Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[drogulus]

I returned home today from a 10 day visit to my brother in Wake County near Raleigh, NC. I walked his dogs twice a day in a subdivision where new homes are being built. All the construction workers are Mexicans. I assume as much, as they are rather short, black haired, brownish and said Ola! when I passed by.

At 8am they were already hard at work, and at 7:30 pm when the sun set they were clearing up everything. I have no idea if they have the right papers. But they sure deserve their hard-earned wages building nice houses for the american misters and misses.

     That's what I mean. I used to work with many Latinos, Mexicans and Salvadorans mostly. It's so obvious why they are here, to work and have a good life, and so obvious that it's good for us that they're here, building and cleaning and taking care of people. How can you see that and not be impressed?

[Karl Henning]

     That's what I mean. I used to work with many Latinos, Mexicans and Salvadorans mostly. It's so obvious why they are here, to work and have a good life, and so obvious that it's good for us that they're here, building and cleaning and taking care of people. How can you see that and not be impressed?

I guess, if you're a white bigot with a sense of grievance ....

[milk]

http://www.newsweek.com/tom-arnold-slams-ex-wife-roseanne-barr-tweeting-nazi-salute-parkland-survivor-867294

"I can forgive Roseanne Conner voting for Trump in 2016," Arnold wrote. "But Roseanne Barr knew Donald Trump personally for 30 years and saw how he treated women.... Roseanne Barr made $200 million off Roseanne Conner, so I'm a little disappointed she doesn't have her back."

[drogulus]

     100 Iranians Remain Stranded In Austria Awaiting Asylum In The U.S.

More than 100 Iranian Christians and members of other religions have been stranded in Austria for over a year, after the U.S. program that welcomes religious minorities from Iran has all but shut its door under President Trump, refugee advocates say. Eighty Iranians who traveled to Vienna expecting to be resettled in the United States have already been denied asylum in America. Others are awaiting final U.S. approval.

The rejection puts the applicants at risk, has angered members of Congress from both parties and devastated U.S. family sponsors.

     Can it be that Trump hates refugees even more than he hates Muslims?

[drogulus]

     My dentist is an Iranian woman. I asked her when she arrived in the U.S. and she said what I thought she would say, she arrived in 1979. I nodded that I understood and didn't ask any more questions.

[SimonNZ]

Vodka-Chugging 20-Somethings Are in Charge of Vetting the White House Staff

[SimonNZ]

Trump accuses Amazon of 'Post Office scam,' falsely says The Post is company's lobbyist

"WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump escalated his assault on Amazon.com on Saturday, accusing the online retail giant of a "Post Office scam" and falsely stating that The Washington Post operates as a lobbyist for Amazon.

In a pair of morning tweets sent during his drive from his Mar-a-Lago estate to the nearby Trump International Golf Club, the president argued that Amazon costs the U.S. Postal Service billions of dollars in potential revenue.

Trump has repeatedly advanced this theory, even though officials have explained to him that Amazon's contracts with the Postal Service are profitable for the agency.

The president also incorrectly conflated Amazon with The Post and made clear that his attacks on the retailer were inspired by his disdain for the newspaper's coverage. He labeled the newspaper "the Fake Washington Post" and demanded it register as a lobbyist for Amazon. The Post operates independently of Amazon, though the news organization is personally owned by Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon."

[drogulus]

     Trump now says no DACA protection because of something unrelated to the reason DACA kids need to be protected, like a beef about the wall or a beef with Mexico. Trump said he wanted protection for the kids and a deal with Dems to get it. Evidently he once recognized the justice in protection enough to tell the kids they'd be OK. Nobody forced him to do that. It's not a thing a President would say and then attempt to bargain away, other kinds of things are, not that. Making a DACA deal is to get that done, the other parts are to help that get done. Getting the other parts without the part at the center isn't a DACA deal at all.

     In other news, it's official that the WH office charged with vetting employees for the WH as well as agencies is run by chimps who are themselves minimally or unvetted. Is it impolite to suggest that the obvious total contempt of the Trump campaign, transition and administration for any ethics rules, even ones bent to their advantage, has been a mistake?

