[Aptorian]

All this talk of Trump and Russia makes me want to ask a question.

What is the policy in the US regarding presidents/politicians owning companies that might be influenced by the politicians politics?

I don't know how big Trumps reach is, but it's my impression that his various companies and investments cover half the globe. One assumes that there aren't a lot of areas of business, that he has investments in, that couldn't in one way or another benefit from decisions in the Presidential office/foreign policy.

How would Trump be able to prove he was impartial in any given policy situation?

This post has been edited by Apt: 27 July 2016 - 08:41 AM

[worry]

This is the basic answer, I think: http://money.cnn.com...d-trump-ethics/

As president, Trump would not be required to sell any of his investments or businesses. The U.S. Financial Conflict of Interest Statute prohibits unelected officials of the executive branch from holding stakes in assets that would conflict with their ability to properly do their jobs.

For example, former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson sold off his company stock before he became Treasury Secretary in 2006.

Executive branch officials also are prohibited from earning income from their businesses and must abide by strict impartiality rules.

But Congress decided not to apply those restrictions to the president or vice president. They have to disclose their holdings, but they don't have to disown them.

[Aptorian]

Sounds like a liability. On the other hand I guess it will give the press and opposition something to rant about for 4 years straight... which is a good thing? Need to keep occupied.

[worry]

That's why it's not a liability. It's the easy story that will get covered instead of all the harder stories about the much more terrible things he (meaning congress, passing stuff through his empty throne) will accomplish.

That said, Trump isn't gonna be president. We've got our problems, but we we aren't Great Britain for Pete's sake.

[WinterPhoenix]

Kanyemander West, on 27 July 2016 - 08:20 PM, said:

That's why it's not a liability. It's the easy story that will get covered instead of all the harder stories about the much more terrible things he (meaning congress, passing stuff through his empty throne) will accomplish.

That said, Trump isn't gonna be president. We've got our problems, but we we aren't Great Britain for Pete's sake.

Oi we'd never elect Trump over here, not in a million years...

Just our own brand of racist, sexist, human rights abusing, welfare hating... actually this image should explain it better than I.

This post has been edited by WinterPhoenix: 27 July 2016 - 11:22 PM

[worry]

I'm no hero. I'm just a simple man who does heroic things very often.

[Tiste Simeon]

Sexy Gumbo, on 28 July 2016 - 05:20 AM, said:

I've got to give Worry kudos where it's due. He had the balls to watch RNC. This has been the only race since I've been able to vote where I had 100% hate of a Canaidate and can't bring myself to watch/listen to Her. Hopefully it's the last race I ll feel this way about in my life.

And yet she is still 1000000000 times better than a thin skinned fascist bully...

[Una]

I watched more of the DNC than I have ever for a foreign politics thingy. It was good! I was impressed!

You would never know by just reading all the news and soundbites that come out of the USA. You'd think the entire country was just the most irrational, hateful, callous, broken society. And entirely beyond help, because for some unfathomable reason, you like it that way. Who knew that you guys were hiding so many intelligent, well-spoken, highly accomplished, reasonable people down there? This gives me hope. I might not have to move into the remote mountains of my province to wait out the coming nuclear apocalypse after all. You just might be ok.

[worry]

It's weird, man. People demonize her in crazy ways that nobody else receives. I understand the disappointment that Bernie didn't win, because I feel it myself, but that just puts the election back to normal: middling Democrat politician versus literal disaster Republican. If you're angry that a mediocre numbnuts like Al Gore had his election stolen by SCOTUS for GWB -- which turned out to be a disaster under which 100s of thousands of people died, the US instituted torture routinely, and the economy tanked -- but voting for Hillary is a bridge too far, you need to check yourself. Trump will literally kill so many more people, and devastate the lives of millions, than Clinton would ever dream of (which isn't to say she won't have blood on her hands -- every president but reputedly Carter does, she ain't unique, this planet is a hellscape). So Hillary will continue Obama's modest but real domestic upticks, enact some decently progressive social policy, and continue his half-inspiring half-sickening foreign policy. And the Bernie Revolution will be able to influence that, while it will have zero influence over Trump & Co.

That said, I'm not discounting Terez's point about blue states vs purple states, in voting your conscience. Bernie Or Bust dorks might be throwing crybaby tantrums till November, but they aren't the only ones who lack nuance. Hillary Or Bust people aren't accounting for the state-by-state conditions either, the legit notion of strategic voting. So there's plenty on either side who skip over the basic civics in favor of passion -- or, in many cases, panic. Which I wouldn't discount -- it's a legitimate response to the potentiality of Trump as president. The stakes are truly, genuinely life and death for a whole host of people.

