Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On March 08 2019 00:09 Ayaz2810 wrote: Can someone ELI5 the controversy surrounding Congresswoman Omar? My fiance is Jewish, and by extension, so is our daughter. She has been to, and absolutely adores, Israel. But she agrees that the U.S. has been on Israel's dick for too long and the attitude that they can do no wrong is misguided. As near as I can tell, Omar told the truth in terms of "dual allegiance". There are politicians so far up Israel's ass that I can't tell where the U.S. ends and Israel begins. I have also read that a number of politicians have literal dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship. Is this true? I'm having a hard time pinning down the facts on that. Regardless, I don't get the controversy on these (true) statements about Israeli lobbying and the unshakable love for Israel.
Not trying to be a dick or willfully ignorant. I seriously don't get where this is coming from. Is it the word allegiance and the implications of that?
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said as part of a discussion about past anti-Semitism allegations lobbed at her."
I think what you don't understand is how politics work. The right can acuse of of being anti semetic beacuse Isreal is a jewish state and the left can accuse the right of doing this beacuse shes a somali immigrant.
Its not real its just scoring points.
Wasn't your point that since she is a somali immigrant, that it was easy to pin her down as anti-semitic? I know you were talking about optics, but that was exactly the way to discredit her, not to defend her...
The argument is:
The left can say that the right is only saying that she is antisemitic because she is a Somali immigrant.
Bernie coming out in support of Omar and legitimate criticisms of US-Israeli relations is yet another reason why he’s the candidate for me. Kamala did the same and that’s part of why she’s my second place/ideal VP.
Trump signed an agreement with Cohen to pay Cohen's costs associated with the Mueller investigation. They stopped paying Cohen when he started cooperating with the investigation.
Art of the Deal, agree to pay costs to your crooked lawyer with the unwritten agreement that if he flips, he doesn't get payment. Unfortunately, only the written part counts if he flips.
Michael D. Cohen, the former personal lawyer and one-time fixer for President Trump, filed a lawsuit on Thursday accusing the Trump Organization of breaking a contract and refusing to pay about $1.9 million in legal fees after Mr. Cohen began cooperating with federal prosecutors. ...
The complaint said that around July 2017, Mr. Cohen and the Trump Organization entered an agreement under which the company would pay for Mr. Cohen’s legal fees and costs connected to investigations being conducted by Congress and Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
David Duke tweeted that Illhan Omar is the most important member in Congress for her critique of Israel. Why isn’t the media focusing on that like they did for weeks when he endorsed Trump?
On March 08 2019 04:56 Gorgonoth wrote: David Duke tweeted that Illhan Omar is the most important member in Congress for her critique of Israel. Why isn’t the media focusing on that like they did for weeks when he endorsed Trump?
Because when you ask Omar for comments she says he's a horrible person. While Trump says he must be great for endorsing him.
On March 08 2019 04:56 Gorgonoth wrote: David Duke tweeted that Illhan Omar is the most important member in Congress for her critique of Israel. Why isn’t the media focusing on that like they did for weeks when he endorsed Trump?
They've picked a side in this fight, and this hurts their side. The power players are rallying behind Omar now. It's time to get in line.
Also, I don't think anyone really believed that the most despicable elements of America mattered in who they endorsed. It was just an in-group laugh line.
On March 07 2019 08:04 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Ok, I actually believe you don't understand what to be communist is, and you have confused it with an authoritarian form of government.
And what dare I ask do you think a communist is for the sake of conversation?
Normally, you would offer what you would think to be communist is, before asking what another person thinks to be communist is, but I suppose that we can assume by your lack of rebuttal, that my assumption that you you have confused the word "communist" with authoritarian government is correct.
I would say that the best way to describe a communist government as regards to a country would be to how its economy works. In relation to a capitalist economy, private ownership and private enterprise is banned, and only state or collective ownership is legal. Everybody would be in essense government employed, working in the public sector. Details may vary. China has many (usd) billionaires from private enterprises. A great proportion of the economy and people would be earning and working for private companies. Possibly more that state enterprises, I can't say for sure, because it is China, but whatever it is, it is certainly enough that China cannot be called communist. There is a free market. It exists. It is absurd that a country with a stock market, with a possible housing and investment bubble can be called a communist country.
Now its your turn Sermakola, as I don't want to play a game of "that isn't what I said, and I have unreservedly answered your question, though by your refusal to offer your own it can be inferred that my inference was correct, I do dare to ask you what you think a communist is, for the sake of conversation of course.
On March 08 2019 04:56 Gorgonoth wrote: David Duke tweeted that Illhan Omar is the most important member in Congress for her critique of Israel. Why isn’t the media focusing on that like they did for weeks when he endorsed Trump?
