The Trump / Russia Controversy

[Claeyt]

Nope, couldn't find anything

That’s because we’re referring to the same article.

Nope, this one hasn't been changed.

If all you believe is non-main stream media sources without sources, research or actual reporting then you're nuts and denying reality. ... The Washington Post and NYT are not FOX, and if you think they are, then you've swallowed the Kool aid and fell into Trump's hole-of-ignorance.

You’ve gone off the rails here. I was referring to a WP article and how the reporter didn’t do any research at all to confirm anything before posting the article and how this is bad practice. I don’t understand what you’re saying about Kool-aid; are you trying to make an ad-hominem argument?

"Drinking or Swallowing the Kool Aid" is a pretty common historical idiom. Look it up. Rogin did do the research.

I’m going to edit for brevity a bit here as you’re repeating yourself a lot. “...” indicates I’ve removed a thing and the original text wall is here.

Absolutely nothing points to Rogin lying anywhere in either article. ... THIS WAS THE LARGEST RESIGNATION AND FIRING OF STATE DEPARTMENT SENIOR ADMINISTRATORS AT ONE TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. What don't you get about that being absolutely true.

That particular statement is quite possibly true, and I don't feel like delving into history to find out so I'll accept it. However, that's not the thing I'm calling a lie. First, the headline, which sets the tone for the whole article: "The State Department’s entire senior administrative team just resigned". Not true in the slightest. See here the org chart of the state department. The four people he then went on to list are Under Secretary for Management, Assistant Secretary Administration, Assistant Secretary Consular Affairs, and Director Foreign Missions. He described this as an "ongoing exodus", a very misleading term for the Assistant Secretary Diplomatic Security retiring and Director Overseas Buildings Operations leaving a week or so earlier. Notice how all together, only a relatively few of the management left, not a "near complete housecleaning of all the senior officials that deal with managing the State Department".

Now, let me just requote that bit from the Atlantic:
"But someone has to run the State Department, to keep the gears of diplomacy turning, and Rogin reports that the latest resignations are part of a “mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.”" The Atlantic clearly treated his article as factual and quoted that line as if it was fact. You can call it 'opinion' and say that therefore it doesn't need to be true, but I disagree that it's okay on the basis of the tone of the article which stated everything as it if was fact rather than ever saying it was only his perception of a mass exodus, and on the basis that the Atlantic quoted it as if it was an honest 'report'. The little 'opinion' tag by his name means little when it's being used like this.

It IS entirely factual.

Look at the chart again. Now look at who left. THE ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION SECTION OF STATE DEPARTMENT MANAGEMENT IS GONE. HIS HEADLINE SAYS EXACTLY THAT. His title reads "The State Department’s entire senior administrative team just resigned" and this is exactly what happened. All 6 assistant secretaries under the Administration heading are gone. A quick follow up research shows that every single assistant secretary under the Management Undersecretary (who is of course gone as a political appointee) is now gone.

The undersecretary's are all political appointees and leave at the end of the administration.

The EXODUS is now the largest turnover EVER at the State Department as of today. This includes all employees of the state department and senior management.

The rest of the chart is NOT MANAGEMENT.

What you should have said to sound intelligent was "Just look at Rogin's article if you want to see the WaPo's bias. He exaggerated the resignation of the State Department senior aides just because it was bigger than past administrations

Except that it was more than just 'exaggeration'. At what point does exaggeration become a lie? When it becomes misleading, and he was certainly misleading. Reading that article's headline evokes scenes of long stretches of vacant offices with a lonely tumbleweed rolling through, not the resignation of a mere 6 people out of dozens.

It is the largest turnover of the State Department administration ever. What don't you get about the fact that he wasn't exaggerating?

... Opinion is news. It's based on sourced material, it's based on facts. They won't let him print it if it's not. Maybe you don't understand but this is factual news. ... The opinion of Rogin ... IS NEWS and IS FACT. The FACTS of their opinion on the subject is news

Sorry, but opinion is not fact. Facts have objective content and are well-supported by available evidence. Opinions are subjective or not well-supported by available evidence. That headline and the exodus claim can be easily disproven and are there to create outrage and/or panic in people, especially those who only read the headline and maybe the first paragraph or two where all his most inflammatory statements are.

I disagree that opinion is news. News is defined as noteworthy information about new things or current events and some reporter's opinion is just an opinion.

Maybe you didn't notice but I didn't say Opinions are facts, I said "Opinions are news" and "Opinions are based on facts" Clearly here Rogin based his clearly marked opinion piece on facts. You've disproven nothing of his opinion piece. The facts are 'the entire administrative team resigned' and 'this is the largest turnover of senior level state department officials EVER'. He clearly is basing his opinion on these facts. You can disagree with him (and 5 Sec's of State) if you want but those are still facts.

It was Chaos at the airports and still is. 60,000 were affected by it on the first day. 1,200 UK citizens have had to change or cancel their travel plans. 5 Canadians have been denied entry into the U.S. for business due to their migration from other countries. This was Chaos.

Are you talking about the egregious behavior by protestors who thought the best reaction to the EO was to purposely cause trouble at airports and try to prevent people from traveling? That is not something you can blame on either Trump or the EO itself.

The airport protests had zero affect on actual planes taking off or landing. ...and No I didn't mean chaos in our airports I meant the Chaos at airports all over the world as people with green cards, valid visas and tickets were illegally denied access to America and also the illegal deportations that happened to all the people in route when he signed the order.

The problem here is, how legitimate are most of them anymore?

ALL OF THEM... all of them are legitimate. Just because YOU and TRUMP don't think they are legitimate because they disagree with you or point out your mistakes doesn't delegitimize them.

Well... that's where we disagree, I guess. Legitimacy of the news to me means they can be trusted to publish the truth. Ideally the whole, unbiased truth. They've delegitimized themselves through lies and bias. I'm not even in the minority of thinking this, either, a great many people are trusting the entirety of the press less and less.

Only a fool says the media is all lies and bias. 51% of Democrats fully trust the news. Only 14% of Republicans trust the news. Researches have proven that the more people watch, listen to and read extremely conservative "news" sources the less they trust the overall media and all institutions in America. This is why we are where we are. The great failure of legitimate conservative voices to connect to the conservative movement over the last 10 years is why we are on the brink of fascism in America.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/ameri ... w-low.aspx

Hannity 'FakNoo' stuff

Conservative bloggers and radio dipwads share more ***** than "2 girls, 1 cup."

... The way you categorize and label stuff. I'm not surprised you're so closed minded.

How am I close minded when I'm the one defending the great liberties and immigration of our country while you're defending a pseudo-fascist regime.

Both Trump's and Sessions's fathers were members of the KKK.

The sins of the father shall not be visited on the sons. :/ As for Trump's sins, I don't like them, I agree that the bad things he does are bad and we should keep telling him when he's doing good things and when he's doing bad so he can be shaped by public opinion into doing the right thing.

Well they both have sins to spare. So basically he's silly putty with no actual leadership or ideas?

The reason he's the most fascist ever is because he's using authoritarian language and tactics to gain control of the government. Anti-democractic, bullying, anti-intellectual, denying observable facts. These are all signs of facism as defined by Orwell, Arendt and Churchill.

No, he HAS control of the executive branch of the government. He doesn't need to gain it. I haven't seen a lot of evidence of fascist bullying from Trump. Maybe when he does things like manhandling those companies, that was wrong and not something the president should be doing. Some have said it was a good thing because he promised he would before he was elected and then followed through... but that's a thin excuse in my opinion. I have noticed a lot of fascism in the so-called antifa people, but that's a different subject.

Yet somehow Political pundits, experts, educators, philosophers and many politicians in general are saying we are closer to fascism then ever before with Trump as president. He's called into question the legitimacy of our elections, he's bullied every politician who's stood in his way, he's denied plain facts and lied to our faces to many times to count and he's the most anti-intellectual president we've ever had. This is the beginning of fascism.

Even I approve of his manhandling of companies who are exporting jobs

*sigh*

Every other country on the planet protects their industry more than us. The blue collar middle class disappeared as they left while countries like Germany, Japan, Sweden and Canada protected theirs with penalties if they left.

This should be a Democratic policy to punish companies like this

It should not be a governmental policy of any kind to punish companies like this. It's wrong for Trump to do it and it's wrong for anyone to do it. They left for a reason. Find the reason and fix the problem so they'll WANT to come back. Stripping away some of our ridiculous regulations would be a good start, I could do pages and pages on stupid business regulations of the US. Simplifying the tax code is another thing. And free trade, overall a good thing, I do hope Trump doesn't add all the tariffing he said he would.

