Trump - Clown Genius

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
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Chad
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Chad »

It appears Putin is testing his new relationship with Trump by stirring up some fighting in the Ukraine:
https://www.ft.com/content/57fc2d60-e6d ... 8452263daf

Trump, of course, spends time insulting Australia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... 8ec94fb5b1

Well, at least when Trump starts another useless war we won't have to worry about asking our allies to help, as we won't have any.

@fish
I struggle to come up with the motivation. The best I can come up with is decreasing EROEI will lead to a point where immigration is a net negative for the economy... as immigrants still require food, housing, etc. Meaning the US economy has maxed out such that humans are no longer the limiting reagent in the neverending quest for growth.
The problem is that current immigration, including illegal immigration, is really either at the high end (Silicon Valley) or at the low end (farm workers, basic construction labor, etc.), so it doesn't really impact the majority of jobs that are currently being automated. Though, one of the big ones in the semi-near future will be taxi drivers, as only 51% of taxi drivers are native-born.
http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-amer ... -us-state/

7Wannabe5
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

bryan said: > The country is more than economy, it's a civic society.

lolwut? So Asians aren't a good part of society?

I think they (Thield/Trump/Bannon) are indeed geniuses.. but.. it's hard to tell who they are playing against/for.

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

IlliniDave
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by IlliniDave »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
I'll accept that as a challenge! :)

Chad
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Chad »

@jacob
I have had minimal success at stopping "crimestop." I have a few friends who seem to be convinced by logical arguments for certain subjects, but when I see them again they seem to just have fallen back into a belief system or maybe an echo chamber. Of course, these friends are also the ones that are all over conspiracy theories, but think government is completely incompetent. They loved that Fox special on why the moon landings were fake.

My only real success is my father, but that situation is a little different.

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Ego
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Ego »

Behind all the bluster is the elephant in the room. Trump seems to be trying to provoke this decoupling.

Image

Chad
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Chad »

The problem with his stated goal of forcing the Chinese to stop depressing the value of the renmimbi is that he is about a decade late:
As Chinese inflation was far faster than that of the US or western Europe over this period, the renminbi grew too expensive compared with the dollar, rather than too cheap. For the past several years, China has needed to intervene to strengthen its currency, not to weaken it.
https://www.ft.com/content/5a89693a-91d ... 778b55a923

Trump is probably playing with fire on this one. He could easily trigger a weakening in the renmimbi, which directly impacts his desire to increase manufacturing jobs.

Also, is that a picture of a physical paper? Who reads those? :lol:

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Ego
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Ego »

Chad wrote:Also, is that a picture of a physical paper? Who reads those? :lol:
There are few things I miss about Soylent Towers. The recycle bin full of good newspapers is one. I don't know anyone who reads the FT in hardcopy any more.

bryan
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by bryan »

@7Wannabe5

I'll have to add that to my reading list.

Iran stirring?: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/commen ... he_dollar/

But really, this morning (comment about Berkeley and National Prayer Time) I am done w/ Trump. I'll be sending a Bcc email to my friends listing chronological links that have informed my opinions and ask them if I am crazy.. if I'm not I'll more or less do the same thing in a letter to my Senator asking for impeachment.

I may share this list in a new thread or here as well.

2017 has too much momentum now for the USA as a whole to recover. It would take a super-effective leader or a tech breakthrough at this point. Even w/ impeachment I fear we will now be seeing some collapse. <insert sad Ron Paul "It's Happening" gif>

userqname
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by userqname »

For impeachment to succeed in removing the president from office, a supermajority of both houses have to agree that he committed high crimes and misdemeanors worthy of removing him.

For that to occur, it has to be politically sound and virtually certain of success. IOW, enough senators and congressmen have to be absolutely certain that it will work, that he won't win and retaliate, and that the voters wont punish them for going through with it.

bryan
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by bryan »

@userqname, my senators are both Republican (decent rankings, one probably wants to be President eventually) and my family also has Republican senators (extremely high ranking/influential and Trump supporters). The states are very red; if they can be flipped then impeachment is certain.

I can only do what I can do..

George the original one
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by George the original one »

ffj wrote:I am not arguing whether we are justified in doing this or not, but I want to point out that Obama didn't suffer mass protests when people were dying because of his presidential actions. That is important to note, as it shows that most protesters don't really have Muslim interests at heart. Rather, they are simply a vehicle to attack Trump. If they didn't care that we were killing them, then why all of a sudden do they care that they can't come into our country for 90 days?
Difference of "freedom to" vs. "freedom from". Ostensibly we're killing concentrations of terrorists & other bad actors (with minimal collateral damage) whereas terrorists are an insignificant number of immigrants.

plantingourpennies
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by plantingourpennies »

bryan wrote: But really, this morning (comment about Berkeley and National Prayer Time) I am done w/ Trump.
This is fascinating-what specifically about his comments on that day struck you as different?

Getting rid of the Johnson amendment was a part of his campaign platform since at least last summer and defunding public education was something that his education nominee refused to rule out in her senate hearing.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... -amendment

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congres ... le-n708171

bryan
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by bryan »

plantingourpennies wrote: This is fascinating-what specifically about his comments on that day struck you
Specifically (this morning) him twisting the narrative in such a vile way. How does he manage to pit condemnation of violence and funding a beloved university against each other? Ridiculous. To threaten one of the best Universities in the country, responsible for sending out so many amazing humans that push science, technology, and society forward, for what exactly? It's like kicking your dog when the dog doesn't do anything wrong. He's exposing and stoking the divide among Americans. It's interesting to think about why he wants this chaos, but it stands on its own for being heinous.

