Probably a few others I can't think of at the moment.
Most of the rest either A) don't talk much about the news/politics here, or B) they do talk about it but they are totally out to lunch. Sure, most of the members seem rational when compared to, say, SJG for example, but when you think about it, they're not very far removed from SJG. They're all wedded to some very bad ideas, and they don't want to hear anything that may upset their preconceived views. SJG is like a shadowy mirror image of our sorry political environment. (Either that or he is responsible for pushing TUSCL's members in a radical opposite direction, much like Obama's false promises pushed America towards Trump - now that's a creative conspiracy theory LOL.)
Little bit of booze in me at the moment, but fuck ya'll retards.
Step 2: Trump says this is no longer acceptable. Trade terms must be reciprocal. Threatens 20% tariff on European ( mostly German ) auto imports
Step 3: Media unleashes on Trump. He’s an idiot who doesn’t understand trade. He can barely tie his shoes. His administration is in chaos. He has offended our allies.
Step 4: Daimler, BMW, VW CEOs, recognizing this threatens their existence, come out in favor of reciprocal trade.
Step 5: Angela Merkel is given 2 weeks notice by her party leaders to fix the immigration crisis, or step down as Chancelor ( if you think the timing of this is pure coincidence, I’ve got a bridge to sell you ).
Trump understood the leverage point, the German auto industry, and played it perfectly. The EU will eventually open up to US imports. Whether they first go through a period of tariffs, and resulting economic pain, is up to them.
"Step 1" is really not true. Germany's average tariff rate as a percentage of the nominal cost of the product is down by about 75% from its most recent peak in 1990. Also, I'm sorry, but exports DO NOT automatically make a country wealthy. Otherwise Vietnam and India would be some of the wealthiest places on earth (which they clearly aren't).
But back to Germany... Germany assesses a 10% tariff on imported cars, while the US assesses only a 2.5% tariff on imported cars. This is true. But the US also assesses a 25% tariff on imported SUVs and pickup trucks. Detroit is happy with this arrangement. They say that trucks and SUVs are much more profitable for them anyway, and the Big-3 say they want to slowly scale back on cars while investing heavily in trucks and SUVs.
But it's important to note the reasons why Germany has such a high trade surplus with the US, especially with cars. First, their currency is artificially weak, being dragged down by Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal. This prevents their trade surplus from self-correcting. (And remember, Trump says he wants a strong dollar, right? Well the stronger our dollar gets, the less we'll export to the rest of the world.)
Second, Germany's gas-tax rate is over six times as high as our average state-and-federal combined gas tax rate. As a result, German consumers prefer very fuel efficient models which Detroit has long struggled to produce. Tariffs won't do much to help this.
But the thing is, more than two-thirds of German cars that are sold in the US are actually manufactured in the US, not in Germany. Trump says he wants them to "build them here" and they already do - foreign automakers have been building cars in the US for decades. BTW, American automakers also manufacture cars overseas - Ford has been manufacturing cars in Germany since the 1920s, for example.
Here's the thing: symbols mean something. Nazism is a powerful symbol. One everybody should think about before invoking.
I'll give General credit in one area. He did clarify that he mean "actual Nazis". I'll clarify my comments out of respect for that. Yes, I think any who yells "Nazi" about anyone, unless they are actually a Nazi, should think twice about the analogy. Then they should think again. And if they still want to use "Nazi" they should actually learn about who and what Nazis were.
Unless they're talking about Rwanda or Bosnia or ISIS burning people in cages, I doubt the Nazi analogy is apt.
I'll also point out that jackslash started this thread with a funny story about brothel owner running for office associated with the US political party that has, in recent history, been associated with evangelical christianity. That's funny. Somehow the Nazi talk takes away my ability to laugh.
It just strikes me that sometimes politicians of both parties do funny things. It's sort of sad that people have to turn every discussion vaguely linked to politics into an end of the world ideological confrontation. Again, it is cool that you and mark94 are having a discussion about tariffs and transatlantic trade and I'm not going to disrespect either of you for that.
It's just that there are times I'd like to have a laugh about evangelical Christians voting for a brothel owner without thinking about anything more. Certainly not Nazis. It think those are the kind of laughs that would do everybody a world of good!
I couldn't agree more. One of the keys to winning in politics is creating a sense of urgency. As a result, people think it's the end of the world if the other side wins, and this carries over into our day to day interactions with each other at the water cooler.