Democrats have been trying to change the tax code to what it was back when our country was well off for 30 years now and the Republicans stopped them every time. As for corporate multi-nationals, screw them. I've watched as they've found the deepest and cheapest place to build things to sell back to Americans for my entire life while all other successful companies protect their industry. We've failed to maintain it and that is the single greatest failure within the American dream's demise.

I'm actually in favor of him building the pipelines as long as it's with American steel. (This is my cognitive dissonance in action: I know that building the pipelines to Canada and N Dakota oil fields will not help global warming which is a huge problem but I'd rather buy my gas from there than from Saudi Arabia. The solution is to increase all other forms of energy while also using U.S. And Canadian oil.)

Do you realize that lack of a pipeline is what is bad for the environment? Without them, the oil has to be transported by train, which is much more subject to spills and requires a lot more burning of fuel. Not having a pipeline doesn't actually reduce the usage of oil.

I agree, pipelines are safer than trains but that's not why it's bad for the environment or why environmentalists are protesting. The greater danger to the environment than spills is making oil cheaper through easy access. They are protesting to end global warming AND spills from anywhere. Pipelines means cheaper oil and more global warming. That being said, oil from Arabia is worse than oil from Canada and N Dakota.

he is a 'Reichstag' moment away from fascism

Reichstag? Is this another of your buzzwords like using 'apartheid' when you meant 'separatist'?

Look it up. Jeez... "Drinking the Kool-Aid" and now "Reichstag Moment"? You really are uninformed on historical idioms aren't you?

I think he is as close as we've ever been as a country to the dissolution of the constitution and an authoritarian government

Yeah, Obama did a lot to push the boundaries of Executive power, making it that much easier for Trump to do the same. However, luckily, the constitution is a robust document and designed to stand up to such things. I think we will be fine.

We are already NOT fine as he has already broken the constitution 3 times in as many weeks (Flynn's actions and possible collusion with Russians, His business entanglements and ethical violations, his illegal immigration ban based on religion).

We are a far, far away from fine.

[Dallane]

Can you guys keep this to PM? Clay's retardation and Meow's murderous high energy rampage is starting to get boring.

[Claeyt]

Can you guys keep this to PM? Clay's retardation and Meow's murderous high energy rampage is starting to get boring.

I still don't have the ability to PM anyone on this account.

Anyways...

Back on topic:

Today the CIA has denied security clearance to one of Flynn's top aides who he appointed to the National Security Council (NSC). He can not serve on the NSC without the clearance.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/m ... ump-234923

[eywariorey]

Nama jeff

[TotalyMeow]

Nope, couldn't find anything

http://www.dailywire.com/news/12570/how ... en-shapiro

Well, there's a screenshot here. The article you linked is from the day after. Perhaps they realized how stupid they were being, mocking people for being Christian, and just removed and replaced the whole thing the next day. The article can't be found in a search of their site anymore.

"Drinking or Swallowing the Kool Aid" is a pretty common historical idiom. Look it up. Rogin did do the research.

I know it refers to the poisoning at Waco. I was saying your sentence here:

If all you believe is non-main stream media sources without sources, research or actual reporting then you're nuts and denying reality. ... The Washington Post and NYT are not FOX, and if you think they are, then you've swallowed the Kool aid and fell into Trump's hole-of-ignorance.

made no damn sense.

THE ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION SECTION OF STATE DEPARTMENT MANAGEMENT IS GONE. HIS HEADLINE SAYS EXACTLY THAT. His title reads "The State Department’s entire senior administrative team just resigned" and this is exactly what happened. All 6 assistant secretaries under the Administration heading are gone. A quick follow up research shows that every single assistant secretary under the Management Undersecretary (who is of course gone as a political appointee) is now gone.
...
The rest of the chart is NOT MANAGEMENT.

You're confused. All the people on that chart are managers and administrators as the words are defined in the English Language. One has 'management' in their title, sure, and the Assistant Secretary Administration has 'administration' in the title, but they don't have to have the words in their job titles to be in the capacity of administration or management.

It is the largest turnover of the State Department administration ever. What don't you get about the fact that he wasn't exaggerating?

It's rude when you ignore what I just said like this. Again, I have never said this was false. I don't know it's true either, it doesn't matter enough for me to research. Feel free to do so yourself though, if you want to keep talking about it.

Maybe you didn't notice but I didn't say Opinions are facts, I said "Opinions are news" and "Opinions are based on facts"

The opinion of Rogin ... IS NEWS and IS FACT.

Yeah... you did. But I guess this is the closest you'll every come to admitting error; I'll take it.

The airport protests had zero affect on actual planes taking off or landing. ...and No I didn't mean chaos in our airports I meant the Chaos at airports all over the world as people with green cards, valid visas and tickets were illegally denied access to America and also the illegal deportations that happened to all the people in route when he signed the order.

Last I heard, a hundred or so people were inconvenienced by the EO. You'll have to be more specific about what you're talking about here as the EO didn't affect the entire world, only a few countries. Perhaps we're talking about different things? You have any sources at all?

Only a fool says the media is all lies and bias. 51% of Democrats fully trust the news. Only 14% of Republicans trust the news.
...
http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/ameri ... w-low.aspx

Not ALL of it, clearly, or it wouldn't be possible to find any news at all. But as a whole, they are untrustworthy and very biased. The truth must be hunted down. Your article makes my point very well, thank you. I think you should read it yourself. The poll is pretty outdated though, coming from last September, so while the overall trend of less trust in the media is no doubt accurate, those specific numbers you quoted are probably way off by now.

How am I close minded when I'm the one defending the great liberties and immigration of our country while you're defending a pseudo-fascist regime.

I laughed at the absurdity. Then I cried because you really believe this.

we should keep telling him when he's doing good things and when he's doing bad so he can be shaped by public opinion into doing the right thing.

Well they both have sins to spare. So basically he's silly putty with no actual leadership or ideas?

Um, no. The beauty of our governmental system (aided by the ubiquity of communications we enjoy) is that a politician can be easily shaped by public opinion. And Trump, being less of a hardened politician than we usually see in the presidency, seems to listen to the people more than is usual.

Yet somehow Political pundits, experts, educators, philosophers and many politicians in general are saying we are closer to fascism then ever before with Trump as president. He's called into question the legitimacy of our elections, he's bullied every politician who's stood in his way, he's denied plain facts and lied to our faces to many times to count and he's the most anti-intellectual president we've ever had. This is the beginning of fascism.

You know, talking about fascism and what it is is difficult, as the word has been overused to the point where people often use it on anyone they just disagree with. I'm not even sure what YOU mean when you say 'fascist' as I don't know which of the several definitions you are using.

Taking some of your points individually though, quite a few liberals are calling our election legitimacy into question. A large number have been demonstrating and rioting over the difference in the popular vote versus the electoral college. Trump cites several studies showing that there is election fraud and says he wants it investigated and steps taken to prevent it. I happen to agree that such investigation is probably a good idea at this point, but such investigation does not constitute fascism. Fascism, I think, would be saying we need to do away with elections entirely and NO one is saying that.

Politicians bully each other all the time, and our constitution plans for and allows for that. I'm not sure what bullying you're referring to, exactly, but I think we're safe there. I concede, again, that his twitter feed is ridiculous, but when it comes to his policies, they seem to be pretty good and well-thought-out so far. I don't know what anti-intellectualism you're referring to though, I think you're just saying that because you don't agree with him. But don't worry, if the much more charismatic Obama didn't bring about a fascist revolution, Trump has no chance.

Every other country on the planet protects their industry more than us. The blue collar middle class disappeared as they left while countries like Germany, Japan, Sweden and Canada protected theirs with penalties if they left.

Yeah, just because someone else is doing something doesn't make it a good idea. We absolutely should provide a tempting environment for industry and business so that they want to come here, stay here, start here, but government bribes to make companies stay or government penalties if they leave are a bad idea and such things won't help us.

Democrats have been trying to change the tax code to what it was back when our country was well off for 30 years now and the Republicans stopped them every time.

I said simplify, not make things worse.

Pipelines means cheaper oil and more global warming.

I'm not sure if these things correlate, actually. Do you have a source? Like a scientific one? I'd honestly like to know. The last global warming report I saw said that things aren't heating up at anywhere near the rate that was previously projected so a small increase in plastic use or people taking road trips might not be so significant compared to the damage done by oil spilling directly on the ground.