[drogulus]

     Trump is now making a bizarre claim about a "caravan of immigrants" coming to take advantage of DACA. In the end do we have to put this down to mental illness or character or evil in human form, to the exclusion of some other theory? In a way, no, as the urgency of action when/if it comes to that will be explained with enough parallelism to satisfy mystics and social scientists, and innocent consequentialist bystanders, too.

[kishnevi]

     Trump is now making a bizarre claim about a "caravan of immigrants" coming to take advantage of DACA. In the end do we have to put this down to mental illness or character or evil in human form, to the exclusion of some other theory? In a way, no, as the urgency of action when/if it comes to that will be explained with enough parallelism to satisfy mystics and social scientists, and innocent consequentialist bystanders, too.

The apparent source of that is something that showed up on (surprise!) Fox News. And apparently he doesn't understand that most of the things shoved into the category of Catch and Release are internal ICE policies he  could order changed without involving anyone outside his administration.

He probably also heard about the NYT interview with Ann Coulter in which she roundly condemns for breaking his promise to build The Wall.

[drogulus]

He probably also heard about the NYT interview with Ann Coulter in which she roundly condemns for breaking his promise to build The Wall.

     That would illustrate the problem as I suggest it presents itself. Policy is not made on policy grounds, it's on who he hates most atm, or who it's safe to hate now while waiting to hate whoever will come next.

     Also, a wall is (heh!) "not in his gift". Congressional Coulterites could not deliver it to him. He doesn't have to focus hate where Coulter does when she snaps her fingers. She should learn patience.

[drogulus]

     Dept of News as True as you want it to be

     Quetzlcoatl flies to California sanctuary city to lay DACA eggs

     

     

[SimonNZ]

Foxconn in Choppy Waters Over Plan to Drain the Great Lakes

"The approval of a new factory just outside the Great Lakes Basin could mark the beginning of a manufacturing revitalization that relies on draining millions of gallons of water from the lakes.

It's what Wisconsin's government hopes for — and environmentalists fear.

If given the go-ahead by Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources, electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group, which is based in Taiwan, would make liquid crystal displays, more commonly known as LCDs, in a factory just outside Racine, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin courted Foxconn hard. The state offered $3 billion in incentives and exempted the plant from the state's wetlands regulations and an environmental impact review. In luring Foxconn, Wisconsin beat out many of its Great Lakes neighbors — Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania also vied for the plant.

The company has pledged to hire 3,000 people in Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan's district in a largely rural part of the state with a struggling economy. But the company needs more than just a wealth of manufacturing workers. Making LCD panels also requires large volumes of clean water: The plant is seeking approval through Racine's water utility to drain 7 million gallons a day from Lake Michigan.

But other Great Lakes states are questioning the legality of the deal, and some environmentalists say it could create a slippery slope that will allow other outside interests to tap into lakes."

[zamyrabyrd]

Fwiw, as a Romanian I have had my equivalent option between Trump and Hillary --- that is, between pest and cholera --- in the 2000 presidential elections, when the choice was indeed between a former Communist (whom I had sweared long before that I'd rather cut my right arm myself rather than vote for him) and a rabid nationalist and former adulator of Ceaușescu and his wife. I took the only option available: not voting at all.

Jordan Peterson makes a reference to communism in his talk about the Dangers of the #MeToo movement, digging up the dirt of the past with condemnation in the court of public opinion. This recently forced a Canadian, Patrick Brown, out of an election race in Ontario.* I was not aware that this self-righteous circus was going on north of the US border.

It impressed me so much at first listening that I took the time this morning to type up his words.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krqxy3xtrv0

"Sex by its nature is private and it's private because if it is made public, it's scandalous. I think what happened to Patrick Brown was a cautionary tale for everyone. Two allegations demolished our political system for a month.

OK, that's not so good. Well, what we've done in the past is leave it private. Well, those days are gone. So the question is if anybody can withstand that.

I mean one other thing that Solzhenitsyn wrote about it and I've read other commentators with regards to totalitarian societies, Orwell, too...wove this through his work..."Everybody has a guilty little secret" and the totalitarians never let you forget that. Like we're all imperfect, we're all flawed, we all got pasts where there are secrets that would be best hidden, remain hidden, you know that we have hopefully transcended, you know.

