US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7058

The White House has admitted that Donald Trump does not know what type of surveillance he is alleging he was put under by Barack Obama, despite a tweet on Saturday explicitly saying his phone was tapped.

Sean Spicer, the president’s press secretary, argued that there is “substantial reporting” to show the issue merits congressional investigation, but did not identify Trump’s sources.

Trump alleged, without citing evidence, that Obama ordered a wiretap of the phones at Trump’s election campaign headquarters in Trump Tower in New York. “How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process,” he tweeted early on Saturday morning. “This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

Previous media reports have suggested that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court granted a warrant to enable the FBI to conduct surveillance of “US persons” in an investigation of possible contacts between Russian banks and the Trump Organization.

The Guardian reported that the FBI applied for a Fisa warrant over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. The Fisa court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus.

According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a full investigation.

On Sunday, Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, denied any such court order was obtained.

But Spicer told reporters on Monday: “It could be Fisa, it could be surveillance. I think he’s [Trump] made clear that there are continued reports that have been out there. I think the president made it clear yesterday that he wants Congress to go in and look at this. I think there is substantial reporting out there from individuals and from sources.”

The White House asked the Republican-led Congress to examine, as part of an ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in last November’s election, whether the Obama administration abused its authority.

But Spicer admitted he could not be more specific about what the abuse might have been. “I think that there’s no question that something happened. The question is, is it surveillance, is it a wiretap, or whatever?

On March 07 2017 06:04 zlefin wrote:
we can't get to impeachment until he does something impeachable and his numbers get lower. similar for declaring him unfit.

The United States is in danger of losing more than one-third of its tax base thanks to increasing automation in both manufacturing and service sectors. Self-driving vehicles, self-serve kiosks, increases in manufacturing and energy production efficiency, and declining retail numbers all contribute to what is likely going to be a significant problem in the coming decades.

It’s not that automation itself is a bad thing, within our lifetimes we will probably see the majority of our day-to-day activities be automated. However, the transition to an economy based on robots more than people is going to affect those who can ill-afford to lose their jobs the most.

Conservative estimates put future job losses at 20 million with some estimates going up to as high as 70 million. When someone loses their job, they stop paying taxes, while their employers stop paying payroll and other types of taxes at the same time. Compounding the issue is the fact that many people who lose their jobs start to depend on the economic support of the government, along with their families.

Take a taxi driver in a medium-sized city for example: They may gross about $65,000/year, of which around $15,000 would be paid in taxes. Their employer is also likely paying around $10,000 in taxes related specifically to that one employee. When that person loses their job, the government loses out on $25,000 in taxes, not even counting the positive economic impact coming from that employee spending their income. Now, that former employee has to request government assistance since every taxi company is moving towards an automated model. $1500/month just for that individual and their family to survive equals a $43,000 swing the wrong way in government revenues. The extra profit generated by the taxi company is taxed at a far lower rate and may very well end up sitting in an investment account, not doing much to foster increased economic activity.

Multiply those numbers by 20-70 million and it’s easy to see we have a real problem on our hands. Higher taxes on those making less than $250,000/year from all sources would probably compound the problem. Higher corporate and capital gains tax rates would probably alleviate the problem, but while those types of tax increases are supported by a majority of the population, for some reason lawmakers don’t seem to agree.

A growing population and dwindling jobs will result in much higher levels of unemployment in working-age adults than we see now. To top it off, the number of people on either side of the working-age spectrum (under-18, over-67) are growing substantially. Something has to give at some point, whether that means the advent of a basic income system or substantial corporate/capital taxes, the transitional period we are currently in cannot last forever.

On March 07 2017 06:07 On_Slaught wrote:


Obviously but I'm just saying I want that to happen sooner than later to end the suffering.

I think that one thing every single person in this thread would agree to is that the drama is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Over the next year he will be going to war with his own party on a daily basis on numerous things. He will begin to feel more more isolated and the drama in Washington will subsequently get worse.

On March 07 2017 06:18 a_flayer wrote:


The solution is obvious: everybody should just be a bank, trade in stocks or provide entertainment of one kind or another.

On March 07 2017 04:44 ChristianS wrote:

Speaking of learning to scroll past the discussions that suck, should I just skip the next 5-10 pages? I don't remember the last time someone said something new in the "was Bernie cheated" debate, but it doesn't stop it from shitting up the thread every time it comes up.

If someone brought up something the DNC did to screw Bernie, not just stuff they said in internal emails, that'd be new ground.

“I knew — everybody knew — that this was not a fair deal,” he added.
Reid said outgoing DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz wasn't impartial during the Democratic primary.

On March 07 2017 05:06 kwizach wrote:

No, I'm arguing a matter of factual reality. If you have facts that make the statement "Sanders got screwed by his own party so Hillary Clinton could keep running for president" true, feel free to bring them up. Otherwise, I don't see the point of starting this discussion again.

On March 07 2017 06:18 a_flayer wrote:


The solution is obvious: everybody should just be a bank, trade in stocks or provide entertainment of one kind or another.

WASHINGTON ― Ben Carson made his debut as secretary of Housing and Urban Development Monday by telling agency employees about the virtues of the “can-do” American society. Carson said this value system was best exemplified by slaves, whom he characterized as immigrants who came to the United States with very little and worked very hard.

“That’s what America is about,” Carson said. “A land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”

One HUD employee who was in the room for Carson’s speech said there was no audible reaction to Carson’s slave ship remark, although she was shocked by it and immediately recognized that it’d be a problem. She added that overall, people at the agency are excited about their new boss.

The Senate approved Carson, a neurosurgeon with no experience in housing policy, to the job last week.

In 2013, Carson said Obamacare was “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.”

“And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care,” he added. “It was about control.”

Carson also spent part of his speech to agency employees Monday talking about the human brain.

“[E]very human being, regardless of their ethnicities, or their background, they have a brain, the human brain,” he said, later adding, “You can’t overload [the brain]. Have you ever heard people say, ‘Don’t do that or you’ll overload your brain’? You can’t overload the human brain. ... So we need to concentrate a little less on what we can’t do and a little more on what we can do.”

On March 07 2017 06:45 Mohdoo wrote:


Doesn't this not consider things like a wave of superdelegates making other senior party members less likely to back Sanders? There are a lot of ways to apply pressure without actually violating anything. Clinton was chosen ahead of time. The party organized itself well to get the primary over with early. You aren't accounting for all the planning and posturing. There are a lot of less-than-direct ways for this to have been impacted that have nothing to do with votes.

Is it that you are saying none of the democratic primary was planned out in advance? There weren't early efforts to consolidate and solidify support ahead of time?

There was an enormous amount of momentum behind Clinton the day she announced. And not just because she was so fantastic. She was the chosen one in a variety of ways.

On March 07 2017 06:45 Mohdoo wrote:


Doesn't this not consider things like a wave of superdelegates making other senior party members less likely to back Sanders? There are a lot of ways to apply pressure without actually violating anything. Clinton was chosen ahead of time. The party organized itself well to get the primary over with early. You aren't accounting for all the planning and posturing. There are a lot of less-than-direct ways for this to have been impacted that have nothing to do with votes.

Is it that you are saying none of the democratic primary was planned out in advance? There weren't early efforts to consolidate and solidify support ahead of time?

There was an enormous amount of momentum behind Clinton the day she announced. And not just because she was so fantastic. She was the chosen one in a variety of ways.