45th President of the United States, Donald Trump. (Vol 6)
Discussion
Immigration isn't a subject that raises my pulse, I find it interesting from an anthropological point of view and how migration fits in to the bigger picture of economics, geopolitics and memetics but at the end of the day we're all meatbags living on the scabby crust of a nuclear reactor that tends to wipe out its inhabitants every so often and are participating in a fragile experiment that as far as we know is unique in the universe to see what happens when you combine enough amino acids with a carbon and oxygen rich atmosphere to produce intelligent life. Perhaps that's why I've never met a racist cosmologist, however I digress.
In the era of maga and brexit I wanted something non political and fun to watch so I could get some escapism as I sat down for lunch, hence I typed Lindybeige in to you tube because I like his rants about medieval warfare and the sources we have to understand them. What I was not expecting was the most switched on rant about immigration I've ever heard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDtiTNHPfyo
The following assumes you've watched the above video and probably won't make much sense if you haven't:
The point Lindybeige makes about left and right wing being essentially a lie that gets people to vote for you plus the end part about 'what's your stats and what's your deliverable policy' really chime with me as regards to the current state of the immigration debate, however, I'd like to take it a step further and talk about wetware responses to the lies that left and right wing are responsive to.
We as human beings are subject to the whims of the organic computer in our skull so tend to organise our lives around the things that give us a positive dopamine response and avoid situations that give us a negative response such as cortisol or other stress hormones. For example witness 1) people cheering at the slogan 'build a wall' but 2) nobody offering the slogan 'Punish employers who don't check their employee's immigration status'.
In terms of protecting American workers and reducing the pull factor for immigrants I have no doubt that 2 is the more effective option but that's not on the table, why, because 2 is a cortisol response, it's a stress for people to actually pay American wages to American workers whereas a wall is a mystical solve all that hits all our cave man dopamine responses without ever addressing the ugly reality that the good ol boys are the ones making use of that cheap, off the books, immigrant labour.
We can widen this sphere of dopamine responses to many other areas of policy... (left) tax the rich, feels good man... (right) stop scroungers living off my hard work, feels good man... etc etc. The point is that the policies people vote for often have nothing to to with objective reality or, more importantly, our desired outcomes.
Desired outcomes is an important one because it is to my mind the dividing line between an informed voter and a useful idiot. If we vote for a policy because it feels good then we are nothing but slaves to our wetware, whereas if we have genuine data then we can connect policy to outcome and you know what, I've rarely seen a good outcome that didn't involve a cortisol response, a stress factor, an oh sh!t ingredient that you didn't want to deal with but absolutely needs dealt with in order to get where you want to go.
The good outcome I want to see is a continuation of democracy and the oh sh!t ingredient is the sheer volume of information your average voter needs to acquire before before they can be anything other than a useful idiot.
In the era of maga and brexit I wanted something non political and fun to watch so I could get some escapism as I sat down for lunch, hence I typed Lindybeige in to you tube because I like his rants about medieval warfare and the sources we have to understand them. What I was not expecting was the most switched on rant about immigration I've ever heard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDtiTNHPfyo
The following assumes you've watched the above video and probably won't make much sense if you haven't:
The point Lindybeige makes about left and right wing being essentially a lie that gets people to vote for you plus the end part about 'what's your stats and what's your deliverable policy' really chime with me as regards to the current state of the immigration debate, however, I'd like to take it a step further and talk about wetware responses to the lies that left and right wing are responsive to.
We as human beings are subject to the whims of the organic computer in our skull so tend to organise our lives around the things that give us a positive dopamine response and avoid situations that give us a negative response such as cortisol or other stress hormones. For example witness 1) people cheering at the slogan 'build a wall' but 2) nobody offering the slogan 'Punish employers who don't check their employee's immigration status'.