Frankly, having rockstar celebrity-style politicians (such as Obama and Trump) just makes this problem worse. Everyone should just take a deep breath, remind themselves that, at the end of the day, these people are really just bland boring government functionaries who end up enacting very similar policies anyway, and we all just need to take a chill pill.
As for the Nazi thing, reasonable people can disagree. I definitely don't like them and I won't defend them. But that doesn't mean that it's ok to assault them.
Also, I agree that comparing everyone to Nazis is just retarded. It's unimaginative, lame, and hyperbolic. I was amazed at how often George W. Bush was compared to Hitler during his term. But then Obama broke his record. And Trump is now gaining on Obama, and will likely be the record-holder by the end of his first term. Are any of these assholes really on the same level as Hitler? Really? And of course, 10 years later, Bush now has a 51% approval rating among Democrats! That's right, the same folks who used to compare him to Hitler now have no problem with him at all!
I also agree about Dennis Hof. In fact, I was the only person other than you who mentioned him in the comments above. I'll just say this, the article makes it seem like Nevada is part of the Bible Belt or something, but it's actually a pretty secular state. There's no way that a guy like Hof could be elected in a place like Alabama, for example. It's one thing to be accused of rape in Alabama, but don't you dare pimp women - that's God's Country!
Define liberal.
I don't think most Trump supporters would even care. And that's assuming that they even know everything that's been going on. Trump has been very effective at innoculating himself from media criticism by calling it all Fake News, giving his supporters an excuse to tune it all out.
My prediction about the tariffs and the trade war is that Trump will eventually realize that this isn't working. Much like healthcare and immigration, he will come to the conclusion that it's not as easy as he said it would be.
To help him save face and end this fiasco, one of our trading partners (presumably China) will throw him a bone and offer a small meaningless concession on trade that will allow Trump to declare victory, undo the tariffs, and "win" the news cycle. Then, with the tariffs lifted, Canada, Japan, and the EU will work with us to pressure China to be more respectful of intellectual property. And Trump will claim victory once again, pretending that he's the first person in history to ever try to address the "theft" of intellectual property in China... even though very little will really change.
All that sounds about a million billion times better than the TPP.
"All that sounds about a million billion times better than the TPP."
Why?
If you have to ask at this point, you'll never know. TPPthinkers unbellyfeel human dignity, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/busin…
My water heater was acting up last week, and the repair guy said that all new water heaters had gone up in price by $200 in anticipation of higher steel costs. Tariffs ripple through the economy in ways you can't really anticipate.
The tariff issue is yet another example of Trump's Dunning-Kruger syndrome -- i.e, he doesn't have the necessary cognitive abilities to understand his own lack of cognitive abilities. Much like your uncle Fred who rants on at Thanksgiving without a fucking clue about anything. You should never give someone like that any real decision-making power.
Meanwhile, Trump has 90% approval among Republicans (15% among Democrats) and there are very few GOP members in Congress with the necessary backbone willing to speak out. PredictIt has the chance of Dem control of the house down to about 60%.
Yeah, @Mark93 doesn't like to be challenged and prefers to live in his Fox-News bubble.
I agree with all of that, but I'm just wondering, how did you feel when Obama used punitive tariffs and bashed Nafta? It's true, Obama and Trump sound very different from one another: Obama sounds like a worldly law professor from Harvard, while Trump sounds like a plumber from Staten Island who farts at the dinner table... but sometimes they agree on bad policies:
https://youtu.be/PF9gpvI2UfU
https://fpif.org/obama_renegotiate_nafta…
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/03/news/eco…
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-tariff…
I just thought of a few other relevant events. How about that time Chuck Schumer wanted to levy a special tax on companies that set up overseas call centers?:
https://www.horsesforsources.com/schumer…
Or how about the time that Democrats wanted to tax people for the "privilege" of leaving the country for tax purposes?:
https://taxfoundation.org/outraged-faceb…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-PATRI…
https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.or…
Yes, it's not the same exact thing that Trump is proposing, but the intent is clearly the same: if you want to leave the country, you will be forced to pay a higher tax... even though you're only leaving because of conditions that were created by the government in the first place (high taxes and high tariffs). So did you disagree with these proposals when Democrats made them?