Look it up. Jeez... "Drinking the Kool-Aid" and now "Reichstag Moment"? You really are uninformed on historical idioms aren't you?

Well, in your hurry to try to insult me, you missed a good opportunity to make a point based on history. Now I guess I get to do it instead! So, I know you're actually talking about the Reichstag Fire. "Reichstage Moment" is a more modern misnomer. The R Fire event happened when someone set fire to the German Parliament (Reichstag) and burned it to the ground. But that happened later. Let's start more towards the beginning.

Firstly, The Treaty of Versailles, and the Weimar Republic (govt of Germany 1919-1933).

I'm going to leave a lot out here for brevity sake. The end of WWI and the ensuing years saw Germany in a bad bad place. Thanks to the occupation of their industrial sector, crippling war reparations, and the later Great Depression (which hit them harder than anyone), their economy was in a shambles with millions unemployed, inflation was insane, people were hungry, their national pride was stifled, they felt they were being trampled on and downtrodden by the rest of Europe (and they kinda were), and the middle class was terrified of Communists (and not without reason, the Communist party held about 13% of the parliament, putting it in third place). By contrast, the Jews, as a general group, were doing fairly well, and later provided Hitler an easy scape-goat to direct his propaganda at (see the "stab-in-the-back myth" and the "November criminals").

NAZI Party.

Hitler joined the NAZI (National Socialist Germany Worker's) Party in the 20's and rose to lead it. He raised a private army called the SA (storm unit) and later added the SS (protection squad) as part of the Nazi party. More on that later. His campaigns promised jobs, promised to ignore the treaty of Versailles, promised to make Germany a world power again, promised to wipe out the communists, and after making the case for the Jews being evil, promised to remove them as well. He failed for years. It wasn't until the Great Depression he made any headway in getting the Nazi party into parliamentary offices and gaining power.

Let's take a quick comparison now to the US.

It may be a fairly popular opinion that we've been weakened in the eyes of ISIS and other enemies, but we are certainly still a world power and are by no means downtrodden. Our economics aren't great, but no one is starving, unemployment is bad no but critically bad, and inflation is still low. A small minority might be afraid of extreme liberals (our communists analog) and a few people have always been afraid of black people or Muslims or immigrants (our Jew analog, roughly). Now, I'll give you the extremist-liberal / communist fear, that's maybe equal. But the majority of Americans are not afraid of minorities, just rather annoyed at being called racist all the time. And Trump is not advocating any removal of minorities, or Muslims, or even of Mexican immigrants barring the illegal ones who are also criminals, which is pretty reasonable. So, while Trump did get elected president, he did not do so under such circumstances where he has unusual power. He certainly doesn't have a private army with which to scare other branches of the government. Speaking of, back to Hitler.

Hitler used his SA to scare the German government, to create propaganda of his SA attacking various Communist groups (familiar, but it's not Trump supporters doing this, rather the reverse) for the good of the people, and said private army was 4x bigger than the German army by 1932.

President Vs Chancellor.

Many countries have position similar to the Weimar Republic Chancellor, the Prime Minister, but the US doesn't . The closest analog we have might be the Majority Leader of the Senate if he also lead the House. So, a little explanation of what the German President and the Chancellor did back then. The Chancellor was appointed by the President and was a chairman to the Parliament. He had little power. The President was somewhat similar to ours. He commanded the military, negotiated with foreign governments, could submit a bill for a public vote (rather than veto power), and issue decrees (similar to an EO, but much more like a dictatorship as the judiciary check did not exist). He also had the ability to dissolve parliament under Article 25. He could dismiss the entire thing and call for a vote within 60 days, meanwhile ruling by decree. In the event of an emergency being called, Article 48 allowed him to legislate by decree and suspend civil liberties. In the early 30s, the government was already in chaos. President Heisenberg every cabinet appointed by him was dismissed by parliament (in a somewhat different system from what the US has), none of the parties could agree with each other long enough to get anything done and there were many parties, Heisenberg kept invoking Article 25 and overstepping his powers of decree, and the government as a whole had no strategy for solving any of Germany's problems. When Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933 (as part of a plot with Army officer Kurt von Schliecher), part of the deal was that Article 25 would be invoked. Nazis gained the control of parliament. At the same time, the Reichstag Fire (started by unknown persons, but Hitler successfully blamed it on communists), caused Article 48 to be invoked. When Hindenburg died in '34, Hitler became both Chancellor and President.

Now, how does this compare to the US current situation?

There are a few similarities, yes. Obama, like Heisenburg, put great effort into extending the Presidential powers to "rule by decree". But with checks on Executive Orders in place by the Judiciary Branch, and the inability to dissolve Congress, he met with much less success. So, Trump, despite EOs being more acceptable and versatile now than they were a decade ago, still can't actually rule by decree. The damage he can do with EOs is limited. Our constitution also has no Article 48 analog. The closest thing is suspension of the writ of Habius Corpus in which people can be held without trial in the case of invasion or rebellion. That power belongs to Congress, not the president. Some presidents have tried to do it themselves (with some success due to being commander in chief of the military) but only until Congress and the Judiciary got their hands on them. Article 48, by contrast, suspended articles similar to what's in our Bill of Rights. It suspended:

Article 114.

Liberty of the person is inviolable. A restriction upon, or deprivation of, personal liberty, may not be imposed by public authority except by law.

Persons who have been deprived of their liberty must be informed no later than the following day by what authority, and upon what grounds, the deprivation of liberty was ordered; without delay they shall have the opportunity to lodge objections against such deprivation of liberty.

Article 115.

The dwelling of every German is his sanctuary and is inviolable. Exceptions may be imposed only by authority of law.

Article 116.

An act may be punishable only if the penalty was fixed by law before the act was committed.

Article 117.

Secrecy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communication is inviolable. Exceptions may be permitted only by a national law.

Article 118.

Every German has the right within the limits of the general laws, to express his opinion orally, in writing, in print, pictorially, or in any other way. No circumstance arising out of his work or employment shall hinder him in the exercise of this right, and no one shall discriminate against him if he makes use of such right.

No censorship shall be established, but exceptional provisions may be made by law for cinematographs. Moreover, legal measures are permissible for the suppression of indecent and obscene literature, as well as for the protection of youth at public plays and exhibitions.

Article 123.

All Germans have the right to assemble peaceably and unarmed without notice or special permission.

By national law notice may be required for meetings in the open air, and they may be prohibited in case of immediate danger to the public safety.

Article 124.

All Germans have the right to form societies or associations for purposes not prohibited by the criminal code. This right may not be limited by preventive regulations. The same provision applies to religious societies and associations.

Every association has the right to incorporate according to the provisions of the civil code. Such right may not be denied to an association on the ground that its purpose is political, social, or religious.

Article 153.

Property shall be guaranteed by the constitution. Its nature and limits shall be prescribed by law.

Expropriation shall take place only for the general good and only on the basis of law. It shall be accompanied by payment of just compensation unless otherwise provided by national law. In case of dispute over the amount of compensation recourse to the ordinary courts shall be permitted, unless otherwise provided by national law. Expropriation by the Reich over against the states, municipalities, and associations serving the public welfare may take place only upon the payment of compensation.

Property imposes obligations. Its use by its owner shall at the same time serve the public good.

And of course, all this was also in the absence of strong state governments. The founding fathers originally intended for each state to be an almost independent entity with the federal government only an arbiter between them and having control over some foreign affairs and a weak federal army. They went too far with the Articles of Confederation, and balanced things out considerably better with the Constitution. So, in most situations of the Feds gaining too much power, we still have the States to further cushion us.

So, Trump is no Hitler, by any means. And a Reichstag Fire moment isn't going to happen. However, this does highlight something important. If you fear a Fascist Dictatorship so much, you might want to consider that THAT is the very reason Republicans and Libertarians such as myself want the small federal government. Sure, welfare programs and government funded healthcare and education and the like sound like nice things. Arguments can be made on their usefulness and the sense of security that comes from knowing they are there. However, when you give the government control over the redistribution of wealth, the care and feeding of the populace, the regulation of business and the economy, you're giving the government control. The more it gets, the more you become used to relying on it, and the easier it is for said government to get more control. The best defense against facism and authoritarianism is a Small government. The smallest federal government we can manage to have and still have it work for us. Simplify the tax code as much as possible, make it tiny again. Reduce business regulations as much as possible (and same for State and Local regulations, in this case). Leave education in the hands of each state and district. Get welfare in the hands of state and local government and private charity. Protect the right to bear arms and form a militia. Get healthcare back in the hands of the free market. And so on, there's not enough room. That's what worries me most about Trump. He's not a Republican, he's a Populist and in favor of big federal government.

