The emergecy manager situation in Michigan has been nothing but a scheme to totally subvert democracy in the State and auction off public assets to the highest bidder. The Flint Water Crisis arose because they were trying to cut costs to balance the budget after Snyder's tax cuts to his donors. If anyone thinks this would have been done in a middle-class, majority white suburb, as opppsed to a poor, majority black city, they are dreaming. Much for the same reason the Dakota Access Pipeline was originally supppsed to go near the 90% white city of Bismarck, they threw a fit, the company re-routed it into tribal land and (lo and behold) the majority of the citizens of Bismarck think the Native American protesters were out of line for standing against it. As Frank Zappa once said in "Trouble Every Day"....."I'm not black but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I weren't white".
Suddendly I feel like I was browsing /b/ after watching that video, but people talking about Karlov's murderer without posting memes about it made me realise I wasn't.
Meanwhile, law enforcement authorities here in the United States are still bending the Fourth Amendment (that's the one which protects you from unreasonable search and seizure--technically, you may refuse a police officer's request to open your trunk when she pulls you over but I really wouldn't recommend saying 'no') when it comes to e-mail. Yahoo let the NSA crawl through its entire e-mail database back in October after obtaining an FISC warrant (that is, quite literally, a secret court which approves over 98.5% of all warrant requests and where neither you nor your lawyer are allowed to attend FISC meetings, even when they concern you directly). Basically, they cast a wide net looking for x but if they happen to come across y then they will act on it, as well. This tactic might even get around the often-used trick of writing an e-mail then saving it as a draft; this allows you and someone else to share the e-mail box and pass messages to each other without sending the message through e-mail servers.
Of course, why should we have all the fun? The British Parliament recently passed the "cyber snooper" law, which pretty much lets law enforcement there sort through your online data (e-mail, shopping/browsing history, etc) upon request.
I once posted a message (several years ago) which contained every law enforcement agency trigger word. At the time, I though about making that list of words my signature so that it would show up in every message but I never did it. Perhaps I should revisit that idea just to make a nuisance of myself.
*************
What is wrong with people? I know, I know--they are almost always irrational but sometimes it still puzzles me. Anyway....there was a mostly-black church in Mississippi which was vandalized about a week before the election, with "vote Trump" painted on the outside before being set on fire. Well, authorities have made an arrest in that case--Andrew McClinton, who is black *and* also a member of the church which was vandalized (what? srsly?), is in custody. Why would he vandalize then set fire to his own church? This is what I mean when I say people make no sense much of the time. This is like that girl who carved a "B" on her face some years ago then tried to claim that Obama supporters did it...except for the fact that the letter was backwards because she carved it into her own face while looking in a mirror.
The combination of a right-wing government added to a policing culture in the United States that already has nearly unlimited power, and is practically immune from any consequences, is a recipe for disaster. One of the most disturbing things in the campaign was how every single police union lined up behind Trump. Police no longer treat their job as policing. When you are given enough militarized equipment that, in most places, serves zero purpose, and told about the "war on drugs" for so many years, inevitably, the cops will start treating their job as warfare, and they will occupy neighborhoods instead of protect them. The culture of policing in America is authoritarian to it's core, and almost beyond fixing. And the reason is because they can get away with anything. Take the recent case in SC where a cop was on video shooting a fleeing suspect 7 times in the back, then PLANTING a taser on him after the fact, and STILL the jury came back with a mistrial because one of the jurors refused to convict the officer. This is why police cameras will do no good whatsoever. There is ALWAYS going to be 1 or 2 white jurors who will refuse to convict a police officer of killing a black man no matter what amount of video evidence exists.
So far, I've preferred to stick to individual issues in this thread rather than comment on broad trends. But there is one thing I feel I should address.
Some in this discussion have said the GOP will no longer be able to blame the Democratic party now that the GOP will control the House, Senate, Presidency, and Supreme Court.
This argument does not hold water.
A Washington Times article reminded me today that many scapegoats still remain even when Obama is gone. The article claimed that the CIA's judgment that Russia had leaked the DNC emails to help Trump was because the CIA was a leftist organization that had always sabotaged Republican presidents.
This is false. The American left has been the strongest critic of the Central Intelligence Agency for years, criticizing its methods, its goals, its "blowback," and its secrecy, across administrations. On top of that, the CIA faces little oversight and scrutiny due to the need to keep its research free from political bias--the Democratic party, like the GOP, would not have the ability to control CIA findings. The CIA is one of the absolute last agencies that would intervene on behalf of the Democratic party.
Also, if the CIA really wished to hurt Trump, they would have done so before the election, not after.
But virtually no government agency is free from this accusation. According to some of Trump's supporters, even non-partisan or conservative-leaning groups are paid shills of the Democratic party. They have claimed that everyone from the IRS to the CIA to James Comey (a registered Republican and former Bush administration official) and the FBI to the GOP to the EPA to the Department of State to the entire academic community to the entire mainstream media (including Fox) to every experienced politician to illegal immigrants to ISIS are pawns in a massive conspiracy by the Democratic party.
