45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. (Vol 5)

[NRS]

Tallow said:

Byker28i said:

Speaking to my friend in Florida, it's big after the Stoneman Douglas shooting, then those politically motivated students have been heavily active on social media, traveling to other states etc. If they could flip Florida that would be a start.

It definitely feels like something more substantial is happening. I think the best chance for a signifiant change to take the house and the senate would be for the Democrats to go for the jugular on the treason narrative. We'll see what happens, but certainly a lot of these trials look like they will have quite bad timing for Trump.

TBH On the high school shooting side of things, I've not really heard much said lately - but then I'm not a student and I don't have kids, so I guess it's less likely to come up too much in my social circles.

Not sure this will be the case. Easy to think things are changing when you don't listen to the other side as they are stupid/ wrong. It's why Hilary lost last time, and if anything it's more extreme now. Just look at the posts here.

arfursleep said:

IJB1959 said:

As huge as it is, Trump still manages to muddle on with impunity. Agreeing with Russia over election manipulation I thought was the final nail in his coffin with the uproar caused by both sides of the house and the public, but he's wriggled out of that one and everyone seems to have moved on already. Just what will it take that will irrefutably stick to oust him I just don't know.

He survives because he's GOP and they control House and Senate, without that power base he'd be in a lot more trouble now. Massively hypocritical power base, looking after their own interests and protecting those that had they been Democrats would have been put to the sword.

But he was criticised by Mitch McConnell and others after Helsinki so maybe the veneer is starting to crack

The problem is everything is attacking Trump the person. The reality is Trump as a person is not important to most of the voters. He's someone they either like, or put up with because he pushes what are important issues for them. The background is due to globalisation then a lot of lower paid jobs are worse off than they used to be. Just look at wage increases, which should be high, and yet even now there is not signs of much increases. Simplistically this is a combination of outsourcing jobs elsewhere in the world (less jobs in developed world), and more open borders meaning people can come to western countries (less jobs here, higher costs here for houses etc due to more competition for them where the jobs are). The summary is people are not having as good a standard of living compared to what they "should".

a) Immigration: Strong on immigration - at least in words. A lot of lower end jobs will be taken by immigrants, and houses etc will increase in price due to more competition. So being vocal against this is a popular policy.
b) Trade war: Being protectionist is viewed as good, as it stops jobs and money going elsewhere. Open borders helps humanity overall, but at the expense of moving money from the west to cheaper places, until they equalise out. But that will not happen in our lifetimes, so many are against it. So big on protectionism is great for his voters.
c) General anti-liberal stuff. People's morals are very divided now, and so Trump being "strong" in standing up to liberals is viewed as good, even if he doesn't do the stuff himself.

Combine all that and the simplistic picture explains why so many vote for Trump despite the person he is. It also explains the huge mistakes that the Democrats/ "Liberals"/Europeans etc are doing. They're playing the person on every small detail, so any real big issues are lost in the daily complaints about Trump. And more importantly, they're not pushing anything about themselves - it is all anti-Trump - nothing about how they will improve the country, people's lives etc. And I won't be surprised if Trump gets another term in office if there is nothing proven in court as a result of all this focusing on the wrong thing. It's why he won last time - which I "predicted" in my stock market choices, making a tidy profit as a result.

[Tallow]

NRS said:

Not sure this will be the case. Easy to think things are changing when you don't listen to the other side as they are stupid/ wrong. It's why Hilary lost last time, and if anything it's more extreme now. Just look at the posts here.

That's a very fair point. Certainly the vocal pro-Trump people I've encountered (admittedly not many) since the Russia thing kicked off haven't been swayed by it. I guess my thinking was there might be a silent majority effect.

Some good points below also (not quoted for brevity). Ref immingration, not sure if I mentioned earlier in the thread, but my GF is an immigration specialist for a large international consulting firm. She has commented that whilst the laws haven't been changed as such, the instruction on interpretation has.

Last night she was telling me they have had more rejections of applications in the first half of this year than in the rest of her time in the company combined. As of 1st September, apparently an Obama-era ruling that immigration applications can't be rejected outright without first requesting supporting documentation will be rescinded.