We are already NOT fine as he has already broken the constitution 3 times in as many weeks (Flynn's actions and possible collusion with Russians, His business entanglements and ethical violations, his illegal immigration ban based on religion).

[/quote]

If this is your definition of breaking the Constitution, then I guess your Chicken Little worldview is completely justified. However, the immigration pause of seven countries is not a ban, not based on religion, and has broken nothing. Neither have his difficulties in staying out of his own business caused any real harm, though the potential is there for trouble, it's not the Constitution that's in danger. And it's also not in danger from the possibility that one of his aides did a questionable thing. I'm sure there will be a proper investigation and, if needed, a trial and/or a replacing.

[Claeyt]

http://www.dailywire.com/news/12570/how ... en-shapiro

Well, there's a screenshot here. The article you linked is from the day after. Perhaps they realized how stupid they were being, mocking people for being Christian, and just removed and replaced the whole thing the next day. The article can't be found in a search of their site anymore.

That's because that isn't an article. That's a headline for their news app being used by a right wing news outlet to try and make whichever app article intern writer who wrote that look bad. The article I gave you is from their actual newspaper and from their online articles.

"Drinking or Swallowing the Kool Aid" is a pretty common historical idiom. Look it up. Rogin did do the research.

I know it refers to the poisoning at Waco. I was saying your sentence here:

If all you believe is non-main stream media sources without sources, research or actual reporting then you're nuts and denying reality. ... The Washington Post and NYT are not FOX, and if you think they are, then you've swallowed the Kool aid and fell into Trump's hole-of-ignorance.

made no damn sense.

That has nothing to do with Waco.

"Drinking the Kool-Aid", "Swallowing the Kool-Aid", and "Sipping the Kool-Aid" are all historical idioms referring to Jonestown. They all refer to calling out a person as to their following of a cult or dangerous idea due to peer pressure or lack of rational thought. An example of "Sipping the Kool-Aid" would mean that someone agrees with Trump that there are to many Mexicans in America because he saw 2 guys who looked Mexican walking down his street. An example of "Drinking the Kool-Aid" would be trolls like Darwoth and Dallane who spout Trump nonsense and troll people online with racist and radically conservative ideas but who aren't really capable of rational discussion or thought.

You on the other hand "Swallowed the Kool-Aid". This refers to you being capable of holding a political cognitive dissonance and being able to rationally think but you still swallow Trump's hook, line and sinker. You are CHOOSING to defend him and his policies even though you are worried about him maybe being an insane, fascist demagogue in the deep recesses of your mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

THE ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION SECTION OF STATE DEPARTMENT MANAGEMENT IS GONE. HIS HEADLINE SAYS EXACTLY THAT. His title reads "The State Department’s entire senior administrative team just resigned" and this is exactly what happened. All 6 assistant secretaries under the Administration heading are gone. A quick follow up research shows that every single assistant secretary under the Management Undersecretary (who is of course gone as a political appointee) is now gone.
...
The rest of the chart is NOT MANAGEMENT.

You're confused. All the people on that chart are managers and administrators as the words are defined in the English Language. One has 'management' in their title, sure, and the Assistant Secretary Administration has 'administration' in the title, but they don't have to have the words in their job titles to be in the capacity of administration or management.

No, you are confused. I'm saying that if you look at the Chart, find 'Undersecretary of Management', then find 'administration' and then see the 5 titles under the heading of 'administration' which along with administration make up THE 6 PEOPLE WHO QUIT OR WERE FIRED. THIS IS THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S ENTIRE 'ADMINISTRATIVE TEAM'.

It is the largest turnover of the State Department administration ever. What don't you get about the fact that he wasn't exaggerating?

It's rude when you ignore what I just said like this. Again, I have never said this was false. I don't know it's true either, it doesn't matter enough for me to research. Feel free to do so yourself though, if you want to keep talking about it.

If you can't understand that it's true, then why are you calling him a liar for saying it because some right wing blog told you to?

Maybe you didn't notice but I didn't say Opinions are facts, I said "Opinions are news" and "Opinions are based on facts"

The opinion of Rogin ... IS NEWS and IS FACT.

Yeah... you did. But I guess this is the closest you'll every come to admitting error; I'll take it.

skipping out on some words in the middle there aren't you.

The airport protests had zero affect on actual planes taking off or landing. ...and No I didn't mean chaos in our airports I meant the Chaos at airports all over the world as people with green cards, valid visas and tickets were illegally denied access to America and also the illegal deportations that happened to all the people in route when he signed the order.

Last I heard, a hundred or so people were inconvenienced by the EO. You'll have to be more specific about what you're talking about here as the EO didn't affect the entire world, only a few countries. Perhaps we're talking about different things? You have any sources at all?

The White House lied.

There are tons of sources now that it's happened. The 109 number given by the White House is nonsense and should be ignored. The numbers are these:

Approx 90,000 affected overall

approx. 90,000 people holding status as citizens or former citizens of those 7 countries had their visa, refugee, travel, tourist, student or green card immigration status affected by this order. That number is based on the number of people who had CURRENT legal travel status before the order with connections to those countries. This includes 3 members of the UK parliament, a swiss researcher born in Sudan who was part of a medical grant from the U.S. government worth 3 million dollars. It includes almost 5,000 students at Universities around the country including approx 500 people in medical school around the country.

348 people were denied boarding

348 people who held current and legal visas, refugee status and green cards were denied access to boarding. This included a student who had traveled back to Iran to bury his mother. This included a Germany tech worker from Syria who was traveling to San Fran to represent his start up for business.

735 people were affected at ports of entry.

735 people were detained at ports of entry. This is according to the ACLU and the Daily Beast. 200-250 of them were denied access and forced to return to where they flew in from. 392 Green Card holders were illegally held and denied access to lawyers before finally being processed the next day after the federal judge order it stopped. Since then approx 1600 green card holders have been forced to get waivers.

Here are links on the numbers and stories:

WaPo had numbers for the first 24 hours:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fac ... cb296a5753

But of course it's ongoing so the numbers changed with time and research:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... cted-trav/
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/heres-how-man ... -trumps-eo

couple of stories about who was actually denied:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/featur ... 33804.html

Only a fool says the media is all lies and bias. 51% of Democrats fully trust the news. Only 14% of Republicans trust the news.
...
http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/ameri ... w-low.aspx

Not ALL of it, clearly, or it wouldn't be possible to find any news at all. But as a whole, they are untrustworthy and very biased. The truth must be hunted down. Your article makes my point very well, thank you. I think you should read it yourself. The poll is pretty outdated though, coming from last September, so while the overall trend of less trust in the media is no doubt accurate, those specific numbers you quoted are probably way off by now.

The greater trend is the one for Republicans. I think you missed that. It's dropped 50% since the 70's while the Democrats have only dropped around 10%. I think you're coming at this that it's the fault of the media somehow. The old media hasn't changed all that much since the 70's. They have the same rates of corrections and follow up corrections at the WaPo and NYT that they had since the 50's. Less in some cases. The ignorance of the right and the ongoing bais and exaggeration of right wing media is the problem and what is driving the Trump conservatives to where they are.

btw: I would suggest Al Jazeera English be added to your news watching and reading if you really want information to compare to the U.S. media. I started following them years ago and it's amazing to compare them to the British and U.S. and other world media sources. Of course they're biased as well but you'll see a completely different perspective from them sometimes that really shines. They ended Al Jazeera America and rolled it into Al Jazeera English.

http://www.aljazeera.com/

How am I close minded when I'm the one defending the great liberties and immigration of our country while you're defending a pseudo-fascist regime.

I laughed at the absurdity. Then I cried because you really believe this.

Imagine your emotions in the not to distant future when you realize I was right and it's true.

we should keep telling him when he's doing good things and when he's doing bad so he can be shaped by public opinion into doing the right thing.

Well they both have sins to spare. So basically he's silly putty with no actual leadership or ideas?

Um, no. The beauty of our governmental system (aided by the ubiquity of communications we enjoy) is that a politician can be easily shaped by public opinion. And Trump, being less of a hardened politician than we usually see in the presidency, seems to listen to the people more than is usual.