If the state of the union deteriorates in the next four years, the GOP will not be forced to accept any responsibility for it, even if it acknowledges things are bad (and there is no reason it has to acknowledge anything). The GOP can easily lay the blame on virtually any group in existence on the grounds that it is secretly controlled by the Democratic party.
The GOP controlled the most powerful organs of government--the Senate and the House--for most of the Obama years. This did not stop them from blaming the Democratic party for anything. When Obama is gone, they will simply switch their attention to somebody else. Even when the GOP controls all branches of government, it can always lay blame elsewhere if things go wrong.
If they can accuse the CIA of being a leftist pawn, they can accuse anyone of being a leftist pawn.
So far, I've preferred to stick to individual issues in this thread rather than comment on broad trends. But there is one thing I feel I should address.
Some in this discussion have said the GOP will no longer be able to blame the Democratic party now that the GOP will control the House, Senate, Presidency, and Supreme Court.
This argument does not hold water.
A Washington Times article reminded me today that many scapegoats still remain even when Obama is gone. The article claimed that the CIA's judgment that Russia had leaked the DNC emails to help Trump was because the CIA was a leftist organization that had always sabotaged Republican presidents.
This is false. The American left has been the strongest critic of the Central Intelligence Agency for years, criticizing its methods, its goals, its "blowback," and its secrecy, across administrations. On top of that, the CIA faces little oversight and scrutiny due to the need to keep its research free from political bias--the Democratic party, like the GOP, would not have the ability to control CIA findings. The CIA is one of the absolute last agencies that would intervene on behalf of the Democratic party.
Also, if the CIA really wished to hurt Trump, they would have done so before the election, not after.
But virtually no government agency is free from this accusation. According to some of Trump's supporters, even non-partisan or conservative-leaning groups are paid shills of the Democratic party. They have claimed that everyone from the IRS to the CIA to James Comey (a registered Republican and former Bush administration official) and the FBI to the GOP to the EPA to the Department of State to the entire academic community to the entire mainstream media (including Fox) to every experienced politician to illegal immigrants to ISIS are pawns in a massive conspiracy by the Democratic party.
If the state of the union deteriorates in the next four years, the GOP will not be forced to accept any responsibility for it, even if it acknowledges things are bad (and there is no reason it has to acknowledge anything). The GOP can easily lay the blame on virtually any group in existence on the grounds that it is secretly controlled by the Democratic party.
The GOP controlled the most powerful organs of government--the Senate and the House--for most of the Obama years. This did not stop them from blaming the Democratic party for anything. When Obama is gone, they will simply switch their attention to somebody else. Even when the GOP controls all branches of government, it can always lay blame elsewhere if things go wrong.
If they can accuse the CIA of being a leftist pawn, they can accuse anyone of being a leftist pawn.
I feel it's important, as someone who has studied the apparatus of how the Republican Party and right-wing media operate since I became seriously interested in politics around 2002 (so for about 14 years) to say that there is no way to overstate just how cynical they are. Here is the important thing to remember: I may have a lot of contempt for conservative voters (I admit as much). It is NOTHING compared to the contempt that right-wing talk radio hosts and pundits have for them. They KNOW they are appealing to the lowest common denominator. They know that what they may have said yesterday, or even last week doesn't matter. Russia used to be the biggest boogeyman in their arsenal. Now Vladimir Putin is a strong leader worthy of praise. Perhaps most tellingly (watch this play out in the next few months), when Bill Clinton was in office, deficits were the scourge of the Earth. The INSTANT Bush was in office, Cheney was on TV proclaiming "deficits don't matter". Fast forward to Obama. The SECOND he was sworn in he was "bankrupting our children's future". And then today, right on schedule, the House Freedom Caucus is proclaiming that they will accept Trump bills that are only 50% paid for, with the rest being *shock* DEFICIT SPENDING!!!!
The GOP does not accept blame for anything, because they don't have to. They know their voters have a memory span that is shorter than the life-cycle of a mayfly. The media offers no perspective on historical precedent, only the endlessly repeating 24-hour news cycle. And, as I've mentioned previously, more than half of Trump's voters believe things that are just demonstrably UNTRUE. So what incentive do they have to change or accept responsibility for anything?? They can win Presidential and Congressional races by getting a minority of the vote, swagger into power, lay waste to all government functions, and then, when Democrats get back into power, immediately start ripping them to shreds for not cleaning up the house they just trashed fast enough. It's a neat trick that they as masters at playing, and they will never stop.
So yes, Trump and the Republicans can now attack the CIA. Hell, they can attack the military if they want to. Both are things they would call for Democrats to be metaphorically burned at the stake for (and one only needs to go back to the Bush Administration to find infinite examples). A common acronym among liberals is IOKIYAR. You can figure out for yourself what it stands for.
Conservative voters may be wrong about this and about that, and they may have their biases about this and about that, and their policies may be bad for this reason and that reason, but I cannot tolerate the accusation that their memories are inferior to anyone else's. You may not mean that literally, @jjstraka34, but I do know plenty of people honestly believe that folks from the other party are less than them.
Incidentally, people have done studies and found that intelligence is not correlated with political orientation (though education is).