They've picked a side in this fight, and this hurts their side. The power players are rallying behind Omar now. It's time to get in line.
Also, I don't think anyone really believed that the most despicable elements of America mattered in who they endorsed. It was just an in-group laugh line.
Does it? Or is this just a sign that support of Israel is a lot softer than anyone realized, especially era of Trump where everyone is pretty tired of being involved with forgiven conflicts? Or that Israel has taken their relationship with the US for granted for far to long?
On March 07 2019 08:04 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Ok, I actually believe you don't understand what to be communist is, and you have confused it with an authoritarian form of government.
And what dare I ask do you think a communist is for the sake of conversation?
Normally, you would offer what you would think to be communist is, before asking what another person thinks to be communist is, but I suppose that we can assume by your lack of rebuttal, that my assumption that you you have confused the word "communist" with authoritarian government is correct.
I would say that the best way to describe a communist government as regards to a country would be to how its economy works. In relation to a capitalist economy, private ownership and private enterprise is banned, and only state or collective ownership is legal. Everybody would be in essense government employed, working in the public sector. Details may vary. China has many (usd) billionaires from private enterprises. A great proportion of the economy and people would be earning and working for private companies. Possibly more that state enterprises, I can't say for sure, because it is China, but whatever it is, it is certainly enough that China cannot be called communist. There is a free market. It exists. It is absurd that a country with a stock market, with a possible housing and investment bubble can be called a communist country.
Now its your turn Sermakola, as I don't want to play a game of "that isn't what I said, and I have unreservedly answered your question, though by your refusal to offer your own it can be inferred that my inference was correct, I do dare to ask you what you think a communist is, for the sake of conversation of course.
Ok I'm going to assume the best and go with you had a stroke.
You already asked me what I think a communist government is and/or why I think china is communist.
If I'm not mistaken, we're going to be the worlds biggest exporter of Natural gas once Johan Sverdrup is up and running. But we don't use any of it ourselves. Only a few minorities of houses still uses gas (and according to my brother who used to own one, it's a real pain), and zero of our power plants does.
We like to sit high on our horses scoffing at everyone still using fossil fuels while we provide it to them..
Natural gas is still less damaging than coal to my knowledge. My state (Michigan) in the United States wanted to close 3 coal factories and open 1 natural gas one instead. Yet there were protests.
DTE pledged to increase renewable energy to 25% in the next few years, and end coal usage by 2040, but I guess it's not enough of a start. They also pledge to be on 100% renewable by 2050.
Oh it is, much much less, but it's not zero. So while it might be a lesser evil, it's definitively still an evil which needs to be replaced at some point.
I like those why are attempting to keep themselves in line with the EU directive for carbon neutrality at 2050, but I suspect you're going to need someone with some real driving force on the subject to stand any kind of chance against the majority of companies who simply doesn't give a shit other than their short term profits. And you're going to need it sooner than later. Another Trump won't do, obviously, but I'm not even certain another Obama would be enough.
I think the idea of opening natural gas plants right now is just so that they can close coal ones...
Transitions take time, and it's meant to bridge the gap between lots of carbon emissions and pure renewable energy.
Meanwhile, China is STILL building coal factories. And they are trying to hide it from the media.
It's not all bad in China. They are building coal plants, which undeniably is bad, but they're also making absolutely enormous strides towards becoming greener on a national scale. I'm not well versed enough in Chinese politics to know how much power local provinces has to ignore national directives, but it's suggested that these new coal plants are set up as a short term solution to keeping the local economy ticking, more than an actual needed power source.
I would be very skeptical about what China is saying about their push for green energy. Check out this video,
I didn't see all of it but I get the gist. It's difficult to know honestly. I would suspect people who are researching this area is doing a better job than just taking the Chinese government's word for granted, and these two guys are more on the anecdotal level than national or statistical one. However if it turns out that it's true, then I would definitively appreciate some pressure on China to lower their greenhouse gasses. That would be a more reasonable justifications for tariffs than "I'm starting a trade war because they're easy to win".
Lets just say I am concerned with the promises that an increasingly communist country is making, a country that is also in a bubble.
China's fall will be harsh.
How exactly is China increasingly communist? A bubble is basically a capitalist phenomenon, be it tulips, or dotcom, or construction.
On March 07 2019 04:07 Sermokala wrote: The real issue with china and their green energy initiative runs into the buzzsaw that is their strange and frankly broken government. They have a mix of communism and federalism that feeds into insane levels of corruption and structural incompetence that is kept rolling through the will of the party and the momentum the country has established. It doesn't matter really what the government in Beijing wants when most of the country will act its its own short term best intrest. God help them when the peoples 70 year lease to the land beneath them starts to creep closer to it reverting back to the government.