Actually, we're at historic lows in breaks in party line voting. Public protest and public opinion seem to be having less and less effect on the votes of politicians.

Yet somehow Political pundits, experts, educators, philosophers and many politicians in general are saying we are closer to fascism then ever before with Trump as president. He's called into question the legitimacy of our elections, he's bullied every politician who's stood in his way, he's denied plain facts and lied to our faces to many times to count and he's the most anti-intellectual president we've ever had. This is the beginning of fascism.

You know, talking about fascism and what it is is difficult, as the word has been overused to the point where people often use it on anyone they just disagree with. I'm not even sure what YOU mean when you say 'fascist' as I don't know which of the several definitions you are using.

The definitions I've been using in this dialogue come from Orwell and Arendt. 2 antifascists who fought "fascism" their entire lives. I said it before and you may have missed it but I've been using their definitions of fascism from 2 of their works that asked the question "what is fascism?", the over use of the word and "How does fascism start?" I highly recommend you read these as they are 2 of the most respected writers on fascism and it's origins.

I'll link them again:

George Orwell's 1944 newspaper opinion piece titled "What is Fascism?"

Arendt's work "The Origins of Totalitarianism" is listed as one of the top 10 non-fiction books of the 20th century by the NYT.

Here's a link about her and Trump.

Taking some of your points individually though, quite a few liberals are calling our election legitimacy into question. A large number have been demonstrating and rioting over the difference in the popular vote versus the electoral college. Trump cites several studies showing that there is election fraud and says he wants it investigated and steps taken to prevent it. I happen to agree that such investigation is probably a good idea at this point, but such investigation does not constitute fascism. Fascism, I think, would be saying we need to do away with elections entirely and NO one is saying that.

They are not taking the legitimacy into question. He clearly lost the popular vote yet won the electoral college. They are questioning the radical changes Republicans are making to the democracy itself such as computer model gerrymandered districts, voter suppression and voter roll purges. They are also questioning old anti-democracy aspects to our Republic such as the Electoral college itself which was created to help the slave states maintain representation and still favors rural low populated states over urban populated states and they are asking why and how can someone who got 3 MILLION less votes (2+%) win the presidency while getting a congress set in place by gerrymandering and voter suppression.

There was no mass voter fraud. Trump and the Republicans are using that lie to try and further voter suppression. Specifically they are going after the voter rolls and are trying to "clean" the voter rolls. This means requiring people who are already registered but may have been registered and voted in another state that previously lived in to cancel the registration and re-register where they are again. This is being used to make it harder to vote which IS a part of fascism's anti-democracy.

They are trying to get less people to vote and that is part of fascism.

Politicians bully each other all the time, and our constitution plans for and allows for that. I'm not sure what bullying you're referring to, exactly, but I think we're safe there. I concede, again, that his twitter feed is ridiculous, but when it comes to his policies, they seem to be pretty good and well-thought-out so far. I don't know what anti-intellectualism you're referring to though, I think you're just saying that because you don't agree with him. But don't worry, if the much more charismatic Obama didn't bring about a fascist revolution, Trump has no chance.

You say that now, but the Reichstag moment is coming and we'll see what happens then. Already he's trying to circumvent the courts by issuing a 'Security Order' on the travel ban.

I'd like you to point out a single case of Obama bullying the Republicans. All politicians do not act like Trump with the name calling and aggressive personal attacks. Trump is unique in that.

Every other country on the planet protects their industry more than us. The blue collar middle class disappeared as they left while countries like Germany, Japan, Sweden and Canada protected theirs with penalties if they left.

Yeah, just because someone else is doing something doesn't make it a good idea. We absolutely should provide a tempting environment for industry and business so that they want to come here, stay here, start here, but government bribes to make companies stay or government penalties if they leave are a bad idea and such things won't help us.

It's a good idea if it helps the economy, the middle class and maintains the American dream. Government regulation and punishment for companies leaving the U.S. is absolutely required. Free Trade agreements have gutted this country.

Democrats have been trying to change the tax code to what it was back when our country was well off for 30 years now and the Republicans stopped them every time.

I said simplify, not make things worse.

Worse is giving more tax cuts to the rich while the rest of the country's whole wages drop over 30 years.

Pipelines means cheaper oil and more global warming.

I'm not sure if these things correlate, actually. Do you have a source? Like a scientific one? I'd honestly like to know. The last global warming report I saw said that things aren't heating up at anywhere near the rate that was previously projected so a small increase in plastic use or people taking road trips might not be so significant compared to the damage done by oil spilling directly on the ground.

WTF global warning report are you reading.

It's actually accelerating. Many conservatives have been using the tactic of using the outlier El Nino years of 1998 and 2013 to say there has been a "Pause" in global warming. You probably read one of those reports on some right wing nonsense site.
http://www.businessinsider.com/global-w ... ing-2016-5

NASA's keeping a basic numbers yearly tracker going:
http://climate.nasa.gov/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/cap ... 70533da820

Look it up. Jeez... "Drinking the Kool-Aid" and now "Reichstag Moment"? You really are uninformed on historical idioms aren't you?

Well, in your hurry to try to insult me, you missed a good opportunity to make a point based on history. Now I guess I get to do it instead! So, I know you're actually talking about the Reichstag Fire. "Reichstage Moment" is a more modern misnomer. The R Fire event happened when someone set fire to the German Parliament (Reichstag) and burned it to the ground. But that happened later. Let's start more towards the beginning.

I think you're conflating fascism and radically conservative governments with Hitler too much. A "Reichstag Moment" has been used many times by dictatorships to maintain control or the military to expand or right wing governments to expand. It can take the form of an assassination (Egypt), a coup (Turkey), a plain crash (Spain) and even a fake naval attack (Gulf of Tonkin).

The point isn't if the government actually committed the attack itself it's how they use it to take control.

The Reichstag moment in America will be a nuclear bomb attack or a 9/11 style attack. When that happens, who knows what will happen...

So, Trump is no Hitler, by any means. And a Reichstag Fire moment isn't going to happen.

I agree. Trump is no Hitler and I doubt he'll succeed. I'll ignore all your historical spoilers that I already knew so I don't know why you posted them and just answer by saying that although Trump is not Hitler all fascism and dictatorship comes in different ways in different countries. The slow roll of anti-democracy coming from the Republicans is a fact and it should worry everyone in this country. We are the most militarized jingoistic country on this planet and that to is a sign of fascism. We are as close as we've ever been.

Sure, welfare programs and government funded healthcare and education and the like sound like nice things. Arguments can be made on their usefulness and the sense of security that comes from knowing they are there. However, when you give the government control over the redistribution of wealth, the care and feeding of the populace, the regulation of business and the economy, you're giving the government control. The more it gets, the more you become used to relying on it, and the easier it is for said government to get more control. The best defense against facism and authoritarianism is a Small government. The smallest federal government we can manage to have and still have it work for us. Simplify the tax code as much as possible, make it tiny again. Reduce business regulations as much as possible (and same for State and Local regulations, in this case). Leave education in the hands of each state and district. Get welfare in the hands of state and local government and private charity. Protect the right to bear arms and form a militia. Get healthcare back in the hands of the free market. And so on, there's not enough room. That's what worries me most about Trump. He's not a Republican, he's a Populist and in favor of big federal government.

They ever persisting problem with this argument for Libertarian conservatism is big government education, health care, distribution of food and resources, and finally the regulation of business and the economy ALL WORK. THEY ALL WORK TO HELP EVERYONE LIVE LONGER, NOT GO HUNGRY OR HURT AND KEEP BUSINESS FROM POLLUTING AND EXPLOITING WORKERS. They have been proven to work, over and over and over again in all countries. AND WE KNOW WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN THEY AREN'T IN PLACE. Children are forced to work, the elderly live in poverty and poor health, business pollutes and money men exploit loopholes. This is why these government requirements happened in the first place.

It's idiotic at this point to say we need less of these things if more of these things makes us all better, healthier and wealthier.

The attack on these basic creations of government is why Canadians are living longer, the French have 3 times the vacation the U.S. does and why Germany is wealthier than we are.

Conservatives have been attacking unions, social security, medicare and taxes on the rich for 35 years and we've only gotten poorer with worse health care. It's time to see that those attacks have led us here and we need to follow Canada on Healthcare, France on business regulation and Germany on the economy and education.