In terms of protecting American workers and reducing the pull factor for immigrants I have no doubt that 2 is the more effective option but that's not on the table, why, because 2 is a cortisol response, it's a stress for people to actually pay American wages to American workers whereas a wall is a mystical solve all that hits all our cave man dopamine responses without ever addressing the ugly reality that the good ol boys are the ones making use of that cheap, off the books, immigrant labour.
We can widen this sphere of dopamine responses to many other areas of policy... (left) tax the rich, feels good man... (right) stop scroungers living off my hard work, feels good man... etc etc. The point is that the policies people vote for often have nothing to to with objective reality or, more importantly, our desired outcomes.
Desired outcomes is an important one because it is to my mind the dividing line between an informed voter and a useful idiot. If we vote for a policy because it feels good then we are nothing but slaves to our wetware, whereas if we have genuine data then we can connect policy to outcome and you know what, I've rarely seen a good outcome that didn't involve a cortisol response, a stress factor, an oh sh!t ingredient that you didn't want to deal with but absolutely needs dealt with in order to get where you want to go.
The good outcome I want to see is a continuation of democracy and the oh sh!t ingredient is the sheer volume of information your average voter needs to acquire before before they can be anything other than a useful idiot.
Nealio said:
She set the date in the first place, thinking the shutdown would be ended by then and Trump would have to give his address as a defeated and humiliated president. Things didn't go as Nancy planned though.
Given that everyone bar Trump, McConnell, and few anti-immigrant MAGA headbangers want the government to be re-opened, I'm not sure that setting an aspirational date for the President to address a re-opened Congress makes Pelosi the loser you seem to be suggesting she would be. So far it's going exactly to her plan, so I'm not sure how you're managing to contort yourself to make Trump some kind of victor. If the Dems cave and give Trump his wall funding in exchange for concessions on DACA protection or whatever then yes, he will finally have made some sort of deal.
Have things settled down yet?
Nealio said:
She set the date in the first place, thinking the shutdown would be ended by then and Trump would have to give his address as a defeated and humiliated president. Things didn't go as Nancy planned though.
She still wins because Trump giving his State of the Union address and trying to make everything seem rosy (and him the best president ever) during a shutdown, will show him as the utter fantasist he is.Not only would this fund the Wall, it would probably wipe out the US national debt.... 
https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/22/politician-wants-to...
https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/22/politician-wants-to...
Seventy said:
Laura Ingraham says Catholic boys will meet a Trump tomorrow.
No surprise there. With Kavanagh the conservatives were saying "this could be your husband they are treating like that"with these boys its "this could be your sons..."
both show that white privilege attitudes haven't changed in parts of US society.
Countdown said:
Not only would this fund the Wall, it would probably wipe out the US national debt....
https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/22/politician-wants-to...
The US has a huge porn industry that pays significant taxes. It's already a $12bn industry in the us alonehttps://metro.co.uk/2019/01/22/politician-wants-to...
Mentioned for interest, theres only this single source so far
There's now claims there are plans for two trump towers in Moscow. there were 2 proposed towers, 2 Russian business partners, 2 sets of architectural plans, 2 letters of intent, 2 ongoing courses of negotiation that coincided with the campaign.
The second is said to be this
https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/sberbank-funds...
Seth Abramson has put most of it together in a big thread here
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1087896774...
There's now claims there are plans for two trump towers in Moscow. there were 2 proposed towers, 2 Russian business partners, 2 sets of architectural plans, 2 letters of intent, 2 ongoing courses of negotiation that coincided with the campaign.
The second is said to be this
https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/sberbank-funds...
Seth Abramson has put most of it together in a big thread here
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1087896774...
Following reports that trump said he wanted to pull the US out of Nato, the House have passed bipartisan legislation expressing congressional support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The bill, which passed in a 357-22 vote, includes a provision rejecting any efforts made by President Trump to potentially withdraw from the treaty. All the "no" votes were from conservative Republicans.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/426488-house-pa...