Which part is it that you consider communist? State control and authoritarianism isn't the same thing as communism. Though I agree they have an insane level of corruption, they appear to be generally competent, at least when it come to their "federal" projects.
When I say federalism I mean it in its literal term as in the different levels of government being responsible for increasingly narrow jurisdictions. In the chinese state this manifests as governors and down being selected by the national congress. However this then works in reverse as the national congress is selected in a rather complicated method of elections that is at its core has the electors organized into groups to make their vote.
Its impossible to say what china really is when you take into account all of the differences in the laws they've carved out to allow capitalism in. What are special economic zones really? They're under commune elected state control but have the capitalist freedoms of a western country.
ANYWAY. Those "federal" projects are indeed legit it seems from everything I have seen. the real issue is what comes at the more local level. Stuff like the south china mall until recently and the apartment buildings that end up being little more then a series of concrete coffins so that people can buy their "third home".
I'm not going to tell you that I even 70% understand the chinese election system but at the end of the day the communist party controls the super majority of the seats and has always done. If you can't trust that they at least belive that they are comunist then I don't know what to judge things.
Then you posted
On March 07 2019 08:04 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Ok, I actually believe you don't understand what to be communist is, and you have confused it with an authoritarian form of government.
This is your rebuttle. You don't think china is communist, rather authoritarian. Now being those things don't contradict each other I asked you what you think a communist government is.
On March 07 2019 08:04 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Ok, I actually believe you don't understand what to be communist is, and you have confused it with an authoritarian form of government.
And what dare I ask do you think a communist is for the sake of conversation?
This is the last of the conversation before your post so I hope you can understand how baffling and infuriating it is when you decide to snark about how I'm not offering what I think a communist government is. I asked you that question. I already answered that question and you responded, even going so far as to offer what you think our point of disagreement is.
You bring up points that I already brought up and have been responded to not just by me but by other people in the thread. This is "Your posts don't have anything to do with even your own posts", I genuinely don't think you read your own posts let alone anyone else's.
On March 08 2019 04:56 Gorgonoth wrote: David Duke tweeted that Illhan Omar is the most important member in Congress for her critique of Israel. Why isn’t the media focusing on that like they did for weeks when he endorsed Trump?
They've picked a side in this fight, and this hurts their side. The power players are rallying behind Omar now. It's time to get in line.
Also, I don't think anyone really believed that the most despicable elements of America mattered in who they endorsed. It was just an in-group laugh line.
Does it? Or is this just a sign that support of Israel is a lot softer than anyone realized, especially era of Trump where everyone is pretty tired of being involved with forgiven conflicts? Or that Israel has taken their relationship with the US for granted for far to long?
I don't think Isreal ever really had that hard of support with America. Its until recently been more about internal dynamics generating Americas support for Isreal.
On March 08 2019 04:56 Gorgonoth wrote: David Duke tweeted that Illhan Omar is the most important member in Congress for her critique of Israel. Why isn’t the media focusing on that like they did for weeks when he endorsed Trump?
They've picked a side in this fight, and this hurts their side. The power players are rallying behind Omar now. It's time to get in line.
Also, I don't think anyone really believed that the most despicable elements of America mattered in who they endorsed. It was just an in-group laugh line.
Does it? Or is this just a sign that support of Israel is a lot softer than anyone realized, especially era of Trump where everyone is pretty tired of being involved with forgiven conflicts? Or that Israel has taken their relationship with the US for granted for far to long?
I don't think Isreal ever really had that hard of support with America. Its until recently been more about internal dynamics generating Americas support for Isreal.
When it comes to the general public, I think you are correct. But I think it has grown much hard to justify the close relationship with Israel to voters in the recent years. Especially since Israel has done little to court public support.
On the subject of support for Israel, the biggest demographic in favor of supporting Israel is Evangelicals, possibly followed by Republicans in general.
Republicans by a ratio of more than 2-to-1 say the U.S. should support Israel even when its stances diverge with American interests
Born-again Christians are more likely than overall poll respondents, 58 percent to 35 percent, to back Israel regardless of U.S. interests.
twice as many white evangelical Protestants as Jews say that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God (82% vs. 40%). Some of the discrepancy is attributable to Jews’ lower levels of belief in God overall; virtually all evangelicals say they believe in God, compared with 72% of Jews (23% say they do not believe in God and 5% say they don’t know or decline to answer the question). But even Jews who do believe in God are less likely than evangelicals to believe that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people (55% vs. 82%).
White evangelical Protestants also are more likely than Jews to favor stronger U.S. support of Israel. Among Jews, 54% say American support of the Jewish state is “about right,” while 31% say the U.S. is not supportive enough. By contrast, more white evangelical Protestants say the U.S. is not supportive enough of Israel (46%) than say support is about right (31%).