We are already NOT fine as he has already broken the constitution 3 times in as many weeks (Flynn's actions and possible collusion with Russians, His business entanglements and ethical violations, his illegal immigration ban based on religion).

If this is your definition of breaking the Constitution, then I guess your Chicken Little worldview is completely justified. However, the immigration pause of seven countries is not a ban, not based on religion, and has broken nothing. Neither have his difficulties in staying out of his own business caused any real harm, though the potential is there for trouble, it's not the Constitution that's in danger. And it's also not in danger from the possibility that one of his aides did a questionable thing. I'm sure there will be a proper investigation and, if needed, a trial and/or a replacing.

According to 7 federal judges now the immigration ban HAS broken the constitution. The constitution is clear on business entanglements like these and his failure to address them is now leading to Congressional action. Flynn's actions and Trump's use by the Russians is why this thread exists and may lead to the largest political scandal in the history of the United States.

[TotalyMeow]

Well, there's a screenshot here.

That's a headline for their news app

Well, okay then. Doesn't invalidate my point.

I know it refers to the poisoning at Waco. I was saying your sentence here:

If all you believe is non-main stream media sources without sources, research or actual reporting then you're nuts and denying reality. ... The Washington Post and NYT are not FOX, and if you think they are, then you've swallowed the Kool aid and fell into Trump's hole-of-ignorance.

made no damn sense.

That has nothing to do with Waco.

"Drinking the Kool-Aid", "Swallowing the Kool-Aid", and "Sipping the Kool-Aid" are all historical idioms referring to Jonestown. They all refer to calling out a person as to their following of a cult or dangerous idea due to peer pressure or lack of rational thought. ...

You are CHOOSING to defend [Trump] and his policies even though you are worried about him maybe being an insane, fascist demagogue in the deep recesses of your mind.

This is where the people you hang out with would chew you out for 'mansplaining'. But I know you're not doing it because I'm a woman. You're doing it because you're a prick. Like I said, I know what the term means, I got the location wrong.

I don't believe Trump is an insane, fascist, demagogue in any part of my mind, you lunatic, stop projecting at me. I believe he has an overly thin skin that will get him, and by extension probably the rest of us, in trouble at some point. I also believe his political ideas aren't all what I would hope for, but they're on the better side of okay, and worlds closer than Hilary would have been. I also think he's shown that he's trying to do his job well, and trying to fulfill his promises, and that is to the good. I think he's also overall a good person, despite the demonizing he's gotten in the press and some things he's done or said which were bad.

No, you are confused. I'm saying that if you look at the Chart, find 'Undersecretary of Management', then find 'administration' and then see the 5 titles under the heading of 'administration' which along with administration make up THE 6 PEOPLE WHO QUIT OR WERE FIRED. THIS IS THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S ENTIRE 'ADMINISTRATIVE TEAM'.

No, only one title is 'Administration'. But sure, while this definition would not have occurred to anyone on reading the headline, I'm sure that he was quite pleased that he could make such a misleading headline while technically almost being truthful.

The opinion of Rogin ... IS NEWS and IS FACT.

skipping out on some words in the middle there aren't you.

Not really, I took out the part that said " (who writes on Foreign Policy) and the last 5 Sec's of State", which had no bearing on the subject.

The numbers are these:

Approx 90,000 affected overall
...
348 people were denied boarding
...
735 people were affected at ports of entry.
...
Here are links on the numbers and stories:
WaPo had numbers for the first 24 hours
But of course it's ongoing so the numbers changed with time and research
couple of stories about who was actually denied

I will read these tomorrow, but you know the reason for the EO was to stop immigration from those countries? That a fair number of people were therefore going to be stopped from entering the country? The ~100 number was the number who were caught amidstreams AND weren't supposed to be and I know I'm remembering it wrong. Perhaps it's in one of those articles.

The greater trend is the one for Republicans. I think you missed that.

I did not miss that. The media has overall become increasingly more left-leaning over time. So, of course Democrats will tend to trust them more as they are hearing what they want to hear, true or not.

I would suggest Al Jazeera English be added to your news watching and reading if you really want information to compare to the U.S. media. I started following them years ago and it's amazing to compare them to the British and U.S. and other world media sources.

I'm sure that's true.

Trump, being less of a hardened politician than we usually see in the presidency, seems to listen to the people more than is usual.

Actually, we're at historic lows in breaks in party line voting. Public protest and public opinion seem to be having less and less effect on the votes of politicians.

Is that historic low before or after the recent election? I would agree that protest might be having a lesser effect, but just look at the nature of those protests: riots and disconnection.

The definitions I've been using in this dialogue come from Orwell and Arendt.
I'll link them again:
George Orwell's 1944 newspaper opinion piece titled "What is Fascism?"
Arendt's work "The Origins of Totalitarianism" is listed as one of the top 10 non-fiction books of the 20th century by the NYT.
Here's a link about her and Trump.

Yes, I remember the Orwell thing. He makes a long case for 'fascism' having no meaning at all and then declares it a synonym for 'bully'. Which is probably the worst definition I have seen, but it does make pretty much everyone on both the left and the right a fascist, and a good bit of the media, so that's eyeroll worthy. Now, if you want to call people bullies, I'm okay with that, but stop saying fascist if you mean bully.

The second link makes a very good case for the press needing to get their **** together and try to be apolitical as much as they can manage it. It also makes a good case for smaller government. But it doesn't actually define fascism.

They are not taking the legitimacy into question. He clearly lost the popular vote yet won the electoral college. They are questioning the radical changes Republicans are making to the democracy itself such as computer model gerrymandered districts, voter suppression and voter roll purges.
...
They are trying to get less people to vote and that is part of fascism.

So, you're saying I imagined the whole "not my President" thing? The absolutely call the legitimacy of the election into question when they say Trump didn't win because he didn't get the popular vote. Now, I agree with you that gerymandering on both sides needs to stop, it's been going on forever, but that doesn't make it right. There is no voter suppression. Purging inactive and invalid names from the voter rolls is absolutely a good idea as we should have better bookkeeping than that in this day and age, I'm not sure how that's a bad thing. Now, while voter fraud isn't a huge problem, it is big enough to have an effect and I do agree with the very reasonable measure of requiring a voter ID or Driver's License used as ID for every person who wants to vote and is qualified to do so. And before you start railing about driver's licenses being difficult to get, I also believe that said Voter ID should be made simple to acquire so that anyone who qualifies should not have trouble getting one.

It's a good idea if it helps the economy, the middle class and maintains the American dream. Government regulation and punishment for companies leaving the U.S. is absolutely required. Free Trade agreements have gutted this country.

Some of those agreements have been bad for us, but they are not actually the cause of the trouble. Sure, some renegotiation would be good, but a mostly free trade IS best. What has cause our economy to weaken and be 'gutted' is the state of government regulation on business and our tax code. I feel I'm repeating myself now. But if you want more of an essay about those regulations out of me, you'll have to wait a bit. I'm doing a sort of essay next month for another venue and I can adapt it for here, I suppose.

Worse is giving more tax cuts to the rich while the rest of the country's whole wages drop over 30 years.

I didn't say Republican's did a good job simplifying it, they didn't. No one has afaik, it's just been getting worse since it started.

Many conservatives have been using the tactic of using the outlier El Nino years of 1998 and 2013 to say there has been a "Pause" in global warming. You probably read one of those reports on some right wing nonsense site.
http://www.businessinsider.com/global-w ... ing-2016-5

No, I was talking about the one from the EPA. I'll have to find it tomorrow.

I think you're conflating fascism and radically conservative governments with Hitler too much. A "Reichstag Moment" has been used many times by dictatorships to maintain control or the military to expand or right wing governments to expand. It can take the form of an assassination (Egypt), a coup (Turkey), a plain crash (Spain) and even a fake naval attack (Gulf of Tonkin).

The point isn't if the government actually committed the attack itself it's how they use it to take control.

The Reichstag moment in America will be a nuclear bomb attack or a 9/11 style attack. When that happens, who knows what will happen...

Trump is no Hitler and I doubt he'll succeed. I'll ignore all your historical spoilers that I already knew so I don't know why you posted them and just answer by saying that although Trump is not Hitler all fascism and dictatorship comes in different ways in different countries. The slow roll of anti-democracy coming from the Republicans is a fact and it should worry everyone in this country. We are the most militarized jingoistic country on this planet and that to is a sign of fascism. We are as close as we've ever been.