The bill, which passed in a 357-22 vote, includes a provision rejecting any efforts made by President Trump to potentially withdraw from the treaty. All the "no" votes were from conservative Republicans.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/426488-house-pa...
Byker28i said:
Mentioned for interest, theres only this single source so far
There's now claims there are plans for two trump towers in Moscow. there were 2 proposed towers, 2 Russian business partners, 2 sets of architectural plans, 2 letters of intent, 2 ongoing courses of negotiation that coincided with the campaign.
The second is said to be this
https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/sberbank-funds...
Seth Abramson has put most of it together in a big thread here
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1087896774...
Apologies - Buzzfeed have the plansThere's now claims there are plans for two trump towers in Moscow. there were 2 proposed towers, 2 Russian business partners, 2 sets of architectural plans, 2 letters of intent, 2 ongoing courses of negotiation that coincided with the campaign.
The second is said to be this
https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/sberbank-funds...
Seth Abramson has put most of it together in a big thread here
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1087896774...
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/azeenghoraysh...
Probably a repost, but here's a summary of the investigations he's facing in 2019.
http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-investigati...
http://www.businessinsider.com/all-the-investigati...
Polls show people would rather vote for a generic democrat than trump
Only about one-third of registered voters say they’ll vote to reelect President Trump in 2020, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill on Tuesday.
The poll found that 36 percent of voters support Truhttps://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/426495-poll-shows-36-percent-support-trumps-reelection-43-percent-would-vote-for
Only about one-third of registered voters say they’ll vote to reelect President Trump in 2020, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill on Tuesday.
The poll found that 36 percent of voters support Truhttps://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/426495-poll-shows-36-percent-support-trumps-reelection-43-percent-would-vote-for
Jacob Wohl is starting a new birther conspiracy, this time against Kamala Harris. Doesn't matter theres not a scrap of proof to it because Kamala Harris was born in Oakland California on October 20, 1964.
It looks like a powerful black woman as President is a white supremacist's worst nightmare.
@JacobAWohl
Kamala Harris is NOT eligible to be President. Her father arrived from Jamaica in 1961—mother from India arrived in 1960
Neither parent was a legal resident for 5 years prior to Harris’s birth, a requirement for naturalization
Kamala was raised in Canada
It looks like a powerful black woman as President is a white supremacist's worst nightmare.
@JacobAWohl
Kamala Harris is NOT eligible to be President. Her father arrived from Jamaica in 1961—mother from India arrived in 1960
Neither parent was a legal resident for 5 years prior to Harris’s birth, a requirement for naturalization
Kamala was raised in Canada
Byker28i said:
Byker28i said:
Mentioned for interest, theres only this single source so far
There's now claims there are plans for two trump towers in Moscow. there were 2 proposed towers, 2 Russian business partners, 2 sets of architectural plans, 2 letters of intent, 2 ongoing courses of negotiation that coincided with the campaign.
The second is said to be this
https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/sberbank-funds...
Seth Abramson has put most of it together in a big thread here
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1087896774...
Apologies - Buzzfeed have the plansThere's now claims there are plans for two trump towers in Moscow. there were 2 proposed towers, 2 Russian business partners, 2 sets of architectural plans, 2 letters of intent, 2 ongoing courses of negotiation that coincided with the campaign.
The second is said to be this
https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/sberbank-funds...
Seth Abramson has put most of it together in a big thread here
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1087896774...
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/azeenghoraysh...
Nealio said:
Buzzfeed! Let's hope it's more accurate than some of their other recent output
And how inaccurate has their recent output been? The truth is that very few people actually know - what was said by Mueller's office was "“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”That could mean that they're utterly wrong, that they got some dates wrong, or maybe that the quotes they used have spelling mistakes. Could be something, could be nothing, and journalists have certainly got things wrong before.
But don't necessarily assume that they got the wrong end of the stick. Remember how BuzzFeed was excoriated over their early publication of the Steele dossier ..... criticism which has not aged well.
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