Which is why the best speeches of the convention imo weren't the admittedly pretty darn good ones from a few high profile politicians, but those who spelled out the simple fundamental differences in how the parties see people: Anastasia Somoza, the Mothers of the Movement, Christine Leinonen (whose son died in Orlando), and quite pertinently the Khan family. http://www.slate.com...ent_of_dnc.html

[Terez]

There are a lot of legit Never Trump people on the right, too. Lots of my Republican friends on Facebook are all about Gary Johnson. Everyone has to make their own choice about what vote is best for them, based on the obvious dilemma at hand and the state where they live.

[worry]

Absolutely. I wish they had a bigger "megaphone" -- to use a popular pundit metaphor -- than they seem to have. There are those who've made the symbolic gesture of not showing up to support Trump, but who have otherwise been silent. I'm sure they see that as stately, but I consider it kinda cowardly. But there are also those conservatives/Republicans who are making their case, out loud, and it's just not getting the same play as the more extreme Bernie people. Media (particularly TV outlets) have a stake in making this a "tight race" so that's a big part of the problem, but if Never Trump could get even a bit of organization and headway -- like even a minute-long talking heads commercial w/ prominent faces -- it could be effective for those Trump-agnostics who just need a little push to not go full party line.

[Studlock]

I'm still convinced Bernie would have been a well-meaning disaster for the economy outside of a small group of people, just a different group of people, and foreign policy, and the global poor. He reminds me a lot of my older comrades from the communist/leftist group from my university and I guess that shouldn't be a surprise as they are from similar generations. This is not to say I think Hilary is a perfect candidate, or I find the USAs current status quo acceptable, but I never had much confidence in him as a politician (though to be fair I don't have much confidence in any politician) or as a revolutionary--going back as far as Marx the revolution (and here I'm taking about Marxism in general as political standpoint, and all the things that bleed from it i.e. anarchism, communism, socialism, even social democracy--just don't tell my communist friends I said so) was based in scientific research. Bernie's platform, to me, never struck as particularly science focused, it was based in the morality of Bernie rather than the reality. The fact of the matter is manufacturing is never coming back to the USA , a federal 15$ minimum wage across the board is not a good idea (and not even the best anti-poverty measure we can take), and the poor people as a group around the world heavily benefit from trade agreements (world poverty has been going down since the start of globalization--and this is not say it's all good, I'd argue the transition from subsistence farming to urban poverty is not a good thing for many people, but its a thing that is happening globally and one of the best tools to help those urban poor is freer movement of material and goods). These are easily attained facts that seemed to escape Bernie. Instead on focusing on the future of the labour movement (the global one) he was focusing on the past that's already dead and gone and not coming back no matter how many banks you break up. You can't run a country on good intentions and righteous moral fury.

[EmperorMagus]

Sexy Gumbo, on 29 July 2016 - 11:10 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 29 July 2016 - 06:09 PM, said:

Sexy Gumbo, on 28 July 2016 - 05:20 AM, said:

I've got to give Worry kudos where it's due. He had the balls to watch RNC. This has been the only race since I've been able to vote where I had 100% hate of a Canaidate and can't bring myself to watch/listen to Her. Hopefully it's the last race I ll feel this way about in my life.

And yet she is still 1000000000 times better than a thin skinned fascist bully...

Nah.
(Obv I love you people here so don't freak)


This place is the only place where I actually interact with people who think this woman is ok. None of my friends are voting Dem this yr. I hardly see a sign up for Her as I'm driving around. There's some but very VERY few. Same goes with the post I see on FB, very few for Her. What I found great just this past month at my Dr is the group of old men I see every visit for an hr before we go inside have been talking Trump for a yr now and they are all Dems. Shocked the fuck out of me. They ve voted Dem in every election since 18 but refuse to do so this time for Her. I thought they were Pubs till a few days ago.

Whether people vote for her or not is not indicative of how many people she will fuck compared to Donald J. Trump. I believe Tiste is saying our collective asses will be safer in HC's hands compared to DJT. I beg to disagree, but whatever.

I want to throw them both into a basement and lock the door forever.

[worry]

Did they mention which of her policies turned them off?

[Tsundoku]

A bit alarmist, or should we have reason to fear?

http://www.news.com....4ff25e0d9c72f9e

TL;DR version - Populist pollies + fracturing EU + greater right wing tendencies = WWIII?

[worry]

Yah it is telling. Mostly that people get weirdly emotional about politicians on a personal level, at the expense of their function. I could not care less how much I like Hillary Clinton's personality, or for that matter how much I like Donald Trump's, except as it informs their job performance. They're cogs to plug into a machine: one fits okay, the machine will function; the other is a barely cog-shaped bomb.

Anyway, aside from all that, I do like this policy idea of Trump's: during wartime, replace modern 21st century communications technology with literal message-toting couriers: https://twitter.com/...148158182096896
Sounds like a Commander-in-Chief to me.

[WinterPhoenix]

Tsundoku, on 30 July 2016 - 02:12 AM, said:

A bit alarmist, or should we have reason to fear?

http://www.news.com....4ff25e0d9c72f9e

TL;DR version - Populist pollies + fracturing EU + greater right wing tendencies = WWIII?