I don't know if anybody can tolerate that sort of scrutiny, not only into the public realm but also into these quasi-judicial apparatuses like the ones that are being set up at the universities. You think the courts do a bad job, but you wait till you see what the universities do.

It's hard to set up a court system. You know in the fundamental problem with sexual assault cases basically is that there are no witnesses. Well, how in the world do you adjudicate that? Believe the accuser, well no, not reflexively. Obviously unless you are naïve beyond belief and think that no one would ever use and accusation, out of confusion, let's say, forgetfulness or maliciousness. If you think any of those things then the amount you know about human beings could be put in a thimble.

So we have a presumption of innocence for a reason but we're replacing that with believe the accused and the preponderance of evidence and its part of the assault on English Common Law which is regarded by the post modern neo-Marxists as just another narrative and part of the patriarchal tyranny. The law schools are, they're not as basd as the faculties of education or social work, but that's all about you can say for them." 2:28

* https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/02/26/patrick-brown-quits-pc-leadership-race.html

[milk]

Jordan Peterson makes a reference to communism in his talk about the Dangers of the #MeToo movement, digging up the dirt of the past with condemnation in the court of public opinion. This recently forced a Canadian, Patrick Brown, out of an election race in Ontario.* I was not aware that this self-righteous circus was going on north of the US border.

It impressed me so much at first listening that I took the time this morning to type up his words.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Krqxy3xtrv0

"Sex by its nature is private and it's private because if it is made public, it's scandalous. I think what happened to Patrick Brown was a cautionary tale for everyone. Two allegations demolished our political system for a month.

OK, that's not so good. Well, what we've done in the past is leave it private. Well, those days are gone. So the question is if anybody can withstand that.

I mean one other thing that Solzhenitsyn wrote about it and I've read other commentators with regards to totalitarian societies, Orwell, too...wove this through his work..."Everybody has a guilty little secret" and the totalitarians never let you forget that. Like we're all imperfect, we're all flawed, we all got pasts where there are secrets that would be best hidden, remain hidden, you know that we have hopefully transcended, you know.

I don't know if anybody can tolerate that sort of scrutiny, not only into the public realm but also into these quasi-judicial apparatuses like the ones that are being set up at the universities. You think the courts do a bad job, but you wait till you see what the universities do.

It's hard to set up a court system. You know in the fundamental problem with sexual assault cases basically is that there are no witnesses. Well, how in the world do you adjudicate that? Believe the accuser, well no, not reflexively. Obviously unless you are naïve beyond belief and think that no one would ever use and accusation, out of confusion, let's say, forgetfulness or maliciousness. If you think any of those things then the amount you know about human beings could be put in a thimble.

So we have a presumption of innocence for a reason but we're replacing that with believe the accused and the preponderance of evidence and its part of the assault on English Common Law which is regarded by the post modern neo-Marxists as just another narrative and part of the patriarchal tyranny. The law schools are, they're not as basd as the faculties of education or social work, but that's all about you can say for them." 2:28

* https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/02/26/patrick-brown-quits-pc-leadership-race.html

https://www.youtube.com/v/IvBm0ZUfe7I
He's got this one note that he's singing. When I was a student, my professors did all this stuff for free that they considered being "part of the job." Guys like Peterson pull in 60 grand a month on patron by milking the same outrage. His so called "academic" stuff is a hodgepodge of warmed over new-age  Jung and Campbell and his latest books is pedestrian self-help fare. I don't disagree with some of what he's saying but I think he's a b.s. artist at the same time. I particularly hate his uninformed and half-baked references to "science" with which he peppers his talks (lobster dominance shows something-or-other about human hierarchies). It's become rather boiler-plate for right wing types to refer to evolutionary psychology in all sorts of fallacious ways. 
What does Jordan Peterson believe?
https://www.youtube.com/v/Lq9wvh0-S-g

[zamyrabyrd]

He's got this one note that he's singing. When I was a student, my professors did all this stuff for free that they considered being "part of the job." Guys like Peterson pull in 60 grand a month on patron by milking the same outrage. His so called "academic" stuff is a hodgepodge of warmed over new-age  Jung and Campbell and his latest books is pedestrian self-help fare. I don't disagree with some of what he's saying but I think he's a b.s. artist at the same time. I particularly hate his uninformed and half-baked references to "science" with which he peppers his talks (lobster dominance shows something-or-other about human hierarchies). It's become rather boiler-plate for right wing types to refer to evolutionary psychology in all sorts of fallacious ways. 

