The Trump / Russia Controversy

[Chrumps]

It seems a good place to throw in this little link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... nning.html

While I am far from claiming "Russia did it", the article suggests Russians knew or predicted the election result a year ahead which is eyebrow raising.

This might have something to do with China not collapsing from inside as expected (link) so China had to be contained before replaying the cold war.

[TotalyMeow]

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

I have been reading it. The things you are calling proof are quite vague and circumstantial. I intend to reserve judgement until such time as Congress finds reason to impeach him, as that would indicate that something real has been found after all. I'm sure even you can agree that trial by press is ill advised.

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

If more than one person shares an opinion, that does not make it a fact.

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.

I've read your articles. That's pretty much what was supposed to happen. Incoming immigrants, refugees, and other travelers from those countries was supposed to stop. It's working as intended. Yes, a fair number of people have been inconvenienced. Some of the might need special waivers and some will have to wait a few months, but we're trying to fix a problem that Obama should have worked harder to fix himself; the ability to properly vet people coming into our contry. If he had done it, we probably wouldn't be in this mess, but better late than never.

The media has absolutely not become MORE biased to the left.

That makes no difference.

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?

Wow, does someone have to die before you'll acknowledge that a riot is a riot? A protest is a riot when it becomes violent, when property is damaged/destroyed, when people are attacked or hurt or hospitalized.
When I said disconnected, I was thinking of how the recent Women's March was comparable to a bunch of headless chickens, and how some of the people in these marches seem to be supporting Sharia law for stupid things like maternity leave instead of protesting against it for the poor women who actually are living under Sharia law and being publicly beaten, humiliated, and maimed. But that's just one example of many.

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.

It's hard to see how that's not a good part of the left at this point.

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

You say there's no fraud, but then you go on to say how it's so bad. Come on.
You can get a Student ID without being a citizen. That why I'm saying make sure there is a pathway to getting your ID if you have the right to vote. Make sure it's easy to do. Include it in the ID law. It's working fine in my state.

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.

No, that's not what I'm taking about. I'm taking about how you have to get a license and pay thousands of dollars in Minnesota and file reams of paperwork to go out of business. In Texas, you have to have a Criminal Justice degree to repair a computer. In DC, I think, you have to take an extensive test and pay several hundred dollars to call yourself an interior decorator. There's one about African Hair Braiding needing a special license. In... Kentucky I think, they tried to make one woman spend hundreds of thousands of dollars outfitting her home as a funeral parlor just to sell homemade shrouds (that one was overturned). One city sent bills for $300 for business licenses to thousands of bloggers who hadn't made more than a couple bucks off their blogs ever. I could go on. These were all put into law by special interest groups wanting to eliminate competition, and they all hurt the creation of new businesses.

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.

Well, I guess you can rest easy knowing he can't suspend the constitution or congress.

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.

We are already in the position of being the ones who have the military in our sphere. We are also the 1/3 largest country by landmass and near the top in population, so we can afford to be the ones who have the military among our allies.

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.

You're confused again. We're talking about the government in terms of its powers, not the bureaucracy. The federal government has grown in power and giving it charge of healthcare and education and even more influence over our economy will only make it more powerful. Perhaps dangerously so if we ever have a fascist-leaning president.

[Claeyt]

Breaking:

The Justice Department warned Trump that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian Blackmail.

This is what new with today's allegation:

1. Flynn may be being blackmailed by the Russian government.

2. Flynn lied to Pence and anyone attached to Priebus in the White House including possible Spicer, BUT NOT THE PRESIDENT OR BANNON.

3. Flynn lied about making multiple calls.

4. Flynn lied about having contact with the U.S. Russian Ambassador during the campaign.

5. Flynn's contacts during the campaign may be the dossier's confirmation about the Trump campaign having contact with Russian intelligence to co-ordinate the DNC and HRC campaign leaks.

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[Dallane]

More liberal pedophiles arrested

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[Claeyt]

If more than one person shares an opinion, that does not make it a fact.

No, I'm talking about how if an overwhelming amount of experts on a subject share the opinion that something is bad, then it is factually bad.

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.