Also, I know you won't see the similarity, but how about the time that Democrats wanted to levy a 100% tax on bank bonuses? Yes, it was only proposed for the employees of banks that took TARP money - including those banks which didn't want the bailout but were forced to accept it anyway:
https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/d…
My point is that, once again, polticians targeted a group of unpopular companies with higher taxes... just like Trump is currently doing with Harley Davidson (and other companies). No matter who does it, I think it's wrong and totally unconstitutional. But something tells me that some people will only find fault when Trump does it.
There are only two in Pahrump. One is DV's Chicken Ranch. Hof must have bought the other one.
SJG
GW Bush also tried for tariffs on steel and failed. The thing is, Trump's trade war could be something more like Smoot-Hawley than Obama's tire tariffs; Taking on China and the EU is orders-of-magnitude more nutty than anything Bush or Obama did. One the Nobel Prize winners in international trade has called out Trump, Ross, Navarro as being clueless on trade. But luckily we have @Mark93 here to set us all straight.
You're absolutely right that Trump's global trade war is more insane and potentially much more damaging than his predecessors' smaller actions.
My bigger concern with Obama was his frequent attacks on Nafta during the campaign in 2008 (see YouTube video above for a refresher). Obama was appealing to the brain-dead populism and protectionism which had infected the Democratic Party for decades, and which had boiled over into insane conspiracy theories during the Bush years. Obama promised repeatedly to renegotiate Nafta.
By the way, as it turned out, this renegotiation took the form of the TPP, which simultaneously made Nafta both better and worse from my perspective: better in that it helped to further break down tariffs and trade barriers, but also worse because it forced American labor and environmental standards on our trading partners. But ultimately, TPP would also have resulted in more global trade with more countries, which I think is a very good thing.
And for the handwringing anti-China crowd, TPP offered a means to counter Chinese economic dominance. So it was a remarkable, if unsurprising, demonstration of stupidity when Trump abandoned TPP. TPP gave him everything he said he wanted: being "tough" on China, while lowering Canadian and Mexican trade barriers for US goods.
Anyway, it's amazing that Trump, Wilbur Ross, and Peter Navarro all have Ivy League degrees in economics and business. They are all embarrassments. And all three of them were registered Democrats until very recently, btw. But what I've noticed is that, while many Republicans have criticized Trump and his team, Democrats seem congenitally incapable of criticizing Obama, even when his policies are similar to Trump's. Go ahead, I dare you, say something bad about Obama. LOL
By the way, I didn't have to Google these events; I remembered them, although I did need to search for the articles to post the links. But Google *did* help me to learn one amazing fact about Peter Navarro: apparently Jared Kushner discovered Navarro while browsing on Amazon.com to do research on China for Trump during the campaign. Seriously, that's how they crafted policy and that's how they found this guy... basically by reading the summaries and reviews on Amazon. You can't make this stuff up.
It's long overdue but at least you finally admitted the truth. Now rumdummoron, it's time to admit that you're also realdougster and sven.
SJG
What don't you like about him?
I have no idea why any Evangelicals would back him, or Trump.
I don't really go along with the idea of someone making money that way.
Nixing the front room friendliness makes such places rotten, bleak, like the Wild WIld West.
DV ran into the same legal barriers in Pahrump, so they did what was right, they went to TJ and have made a no regulations front room fun place.
SJG
"I have no idea why any Evangelicals would back him, or Trump."
I don't really think Nevada's GOP is quite as religious as the GOP in, say, Mississippi. Remember back in 2011, when Senator Harry Reid came out in favor of ending legal prostitution in NV, while Senator John Ensign defended legal prostitution by saying it was a state's rights issue? Reid is a Democrat and Ensign is a Republican and they both represented Nevada at the time. Enough said.
As for Trump, serious religious conservatives only seem to care about the courts. That's why they supported Trump. But more casual religious conservatives (the base of the GOP) supported Trump because they believe his enemies are their enemies and his grievances are their grievances. I think most Republicans also like his stance on trade, immigration, and middle-class entitlements. The base of the party was just never as laissez faire as the elites of the party believed. Trump proved that.
Yes I do remember that. He wanted a federal law. Fortunately it did not happen. We have never had such.
You might be right about the courts. Enforcing the 1965 Civil Rights Act on Bob Jones University in Greenville South Carolina is why evangelicals turned against Jimmy Carter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gf4jN1x…
Christian Nationalism, one of the most dangerous loads of nonsense in popular culture today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1W2i2Y…
SJG