Maybe you can put aside your prejudice of Peterson and listen to what he is actually saying. Popularity aside, public recognition is not something he sought out but rather was a by-product of his pushback against compelled speech by the Canadian government in 2017. He has to walk on eggs now so as not to lose his job as a professor. He is surely not a shill for political groups but a person who speaks his own mind, has a wealth of knowledge, clinical experience and a vested interest in preserving the best of Western Civ.

[milk]

Maybe you can put aside your prejudice of Peterson and listen to what he is actually saying. Popularity aside, public recognition is not something he sought out but rather was a by-product of his pushback against compelled speech by the Canadian government in 2017. He has to walk on eggs now so as not to lose his job as a professor. He is surely not a shill for political groups but a person who speaks his own mind, has a wealth of knowledge, clinical experience and a vested interest in preserving the best of Western Civ.

I don't attribute any of those good motives to him. He's a charlatan. But, as I said, I don't disagree with everything he says and neither does a feminist like Margaret Atwood - who has pointed out the dangers of abrogating due process. But his "deepities" on "the" male-female relationship and myths (etc.) don't tempt me to join his cadre of devotees. I've heard what he has to say and don't find it interesting, His academic work is shoddy and his "clinical experience" has been roundly rejected by the courts - in his "expert testimonies" - as dubious unfalsifiable nonsense.

[zamyrabyrd]

I don't attribute any of those good motives to him. He's a charlatan. But, as I said, I don't disagree with everything he says and neither does a feminist like Margaret Atwood - who has pointed out the dangers of abrogating due process. But his "deepities" on "the" male-female relationship and myths (etc.) don't tempt me to join his cadre of devotees. I've heard what he has to say and don't find it interesting, His academic work is shoddy and his "clinical experience" has been roundly rejected by the courts - in his "expert testimonies" - as dubious unfalsifiable nonsense.

Sorry, you are not making sense. His employers do not think Peterson is a charlatan, otherwise he would not work in their universities. People may not agree with him but few would call him a charlatan. His views on male-female differences are based on biology that the Canadian senate had a hard time accepting. But they are politicians, so what do they know? The same can also go for musicians as well.

[milk]

Sorry, you are not making sense. His employers do not think Peterson is a charlatan, otherwise he would not work in their universities. People may not agree with him but few would call him a charlatan. His views on male-female differences are based on biology that the Canadian senate had a hard time accepting. But they are politicians, so what do they know? The same can also go for musicians as well.

But his very argument is partially based on a critique of academia. You can't say academia houses fools within it and then turn around and say he derives integrity from being employed by a university. He's not a biologist and his references to biology are a joke. He doesn't know what he's talking about and his resort to supporting politics with half-baked references to science-based arguments show an unscientific and unethical attitude. His views haven't just been rejected by politicians, he's been offered as an expert witness in litigation and been laughed out of court. He's the flavor of the month for the alt-right which is a bit bizarre considering his views are based on cribbing from Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung (hardly the cutting edge of critical thought for anyone anymore) in a rather shallow way. 

[zamyrabyrd]

But his very argument is partially based on a critique of academia. You can't say academia houses fools within it and then turn around and say he derives integrity from being employed by a university. He's not a biologist and his references to biology are a joke. He doesn't know what he's talking about and his resort to supporting politics with half-baked references to science-based arguments show an unscientific and unethical attitude. His views haven't just been rejected by politicians, he's been offered as an expert witness in litigation and been laughed out of court. He's the flavor of the month for the alt-right which is a bit bizarre considering his views are based on cribbing from Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung (hardly the cutting edge of critical thought for anyone anymore) in a rather shallow way.

Well, you must be the expert.