White evangelical Protestants are less optimistic than Jews about the prospects for a peaceful two-state solution to conflict in the region. When asked if there is a way for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully, six-in-ten American Jews (61%) say yes, while one-third say no. Among white evangelical Protestants, 42% say Israel and an independent Palestinian state can coexist peacefully, while 50% say this is not possible.
4 years for Manafort?! My fucking brother in law got 5 for holding up a gas station to buy heroin after he got hooked on Oxy in the Army. And Manafort gets fucking 4 years for treason?
What the hell is going on? Judge Berman-Jackson better drop the hammer on this piece of shit.
On March 08 2019 09:04 Ayaz2810 wrote: 4 years for Manafort?! My fucking brother in law got 5 for holding up a gas station to buy heroin after he got hooked on Oxy in the Army. And Manafort gets fucking 4 years for treason?
What the hell is going on? Judge Berman-Jackson better drop the hammer on this piece of shit.
On March 08 2019 09:04 Ayaz2810 wrote: 4 years for Manafort?! My fucking brother in law got 5 for holding up a gas station to buy heroin after he got hooked on Oxy in the Army. And Manafort gets fucking 4 years for treason?
What the hell is going on? Judge Berman-Jackson better drop the hammer on this piece of shit.
If your white and rich, crime pays.
I work at an American prison and no lie, there's a dude here for 12.5 years for writing a stolen check for $5,000. JUst for some god damn perspective. I am so disgusted right now I'm shaking with rage. Pair this miscarriage of justice with the new polling that shows ~62% of Republicans wouldn't want to impeach even if crimes were proven (collusion and obstruction), and you have a recipe for blood in the streets in the next year. Sane people will not stand for this shit. It will either be the trump-haters that snap, or Trump will incite his followers to rise up in his defense. I'm thinking 50/50 chance we have a civil war. And the craziest thing about that idea? Multiple people have spoken it out loud on television in all seriousness. People who have known Trump/Cohen/Etc for years.
On March 08 2019 09:04 Ayaz2810 wrote: 4 years for Manafort?! My fucking brother in law got 5 for holding up a gas station to buy heroin after he got hooked on Oxy in the Army. And Manafort gets fucking 4 years for treason?
What the hell is going on? Judge Berman-Jackson better drop the hammer on this piece of shit.
If your white and rich, crime pays.
I work at an American prison and no lie, there's a dude here for 12.5 years for writing a stolen check for $5,000. JUst for some god damn perspective. I am so disgusted right now I'm shaking with rage. Pair this miscarriage of justice with the new polling that shows ~62% of Republicans wouldn't want to impeach even if crimes were proven (collusion and obstruction), and you have a recipe for blood in the streets in the next year. Sane people will not stand for this shit. It will either be the trump-haters that snap, or Trump will incite his followers to rise up in his defense. I'm thinking 50/50 chance we have a civil war. And the craziest thing about that idea? Multiple people have spoken it out loud on television in all seriousness. People who have known Trump/Cohen/Etc for years.
Sentencing guidelines suggested 19 to 24 years, but the judge felt that would be too harsh.
On March 08 2019 09:04 Ayaz2810 wrote: 4 years for Manafort?! My fucking brother in law got 5 for holding up a gas station to buy heroin after he got hooked on Oxy in the Army. And Manafort gets fucking 4 years for treason?
What the hell is going on? Judge Berman-Jackson better drop the hammer on this piece of shit.
If your white and rich, crime pays.
I work at an American prison and no lie, there's a dude here for 12.5 years for writing a stolen check for $5,000. JUst for some god damn perspective. I am so disgusted right now I'm shaking with rage. Pair this miscarriage of justice with the new polling that shows ~62% of Republicans wouldn't want to impeach even if crimes were proven (collusion and obstruction), and you have a recipe for blood in the streets in the next year. Sane people will not stand for this shit. It will either be the trump-haters that snap, or Trump will incite his followers to rise up in his defense. I'm thinking 50/50 chance we have a civil war. And the craziest thing about that idea? Multiple people have spoken it out loud on television in all seriousness. People who have known Trump/Cohen/Etc for years.
Yeah, I was reading something pretty much in line with what you were saying, i'll post it below. It's really sad how partisan our country has become, right and wrong doesn't matter for so many people, just whether their side is winning or not. I really think it is something you can place on Trump's shoulders. People used to disagree with their opponents, but they didn't hate them.
Do you guys think the story is that he is getting too short of a sentence or that people who are less affluent get too much more time compared to him?
On March 08 2019 09:19 Saryph wrote: Do you guys think the story is that he is getting too short of a sentence or that people who are less affluent get too much more time compared to him?
EPT