It seems to me that immigration, both legal and illegal, is being tightened up in multiple areas. The legal part is going to be a challenge for multinational companies, so it will be interesting to see what the outcome is. For her company, some roles are being relocated to different countries to overcome this.

I also was watching something on HBO the other day about how a lot of tech startups with Indian software engineers that used to come to Silicon Valley are staying in India now and starting out from there because it's a safer option than trying to get a visa. I don't have any data beyond that anecdotal piece, but if accurate, it is an interesting development.

[Halb]

Shakermaker said:

Halb said:

They'd be gutting themselves as the Trump Rump would simply make their own party.

One which would likely see much less credible opposition to either the Republicans or the Democrats though, surely? Those who voted for Trump because of the "Rosette on a Donkey" way of voting would go back to the proper Rep candidate, no?

I don't know. Trump has mixed it up so much, I reckon there's a lot who don't know, and that's what scares the gop top brass. He strolled into debate after debate after debate without any notes and made a laughing stock of the gop heavyweights, utterly destroying them, he was like Diesel in the 1994 royal rumble. He stole the audience from everyone, to everyone's surprise. I was thinking of analogies that work, I think a rotting tree is good. A huge powerful redwood that has fed on hate and bile for over a decade and fuelled the rotting of it's own core, which allowed a big fat termite to move in and ream it out completely, so now where there as once wood there's a core of termites, and the tree now goes where the termites want it to.

[JuniorD]

If Russia have installed Trump as their puppet, what is their ultimate end goal?

Is it to wright the wrongs of the Cold War era, like replacing US drive in cinemas and roller diners with USSR block long queuing for turnips and wooden dentures?

[FredericRobinson]

To keep righting the 'wrongs' of the post cold-war period, Crimea was a test case, there's plenty more previous USSR states to go for

[Halb]

FredericRobinson said:

To keep righting the 'wrongs' of the post cold-war period, Crimea was a test case, there's plenty more previous USSR states to go for

Why would Russia got for former soviet states?

[Zod]

Halb said:

FredericRobinson said:

To keep righting the 'wrongs' of the post cold-war period, Crimea was a test case, there's plenty more previous USSR states to go for

Why would Russia got for former soviet states?

because they want them back.

[FredericRobinson]

They lost their empire and their position as one of the 2 leading world powers, then became a laughing stock with Yeltsin staggering pissed around the world, Putin is all about restoring Russian pride & power.

[Halb]

Zod said:

Halb said:

FredericRobinson said:

To keep righting the 'wrongs' of the post cold-war period, Crimea was a test case, there's plenty more previous USSR states to go for

Why would Russia got for former soviet states?

because they want them back.

Do they though? Or at least, does Pootin? Crmea, well it was Russian property in living memory and has a super majority of Russians there, who wanted to go back, on that basis, I reckon South Ossetia (and the other one, forget name ) which are super russian are in danger too...possibility areas of the balkans with large russian areas, but not as much, but the rest?
THe problems with pootin (stopped being a good guy and became a bad guy to the west) start around the time that NATO/EU started to push into the UKraine and fiddle in the russian sphere of influence. Do we see Pootin encroaching on Kazakstan (not googling how to spell) or the other southern states? Pootin seems to have gotten russua where he wants it to be, especially with goals in Syria met. I don't forsee any koves or desire to push beyond what seemed like the old goals of keeping buffers, and the warm water port.

[Halb]

FredericRobinson said:

They lost their empire and their position as one of the 2 leading world powers, then became a laughing stock with Yeltsin staggering pissed around the world, Putin is all about restoring Russian pride & power.

Yes I get that, every leader is about strengthening their nation (maybe not maybot), but from the early days, Pootin seems to have done a bang'up job.

[NRS]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It is what a lot of them believe, if you listen to them rather than just shouting over the top. Some of it might not be true, or is overly simplistic, but there is a lot of stuff there that has basis in truth, to a greater or lesser extent.