I've read your articles. That's pretty much what was supposed to happen. Incoming immigrants, refugees, and other travelers from those countries was supposed to stop. It's working as intended. Yes, a fair number of people have been inconvenienced. Some of the might need special waivers and some will have to wait a few months, but we're trying to fix a problem that Obama should have worked harder to fix himself; the ability to properly vet people coming into our contry. If he had done it, we probably wouldn't be in this mess, but better late than never.

First off, there is no real "problem" this is fixing. There have a total of 2 prosecuted immigrants charged with sponsoring terrorists in the last 15 years from these 7 countries (2 guys from Somalia raising money in Somali communities and sending it to a charity that sent money to Al Shabab). This is nothing compared to the immigrants from countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and places like that. Both the San Bernadino Shooter and the Orlando shooters families were from Saudi Arabia.

Vetting for these countries is already some of the hardest of any country on earth and can take up to 2 years. If Trump wants to make it harder fine. He can even make it impossible except for extremely worthy people. What he can't do, based on the 1965 Immigration law is make it an all out permanent ban, make it a religious test (and before you say he isn't, he admitted to wanting to let Christian refugees despite the ban just yesterday) and finally the biggest problem is that he denied access to citizens, green card holders, refugees and visa holders who had already been vetted and allowed to come here. Despite all Trump's idiot administrations *****, those people do have rights if they are on U.S. soil or in this country. This is why the many, many federal judges have now stopped this and why it will probably fail in the Supreme court.

The media has absolutely not become MORE biased to the left.

That makes no difference.

Yes it does. The media hasn't changed. The Republican party has.

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.

It's hard to see how that's not a good part of the left at this point.

You're kidding, right? Did you even watch Miller's interviews yesterday?

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/ ... 5968067895

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

You say there's no fraud, but then you go on to say how it's so bad. Come on.
You can get a Student ID without being a citizen. That why I'm saying make sure there is a pathway to getting your ID if you have the right to vote. Make sure it's easy to do. Include it in the ID law. It's working fine in my state.

Who said that it's so bad? Voter fraud is nearly non-existent and is not a problem. We're talking single digit violations nationwide. You can get a Student ID if you are on a student visa but you can not get into any University in the country without either 1. A social security number, 2. A valid student visa and 3. A valid ID from the state. All of these could be used to make student ID's valid ID's for voting.

The problem with the voting ID laws is that they DON'T make it easier to get the ID's. This is why the Wisconsin Law has been partially shot down. They actually eliminated 40% of DMV's (making many of them only open 1 day a week) while also requiring people to get the free ID's. The ID's required a birth certificate only and would not accept Social Security cards or other citizenship identification. It was partially thrown out.

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.

No, that's not what I'm taking about. I'm taking about how you have to get a license and pay thousands of dollars in Minnesota and file reams of paperwork to go out of business. In Texas, you have to have a Criminal Justice degree to repair a computer. In DC, I think, you have to take an extensive test and pay several hundred dollars to call yourself an interior decorator. There's one about African Hair Braiding needing a special license. In... Kentucky I think, they tried to make one woman spend hundreds of thousands of dollars outfitting her home as a funeral parlor just to sell homemade shrouds (that one was overturned). One city sent bills for $300 for business licenses to thousands of bloggers who hadn't made more than a couple bucks off their blogs ever. I could go on. These were all put into law by special interest groups wanting to eliminate competition, and they all hurt the creation of new businesses.

You need to link proof for me to believe any of this. It sounds like nonsense as most municipal governments go out of their way to help businesses get off the ground in their areas. As an owner of a business in Madison, WI one of the most liberal city's in the country, I know exactly how regulated I am and most of it's actually pretty necessary. Some of it's Madison but it's not that big of a deal for cost or otherwise. When right wing nut jobs spout off about Regulations what they're really talking about are stuff like OSHA laws, Discrimination laws, Pollution controls and stuff like that.

For your example, they regulate hair stylists because they use chemicals like Bleach and coloring that may not be bad for humans are bad if they hit the drinking water system. People who work with this stuff need to be trained on how to use it. I remember when I was a bartender years ago having to go to a 4 hour class (cost 20 bucks) just to get my bartender license for a side job I only did 1 day a week. The state required this so that we had a basic understanding of drinking and driving prevention methods and our responsibilities under those laws. It seems dumb but it works. Since these classes were put in Drunk Driving has been reduced significantly (of course they've done other stuff also). Saying a regulation is bad isn't enough. You need to understand why it exists, why they thought it was necessary when they wrote the regulation and what would possibly change if you got rid of it.