Holy change of subject, Batman. So, you'll reference something, completely throw out my counter-argument because you can't refute it, and then claim it's not even worthy of a read. Damn, I read your words AND every single ***** link you post and I do it with seriousness though I am often disappointed. You could at least pretend to do me the same courtesy.

So, we've already had a 9/11 event, 9/11 itself. But I do think Trump's proposed policies will have the effect of making a terrorist attack less likely. I would say we are not that jingoistic, nor are we even as militarized as we should be as we are in the awkward position of being the ones who have the military in our sphere.

They ever persisting problem with this argument for Libertarian conservatism is big government education, health care, distribution of food and resources, and finally the regulation of business and the economy ALL WORK.

THEY ALL WORK TO HELP EVERYONE LIVE LONGER, NOT GO HUNGRY OR HURT AND KEEP BUSINESS FROM POLLUTING AND EXPLOITING WORKERS. They have been proven to work, over and over and over again in all countries. AND WE KNOW WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN THEY AREN'T IN PLACE. Children are forced to work, the elderly live in poverty and poor health, business pollutes and money men exploit loopholes. This is why these government requirements happened in the first place.

It's idiotic at this point to say we need less of these things if more of these things makes us all better, healthier and wealthier.

The attack on these basic creations of government is why Canadians are living longer, the French have 3 times the vacation the U.S. does and why Germany is wealthier than we are.

Conservatives have been attacking unions, social security, medicare and taxes on the rich for 35 years and we've only gotten poorer with worse health care. It's time to see that those attacks have led us here and we need to follow Canada on Healthcare, France on business regulation and Germany on the economy and education.

Sure big government works. Theocracys, Monarchys, Fascist Dictatorships, Communist Regimes, Pure Democracies, Feudalism, and almost any other form of government WORK. The question is for how long and how well and how happy and prosperous the people are. I'm not sure a small federal government equates with child labor, but I did say that we need a certain size of federal government to keep things in order. What we have is definitely a lot larger and has more power than what was intended by the constitution.

Umm... I'm not even sure what to say to that last bit. You honestly think France is who our business policy should emulate? You really believe what you say about wealth and health? Sorry, that's too much to go in to. I could do a whole post on health alone. You need to do more research, somewhere you've gotten some bad information.

According to 7 federal judges now the immigration ban HAS broken the constitution. The constitution is clear on business entanglements like these and his failure to address them is now leading to Congressional action. Flynn's actions and Trump's use by the Russians is why this thread exists and may lead to the largest political scandal in the history of the United States.

No, the fact that federal judges are contesting the ban and the President fighting them means the Constitution is healthy and working. A broken Constitution would see them powerless to do anything or nonexistent.
Ditto on Congress.
I don't know about largest, but possibly a scandal. And again, our legal and investigative systems do seem to be working fine as well.

[Claeyt]

More Flynn news:

Congressional Democrats are now asking for Flynn to lose his security clearance until the Intelligence investigation is done:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... er/516285/

This article is a very, very good place to catch up if you aren't yet. It also advances the MIllian timeline and his connections. He has now been identified as "Source E" in the dossier which states he has information about Trump's bribery cases in China.

This article also reveals that IT HAS NOW BEEN CONFIRMED that Carter Page did indeed meet with the dead FSB general who was killed in his car along with Igor Senchin the president of Rosneft.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-ru ... ier-2017-2

drip....

drip..

drip.

[saltmummy]

Can you guys keep this to PM? Clay's retardation and Meow's murderous high energy rampage is starting to get boring.

ditto. This **** is so stagnant that this:

Nama jeff

is possibly the most interesting thing going on in this thread now.

[Claeyt]

That's a headline for their news app

Well, okay then. Doesn't invalidate my point.

It does if it wasn't published on their main page.

This is where the people you hang out with would chew you out for 'mansplaining'. But I know you're not doing it because I'm a woman. You're doing it because you're a prick. Like I said, I know what the term means, I got the location wrong.

I don't believe Trump is an insane, fascist, demagogue in any part of my mind, you lunatic, stop projecting at me. I believe he has an overly thin skin that will get him, and by extension probably the rest of us, in trouble at some point. I also believe his political ideas aren't all what I would hope for, but they're on the better side of okay, and worlds closer than Hilary would have been. I also think he's shown that he's trying to do his job well, and trying to fulfill his promises, and that is to the good. I think he's also overall a good person, despite the demonizing he's gotten in the press and some things he's done or said which were bad.

What about this continuing scandal about Russia. Aren't you worried at all about these new revelations and confirmations?

That you believe that he's "a good person" tells me more about how much Kool-Aid you've drunk than anything I've seen yet.

Seriously, are you reading the news this weekend? You're not bothered by the dossier confirmations about Flynn, Page and Millian? At what point will Trump have gone to far and lost your support? The Jonestown massacre happened because Jones was found out after 2 congressmen went down there. He ordered the Kool-Aid to be drunk because he saw the boat going down. At what point do you, personally get off the boat.

No, you are confused. I'm saying that if you look at the Chart, find 'Undersecretary of Management', then find 'administration' and then see the 5 titles under the heading of 'administration' which along with administration make up THE 6 PEOPLE WHO QUIT OR WERE FIRED. THIS IS THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S ENTIRE 'ADMINISTRATIVE TEAM'.

No, only one title is 'Administration'. But sure, while this definition would not have occurred to anyone on reading the headline, I'm sure that he was quite pleased that he could make such a misleading headline while technically almost being truthful.

Again, how is it misleading if the entire senior administration team did quit or get fired?

The opinion of Rogin ... IS NEWS and IS FACT.

skipping out on some words in the middle there aren't you.

Not really, I took out the part that said " (who writes on Foreign Policy) and the last 5 Sec's of State", which had no bearing on the subject.

...and that then changes the meaning of the Sec's of States opinion as facts instead of the opinion piece in the newspaper.

The numbers are these:

Approx 90,000 affected overall
...
348 people were denied boarding
...
735 people were affected at ports of entry.
...
Here are links on the numbers and stories:
WaPo had numbers for the first 24 hours
But of course it's ongoing so the numbers changed with time and research
couple of stories about who was actually denied

I will read these tomorrow, but you know the reason for the EO was to stop immigration from those countries? That a fair number of people were therefore going to be stopped from entering the country? The ~100 number was the number who were caught amidstreams AND weren't supposed to be and I know I'm remembering it wrong. Perhaps it's in one of those articles.

The 108 number is meaningless. It's a made up number that even the White House has abandoned now. The real number caught up midstream was 735.

The greater trend is the one for Republicans. I think you missed that.

I did not miss that. The media has overall become increasingly more left-leaning over time. So, of course Democrats will tend to trust them more as they are hearing what they want to hear, true or not.

The media has absolutely not become MORE biased to the left. Studies show the media does indeed lean mostly left but also that it has always done so. Mostly it factors into the kind of people that go into journalism and the repulsion of people like that to the modern Republican party.

http://fortune.com/2015/11/02/liberal-media/

Trump, being less of a hardened politician than we usually see in the presidency, seems to listen to the people more than is usual.

Actually, we're at historic lows in breaks in party line voting. Public protest and public opinion seem to be having less and less effect on the votes of politicians.

Is that historic low before or after the recent election? I would agree that protest might be having a lesser effect, but just look at the nature of those protests: riots and disconnection.

As of now, none of them are termed full on riots and actually had very little property damage compared to any actual riot. Also who are you saying is disconnected? because Republicans in congress are so disconnected from the actual views of America that it's plain to see in polling.

The definitions I've been using in this dialogue come from Orwell and Arendt.
I'll link them again:
George Orwell's 1944 newspaper opinion piece titled "What is Fascism?"
Arendt's work "The Origins of Totalitarianism" is listed as one of the top 10 non-fiction books of the 20th century by the NYT.
Here's a link about her and Trump.

Yes, I remember the Orwell thing. He makes a long case for 'fascism' having no meaning at all and then declares it a synonym for 'bully'. Which is probably the worst definition I have seen, but it does make pretty much everyone on both the left and the right a fascist, and a good bit of the media, so that's eyeroll worthy. Now, if you want to call people bullies, I'm okay with that, but stop saying fascist if you mean bully.

The second link makes a very good case for the press needing to get their **** together and try to be apolitical as much as they can manage it. It also makes a good case for smaller government. But it doesn't actually define fascism.

Her book defines fascism not that article. As for Orwell he defines it as ANTI-DEMOCRATIC BULLYING and it's hard to see how that isn't Donald Trump at this point.