A lot of Trump supporters are stupid. But the same goes for a lot of the anti-Trump people too. There is a lot of jumping on the bandwagon on both sides, hence why there is no middle ground. It used to be people had to give and take, find the middle ground to get stuff done. Now both sides are so full of themselves that they are right, the other side is stupid etc there is nothing getting done much. It's why Obama was so criticised for doing executive decisions to get stuff done, as nothing else much happened due to standstill. The extremes had happened and were happening a long time before the current president. It's just even more extreme now. You're doing the same as Trump there - it's worse than ever before etc in your language. The reality is it's not. Look back in history a bit more than the last say 20 years.

No, it is not down to exec pay, as that would not make a difference to lower paid job increases. Salary increases is related to the competition for getting employees. If it is easy to get employees there will be no increase/ it will decrease. Globalisation is directly responsible for making labour easier to get, meaning it is more mobile so even if there is demand it will be quickly filled, and as a result it puts pressure on the local services due to more competition. A company has to pay the going rate, and the going rate will only increase if it is difficult to get someone. Just saying "racist" about anyone who has the viewpoint is what drives extremism (although plenty are racist too). The exec issue is related to a closed-boy club, plus larger companies needing to get it right more than they used to - just look at the average time in the FTSE 100 for example compared to what it was in the past.

I pay attention, but have not really heard much about policies since the election. Sanders had a lot of good stuff to say, but between the Republicans and some Democrats it wasn't so widely spread. I'm also not convinced the US is ready for someone like Sanders as it stands.

Go ahead and blame only the right. That's why Brexit, Trump, Le Penn etc are happening - the right gets lumped in with them and people become more and more extreme as they're ignored/ their views are lumped with extremists and so they might as well become extreme.

[anonymous-user]

The US news channels are going bananas right now over speculation that Cohen has 'flipped'.

[Gameface]

Dunno why it's a surprise. He's in deep st and it's mostly down to his association with Trump, who has seemingly abandoned him.

[ReaperCushions]

Gameface said:

Dunno why it's a surprise. He's in deep st and it's mostly down to his association with Trump, who has seemingly abandoned him.

What I would give to be a fly on the wall in the Muller investigation... they must have some cracking stuff on him.

[Lazermilk]

EvoDelta said:

I reckon this US trip has been organised far too quickly after Helsinki not to be a coincidence.

Putin has realised how much damage the Helsinki summit caused Trump (and therefore Putin) in the US. I wouldn't be surprised if Putin has agreed to go to the US so Reek Trump can play hardball with him in public, giving him some much needed credibility just before the mid-terms.

A slight graze on Putin's ego in order to keep his puppet in power after the elections.

[Lazermilk]

Countdown said:

Tony33 said:

Halb said:

Shakermaker said:

At some point after January 20th 2019, would the GOP just be likely to oust Trump and then install Pence as President, who can then serve out the rest of Trump's term and still qualify to run for two further terms?

They'd be gutting themselves as the Trump Rump would simply make their own party.

Indeed and wouldn't Pence be seen as Putin's nodding dog's nodding dog?

Unlike Trump, Pence has a mind of his own. Not a particularly nice mind, mind......

Are you sure about that...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Autvqiej1I

Monkey see, Monkey do...

[Byker28i]

Putin says trump gave up Crimea and parts of the Ukraine
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-19...

[Byker28i]

Cohens flipped.

The Wall Street journal are reporting that one of Cohens recordings are of him and trump discussing the playboy model payment

How many other recording does cohen have.

Lordy, there are tapes

Mueller doesn't need Manafort. He's played chicken and lost

[Byker28i]

This is Karen McDougal, the model who claimed she had a year long affair with trump.

Hum, that means Hope Hicks lied, so she's in trouble
Michael Avenatti has said there are multiple tapes...

Edited by Byker28i on Friday 20th July 20:56

Edited by Byker28i on Friday 20th July 21:14

[Byker28i]

Clinton was impeached over lies about sex.
The news and lies trump told during the campaign affected his chances. These payments were related to the campaign which makes them an offence under FEC. Trump signed off on hush payments via a shell company in violation of election law.