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.

Well, I guess you can rest easy knowing he can't suspend the constitution or congress.

You say that, but it's been suspended before in this country.

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.

We are already in the position of being the ones who have the military in our sphere. We are also the 1/3 largest country by landmass and near the top in population, so we can afford to be the ones who have the military among our allies.

We don't have 1/3 of the landmass of the world so what are you talking about. The point is we already spend waaay to much on the military and it's waaaay to prevalent in our country as it is. Other countries don't act like this or have the militarism that we do.

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.

You're confused again. We're talking about the government in terms of its powers, not the bureaucracy. The federal government has grown in power and giving it charge of healthcare and education and even more influence over our economy will only make it more powerful. Perhaps dangerously so if we ever have a fascist-leaning president.

No I'm giving links to show that the bureaucracy isn't growing either. The Federal Government was most prevalent during the 60's, not now. Social security, Medicare and other large programs have only grown in populations that use it (because of the boomers) not in size of bureaucracy.

The Federal Government has no more power today than it did at any point since the civil war. It's a common fallacy of the right to say that it's somehow bigger than what it was during the Civil War or WWII. Federal government spending as a percentage of our GDP was at it's greatest during WWII and during the 50's if you don't want to include WWII. Total government employees by total numbers peaked in the 60's. Finally Total government employees as percentage of the workforce was at it's greatest during WWII but if you don't count WWII it was during the 50's when the country was at it's peak economically.

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversig ... ince-1962/

The Republicans are lying to you when they say we have more bureaucracy now and that regulations aren't necessary.

[Dallane]

The Republicans are lying to you when they say we have more bureaucracy now and that regulations aren't necessary.

As someone who actually works in the government you are a total ***** retard.

[Claeyt]

Breaking:

NSA HEAD MICHEAL FLYNN RESIGNATION HIGHLIGHTS A STUNNING AND CHAOTIC FIRST 3 WEEKS OF TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/us/p ... E2&gwt=pay

Revelations tonight include that he may have given a heads up to the Russians that sanctions and deportations of embassy staff were coming which would have been illegal.

Further investigations into Flynn taking money from the Russians in 2015 is being investigated by the U.S. Army. The total amounts being investigated have not been revealed. It has not been said if the Army's investigation is about a violation of the emoluments clause or if it is a full court marshal.

The Trump administration was warned by the Obama Justice Department that Flynn may be lying to them a month ago and they did NOTHING. They also warned them that the Justice Department knew he was in contact with the Russians during the campaign. There is no way Trump did not know Flynn went to the Russians with plans of lessening the sanctions. Flynn wouldn't have done it without his approval.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/ ... index.html

Japanese Prime Minister Abe is saying that Trump awkwardly encouraged him to resolve Japan's Kuril Island territorial dispute with Russia this weekend during his visit.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/0 ... KKf4GQrK2z

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[Dallane]

Japanese Prime Minister Abe is saying that Trump awkwardly encouraged him to resolve Japan's Kuril Island territorial dispute with Russia this weekend during his visit.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/0 ... KKf4GQrK2z

cnn again lul fake as ***** news.

The article you linked about japan. No where does it state that it was awkward. The article if you had read it would of told you that it was a great meeting and both him and trump agreed on everything. Japan also wants to engage positively with Russia.

[saltmummy]

Japanese Prime Minister Abe is saying that Trump awkwardly encouraged him to resolve Japan's Kuril Island territorial dispute with Russia this weekend during his visit.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/0 ... KKf4GQrK2z

What's wrong with settling disputes? The article didn't say anything about Trump being awkward. Hell, there wasn't much of anything negative in that article. A lot of discussion and encouragement from both sides. Either you didn't read it, or you are against America working together with other countries and thought that by showing us a story where Trump reached out to Japan and gained a little understanding of our trade relationship with them (as well as tightening his bond with another foreign leader), that would somehow be seen as a bad thing by the rest of us?

[Strakknuva225]

Guys, don't you know that super powers not wanting to blow each other up is a bad thing?