They are not taking the legitimacy into question. He clearly lost the popular vote yet won the electoral college. They are questioning the radical changes Republicans are making to the democracy itself such as computer model gerrymandered districts, voter suppression and voter roll purges.
...
They are trying to get less people to vote and that is part of fascism.

So, you're saying I imagined the whole "not my President" thing? The absolutely call the legitimacy of the election into question when they say Trump didn't win because he didn't get the popular vote. Now, I agree with you that gerymandering on both sides needs to stop, it's been going on forever, but that doesn't make it right. There is no voter suppression. Purging inactive and invalid names from the voter rolls is absolutely a good idea as we should have better bookkeeping than that in this day and age, I'm not sure how that's a bad thing. Now, while voter fraud isn't a huge problem, it is big enough to have an effect and I do agree with the very reasonable measure of requiring a voter ID or Driver's License used as ID for every person who wants to vote and is qualified to do so. And before you start railing about driver's licenses being difficult to get, I also believe that said Voter ID should be made simple to acquire so that anyone who qualifies should not have trouble getting one.

Voting fraud is .0009% of total votes cast. It is not a problem in any way shape of form.

They are also calling it into question because it's becoming more and more apparent that the Trump campaign illegally collaborated with Russian intelligence to hack the DNC and the HRC campaign. I'd say that if this proves to be true he's invalidated himself and should be impeached.

Gerrrymandering has been going on forever BUT with modern voter lists and extensive mapping software used at even the local level it has been put on steroids to the point that it is invalidating peoples votes. Here in Wisconsin in 2012 our State assembly Republicans received 47% of the vote but got 62% of the seats due to gerrymandering. That's the lawsuit that's going to the supreme court this year.

Voter suppression through ID laws is absolutely happening. That's why federal courts keep throwing them out because they won't take student ID's, or require birth certificates. It has become increasingly hard to vote in this country.

They are not talking about purging inactive names. They are talking about purging any duplicate name, from any other state in the country and making the person reapply for voter registration. They are saying they won't allow anyone to vote until they prove they live in the place where they vote if they are listed in another state and can prove they've cancelled their registration there.

It's a good idea if it helps the economy, the middle class and maintains the American dream. Government regulation and punishment for companies leaving the U.S. is absolutely required. Free Trade agreements have gutted this country.

Some of those agreements have been bad for us, but they are not actually the cause of the trouble. Sure, some renegotiation would be good, but a mostly free trade IS best. What has cause our economy to weaken and be 'gutted' is the state of government regulation on business and our tax code. I feel I'm repeating myself now. But if you want more of an essay about those regulations out of me, you'll have to wait a bit. I'm doing a sort of essay next month for another venue and I can adapt it for here, I suppose.

Our tax revenues as a percent of income are smaller than at anytime since the 50's. Increased regulations like pollution controls and labor rights are what you're talking about when you say we're over-regulated. In reality the U.S. is ranked 4th in general ease of business and the Republicans are lying to you to try and get you to vote in Beijing style pollution levels.

http://www.politifact.com/florida/state ... ult-world/

I think you're conflating fascism and radically conservative governments with Hitler too much. A "Reichstag Moment" has been used many times by dictatorships to maintain control or the military to expand or right wing governments to expand. It can take the form of an assassination (Egypt), a coup (Turkey), a plain crash (Spain) and even a fake naval attack (Gulf of Tonkin).

The point isn't if the government actually committed the attack itself it's how they use it to take control.

The Reichstag moment in America will be a nuclear bomb attack or a 9/11 style attack. When that happens, who knows what will happen...

Trump is no Hitler and I doubt he'll succeed. I'll ignore all your historical spoilers that I already knew so I don't know why you posted them and just answer by saying that although Trump is not Hitler all fascism and dictatorship comes in different ways in different countries. The slow roll of anti-democracy coming from the Republicans is a fact and it should worry everyone in this country. We are the most militarized jingoistic country on this planet and that to is a sign of fascism. We are as close as we've ever been.

Holy change of subject, Batman. So, you'll reference something, completely throw out my counter-argument because you can't refute it, and then claim it's not even worthy of a read. Damn, I read your words AND every single ***** link you post and I do it with seriousness though I am often disappointed. You could at least pretend to do me the same courtesy.

Oh, I read your spoiler links, I didn't mean to say I didn't read them. They just didn't include anything I didn't know and seemed to be a basic explanation about how Hitler came to power for everyone else to understand what a 'Reichstag moment' is. I've read the 'Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich' and 'The Origins of Totalitarianism' plus god knows how many other books about modern European history, you're probably not going to tell me anything new about the rise of Hitler.

I don't think Trump is Hitler either. Hitler does not equal all fascism. Fascism and dictatorship have risen in many ways and in many countries. Trump's fascism is going to be a soft fascism to maintain conservative control and change the Republican party to fit his ideology. If, and it's a big if, he does suspend the constitution I think he's going to have to suspend congress as well because they are NOT on his side.

So, we've already had a 9/11 event, 9/11 itself. But I do think Trump's proposed policies will have the effect of making a terrorist attack less likely. I would say we are not that jingoistic, nor are we even as militarized as we should be as we are in the awkward position of being the ones who have the military in our sphere.

... and look how 9/11 changed our country so far. Another one would have a similar amount of change probably.

How is it possible to say we aren't militarized enough when we spend more than the next 10 countries COMBINED on the military and 7 of them are our allies? We spend almost 1/3 of the ENTIRE WORLD'S MILITARY BUDGET.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... penditures

They ever persisting problem with this argument for Libertarian conservatism is big government education, health care, distribution of food and resources, and finally the regulation of business and the economy ALL WORK.

THEY ALL WORK TO HELP EVERYONE LIVE LONGER, NOT GO HUNGRY OR HURT AND KEEP BUSINESS FROM POLLUTING AND EXPLOITING WORKERS. They have been proven to work, over and over and over again in all countries. AND WE KNOW WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN THEY AREN'T IN PLACE. Children are forced to work, the elderly live in poverty and poor health, business pollutes and money men exploit loopholes. This is why these government requirements happened in the first place.

It's idiotic at this point to say we need less of these things if more of these things makes us all better, healthier and wealthier.

The attack on these basic creations of government is why Canadians are living longer, the French have 3 times the vacation the U.S. does and why Germany is wealthier than we are.

Conservatives have been attacking unions, social security, medicare and taxes on the rich for 35 years and we've only gotten poorer with worse health care. It's time to see that those attacks have led us here and we need to follow Canada on Healthcare, France on business regulation and Germany on the economy and education.

Sure big government works. Theocracys, Monarchys, Fascist Dictatorships, Communist Regimes, Pure Democracies, Feudalism, and almost any other form of government WORK. The question is for how long and how well and how happy and prosperous the people are. I'm not sure a small federal government equates with child labor, but I did say that we need a certain size of federal government to keep things in order. What we have is definitely a lot larger and has more power than what was intended by the constitution.

There's this crazy idea the Republicans have spoon fed ignorant people that somehow the federal government is bigger now than it was in the past. It isn't. It's been hanging around 20% of total GDP for 40 years and the only things growing it has been massive growth in the military and an aging baby boom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... P_2013.png

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT GROWING. It has shrunk 15% in the last ten years.

Umm... I'm not even sure what to say to that last bit. You honestly think France is who our business policy should emulate? You really believe what you say about wealth and health? Sorry, that's too much to go in to. I could do a whole post on health alone. You need to do more research, somewhere you've gotten some bad information.

Currently France has a better start up and small business success rate then we do because people don't have to worry about losing health insurance and retirement if they fail. France also has greater mobility than the U.S. since 2008 where more people are rising from poverty and the lower working class than here. French workers work 40% less than we do on average and make more per hour if you take out the top 10% of wage earners.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/st ... am-europe/

In fact I don't know how it's possible for anyone to think that we're better than France when it comes to livability.

According to 7 federal judges now the immigration ban HAS broken the constitution. The constitution is clear on business entanglements like these and his failure to address them is now leading to Congressional action. Flynn's actions and Trump's use by the Russians is why this thread exists and may lead to the largest political scandal in the history of the United States.

No, the fact that federal judges are contesting the ban and the President fighting them means the Constitution is healthy and working. A broken Constitution would see them powerless to do anything or nonexistent.
Ditto on Congress.
I don't know about largest, but possibly a scandal. And again, our legal and investigative systems do seem to be working fine as well.

So far...