It does make a number of compelling arguments, the central tenet being that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it's mistakes, the truth of which has been borne out over centuries of human history. I don't think anyone can say for sure whether we are moving closer to nuclear annihilation, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me to see the doomsday clock moved closer to midnight, one precipitous act by a nutjob such as Putin in the face of a possibly weakening EU could have the same sort of effect as Cuban Missile Crisis quite easily. The summary the article gives of how a chain of events that could lead to nuclear war might start is alarmingly possible, and also the biggest reason why Brexit was without doubt the dumbest decision this country has ever made - well maybe second, giving every flag waving, knuckle dragging, mouth breathing troglodyte the power to vote on it in the first place was probably the biggest mistake! It is entirely within the best interests of France and Germany and other EU nations (politically, perhaps not in terms of popular sentiment) to see the exit go very, very badly for Britian, because if we managed to do well it would only embolden right-wing racists like Marine le Pen and the National Front in their crusade to destroy the EU - an organisation that has kept relative peace in Europe for far longer than at any other time in history - in the name of false patriotism and cancerous nationalistic sentiment.

I have rambled headlong into an area entirely off topic with all the EU talk, however, so I'll come back to America. I can easily see Trump jumping into bed with Putin under the erroneous belief that he could deal with Putin anytime he wanted in the future. What's more worrying is just how much their politics seems to crossover, that the man genuinely thinks it's a good idea to outwardly state that Russian invasions of Baltic states would see no automatic response from NATO is mindbogglingly stupid. I think that perhaps the article is a little alarmist, insofar as it is trying to make a bold statement and attract attention to the matter at hand, it is, however, a known fact that economic downturns produce right-wing politics and a shift towards far-right nationalism produces war. How a large scale war involving many countries plays out now, in this nuclear age, is anybody's guess.

[Terez]

Sexy Gumbo, on 29 July 2016 - 11:10 PM, said:

This place is the only place where I actually interact with people who think this woman is ok. None of my friends are voting Dem this yr. I hardly see a sign up for Her as I'm driving around. There's some but very VERY few. Same goes with the post I see on FB, very few for Her. What I found great just this past month at my Dr is the group of old men I see every visit for an hr before we go inside have been talking Trump for a yr now and they are all Dems. Shocked the fuck out of me. They ve voted Dem in every election since 18 but refuse to do so this time for Her. I thought they were Pubs till a few days ago.

Kanyemander West, on 30 July 2016 - 01:18 AM, said:

Did they mention which of her policies turned them off?

Sexy Gumbo, on 30 July 2016 - 01:42 AM, said:

Not in the time we had to talk this last time after I found out that bombshell. I was to stunned after hearing 4 of them say it back to back but we got called back right after. Next time I planned to get more info but I found that pretty telling how hated She is.

Ed: I thought they were Pubs cause this whole time we ev been praising Trump they never embraced Bernie either. Can't wait to get their takes on Fonda being in that video as they are my old mans age 67 and up.

The missing context here is that BK is in the South where Democrats were the party of segregation. After the VRA and CRA, segregationist Southerners started to abandon the Democratic Party, but it has been a long process. It's not uncommon for old, racist white people in the South to still identify with the Democrats. To them, it's the party of Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and (formerly) Jesse Helms. When it became clear that the Republicans weren't going to overturn the CRA either, some never bothered to leave the party, and we still have conservative Dixiecrats holding office all across the South. There was a big purge of Dixiecrats as recently as 2010/2011, when my Dixiecrat congressman was voted out on a Fire Pelosi slogan and the Mississippi state legislature was finally taken over by the Republicans. This happened all across the South in 2010/2011. Yes, there were many old segregationists who voted for Bill Clinton, who was from Arkansas and paid lip service (at least) to segregationist Democrats. Few of those people also voted for Obama. Maybe some did so they could say they did. Maybe some said they did and didn't. I really doubt the codgers BK mentions are far from this particular mold.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Coming into this topic without reading anything before, the scariest part of a Trump presidency would be his Supreme Court nominees. Trump would be here for 8 years at the most; they'd be here for 30-50 years. This is the only topic that has led to me deciding to vote for Hillary. If all of our current justices were young and in good shape, I'd likely be voting for Jill Stein instead.

[worry]

Jeez, are Dixiecrats an evil race of immortals? Confine yourselves to history already.

Re: Jill Stein, I dunno. The Green Party is attractively left, and I'm sure local & state downticket candidates may occasionally have a shot to do something, but Jill Stein in particular seems a total nobody. What does she have to offer aside from outsider principles (some good, some rather hippie dippie sketchy) and zero practical experience. Is there any chance at all she wouldn't be delegating almost as much as Trump due to severe inexperience? I guess I'd vote for her if she was running for head organizer of a protest/potluck combo event.