The twisting of reality and rhetoric is just out of this world, something I've never experienced. For instance.. aren't these alt-fact/alt-right/biebtard/whatever folks the ones who have been painting all recent (non-violent) protests as riots and think cops should get in there and bust some caps/skulls? Professing freedom of speech where if they came to power it would be on the chopping block?

But really it is was just the last straw.. I don't have that many issues w/ Trump's position on election issues; more aligned w/ him across them all than I was w/ Hillary/Obama. It's how he's been (incompetently, sinisterly) going about it all (and causing too many "hidden" ill-effects that will amplify over time).

BRUTE
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by BRUTE »

but surely setting the UC Berkeley campus literally on fire is worthy of condemnation?

bryan
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by bryan »

That's what I mean, he should be condemning the violence-lubbers along with some inspirational message or something.. not threatening the University/peaceful protesters or pitting Americans against each other. From all reports the University was completely doing the right things (despite their historical penchant for using pepper spray on people). https://twitter.com/ncweaver/status/827141794211049472

SavingWithBabies
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by SavingWithBabies »

http://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/20 ... lden-bears

This is what I saw in local reports while living in the East Bay for a lot of the other protests going on in the area (further south in Oakland) -- non-violent protests turned violent by agitators.

Chad
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Chad »

BRUTE wrote:but surely setting the UC Berkeley campus literally on fire is worthy of condemnation?
It absolutely does. Hopefully, they have video and can prosecute the culprits.

But, of course, Trump makes the mistake of attacking the university, that actually supported free speech and only shutdown the event because of security concerns.

On the other hand, the protesters are idiots, because this will actually draw support to the presenter. If they would have just protested and not done anything aggressive, stupid, etc. they would have made their point, but now they lost this battle. This was exactly what the presenter wanted. He didn't care about the actual event. No one that brushes against the white supremacist movement, even ever so slightly, expects to get a big event at Cal.

IlliniDave
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by IlliniDave »

Maybe I misheard, but I thought the university intended to take punitive measures against the conservative student group who invited the speaker, essentially holding them liable for the damages caused by the rioters which, if accurate, would not exactly be an act that promoted/defended a free speech environment, and is why some groups have the university in their critical sights.

Again, I have no idea if that account is accurate. I no longer believe anything I hear broadcast in any format that purports to be news, which is pretty sad--I've caught all "sides" being grossly disingenuous, if not outright dishonest, in their portrayal of events too many times. So I stick with my guitar most of the time now. It doesn't lie. When I play like $hit it sounds like $hit, and when I play well it sounds good.

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

On the other hand, the protesters are idiots, because this will actually draw support to the presenter.
The linked article from californiagoldenblogs said that the violent protesters were anarchists from outside campus that do this to varying degrees at any large protest. It isn't helping anything, hopefully they will be caught or stopped in the future.
Maybe I misheard, but I thought the university intended to take punitive measures against the conservative student group who invited the speaker, essentially holding them liable for the damages caused by the rioters which, if accurate, would not exactly be an act that promoted/defended a free speech environment, and is why some groups have the university in their critical sights.
Evidence of this? I could only find something about UC Irvine and College Republicans and only on Breitbart, which is propaganda.
Again, I have no idea if that account is accurate. I no longer believe anything I hear broadcast in any format that purports to be news, which is pretty sad--I've caught all "sides" being grossly disingenuous, if not outright dishonest, in their portrayal of events too many times.
Certainly every news organization has made mistakes but there is a big difference between NPR or the BBC and Breitbart. This is exactly what the people who want to control you hope you will do.

Chad
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Re: Trump - Clown Genius

Post by Chad »

@Gilberto
Yes, it could very well be anarchists, as they have been linked to other events like this.
https://www.thenation.com/article/anti- ... e-streets/
But, it really doesn't matter. 95% of the population won't do enough research to understand the difference between the majority of the protesters and these people. Everyone thinks these protesters are always an organized group with a chain of command, but mostly they are not. Bad actors always take advantage of this cover.

This appears to document the anarchist anti-fascist group. Per the Berkeley police Chief:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html
On Thursday, UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett blamed the problems on so-called black bloc protesters who marched onto campus in military fashion, brandishing clubs, high-grade fireworks, baseball bats and homemade shields.

“We had a controlled environment up until the moment when the black bloc arrived,” Bennett said.

Black bloc protesters, who dress in all black and keep their faces covered with bandannas, have become a fixture of Bay Area demonstrations in the past decade, particularly in Oakland. They tend to attach themselves to peaceful protests before breaking out to start shattering windows and vandalizing property.
@IlliniDave
I did a quick search for "university of california to punish conservative student group" along with a few variations of that and found nothing relating to the event at Cal.

It appears the conservative group themselves canceled the event:
The cancellation of his talk at UC Davis sparked debate about the limits of free speech and hate speech. Davis College Republicans decided it was unsafe to continue the event after a large number of protesters blocked access to the venue, according to a release from the school.
And, Berkley admin was letting it go on:
So far, the UC system has resisted calls to cancel Yiannopoulos’ talks. At noon, just hours before Wednesday’s event, Berkeley administrators issued a statement saying they were committed to tolerance as well as free speech.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

Other large news organizations like NBC and Fox both just said, "UC Berkely cancels event", but that sounds like lazy reporting. Not that it couldn't have been the school. The police were probably pushing for it to be canceled after that group showed up, but by not being more specific NBC and others just sound like they didn't do the work.

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