A certain amount of skepticism about our public officials is healthy, and criticizing bad ideas is as much a duty as it is a right. But if we cannot respect our fellow voters, there is not much hope for our democracy.
Based on what I have seen, I usually summarize the two groups thusly: Republicans think Democrats are incorrect (or naive) whereas Democrats think Republicans are wrong. I maintain a healthy, sardonic, yet low-key disdain for both groups since they are the problem, not the solution.
The programs though which the DHS funneled hand-me-down military equipment to local police departments (why would a small-town department in Wisconsin need an MRAP? I don't know but they got one.) has continued unabated through both of Obama's terms in office. Similarly, why would the Dept. of Education need semi-automatic shotguns? I don't know that, either, but they requisitioned some and were given the funding to buy them.
Dallas Police Chief Brown invited people after the ambush against police there to join his department--he would fast-track the training and deploy these new recruits into their home neighborhoods in an effort to solve two problems at the same time: an increased police presence in troubled neighborhoods while those neighborhoods would have police officers who have a history there and know the people personally. To date, no one has accepted his generous offer despite the fact that starting pay is over $40,000 annually (nearly triple the current minimum wage).
Conservative voters may be wrong about this and about that, and they may have their biases about this and about that, and their policies may be bad for this reason and that reason, but I cannot tolerate the accusation that their memories are inferior to anyone else's. You may not mean that literally, @jjstraka34, but I do know plenty of people honestly believe that folks from the other party are less than them.
Incidentally, people have done studies and found that intelligence is not correlated with political orientation (though education is).
A certain amount of skepticism about our public officials is healthy, and criticizing bad ideas is as much a duty as it is a right. But if we cannot respect our fellow voters, there is not much hope for our democracy.
Whether or not it is actual memory loss (unlikely) or purposeful memory loss, it makes little difference. But I'm not going to constantly apologize for using hyperbole. I go back to the, again, BEDROCK conservative principle of deficits. There wasn't a peep about George W. Bush putting trillions of dollars on a credit card for the Iraq War. The moment Obama was elected, the Tea Party sprang into existence, now suddenly apoplectic about "spending". Or so they claimed. The Tea Party was nothing more than a re-branding effort for the Republican Party after 8 years of Bush. If you'd talked to them at the time, they would have claimed they never supported Bush at all. They'd ALWAYS been upset about his spending. It just so happened they never organized rallies about it til his predecessor was in office.
And yes, we have a serious problem with the attention span and ability to draw parallels to even RECENT history in this country. The Bush Administration didn't occur in some long-lost forgotten age. It was 8 years ago. It's not like we don't know exactly what happens when you hand Republicans every branch of government. It's called 2002-2006. Hardly ancient history.
And no, there really isn't much hope for democracy in this country. That I can agree with. My lack of respect for conservative voters has little to do with it. At what point do you get to STOP respecting your fellow voters?? When they attempt to curtail the rights of more than 10% (LBGT) of the population for no other reason than their personal religious beliefs?? When they support a party that actively, as a election strategy, attempts to suppress the vote of African-Americans?? That thinks global warming is a fairy tale?? There has to be a line somewhere. And, for the record, they can not respect me until the cows come home. If someone wants to say I support killing babies for being pro-choice, or that I'm a godless heathen for being pro-LBGT rights, I could honestly care less. I wouldn't seek nor covet their respect.
Based on what I have seen, I usually summarize the two groups thusly: Republicans think Democrats are incorrect (or naive) whereas Democrats think Republicans are wrong. I maintain a healthy, sardonic, yet low-key disdain for both groups since they are the problem, not the solution.
The programs though which the DHS funneled hand-me-down military equipment to local police departments (why would a small-town department in Wisconsin need an MRAP? I don't know but they got one.) has continued unabated through both of Obama's terms in office. Similarly, why would the Dept. of Education need semi-automatic shotguns? I don't know that, either, but they requisitioned some and were given the funding to buy them.
Dallas Police Chief Brown invited people after the ambush against police there to join his department--he would fast-track the training and deploy these new recruits into their home neighborhoods in an effort to solve two problems at the same time: an increased police presence in troubled neighborhoods while those neighborhoods would have police officers who have a history there and know the people personally. To date, no one has accepted his generous offer despite the fact that starting pay is over $40,000 annually (nearly triple the current minimum wage).
The last thing we need in police forces in this country is anyone being "fast-tracked" into the job anymore than they already are. Our training is already laughable in this regard compared to most European countries.
Of course, why should we have all the fun? The British Parliament recently passed the "cyber snooper" law, which pretty much lets law enforcement there sort through your online data (e-mail, shopping/browsing history, etc) upon request.
A crazy update on this. This law was recently struck down by the European Court of Justice, after a case was brought against it and the government was ruled against in British courts as well. So it will have to be modified. However, the challenge was brought by a guy called David Davis... who is currently the Brexit Secretary in the UK government. Who had supported the Leave Vote. On the grounds of taking back British freedoms etc.
So to recap the UK Government lost an appeal at the ECJ after it was challenged by its own Brexit Secretary. That doesn't even seem that crazy for 2016.
Of course, why should we have all the fun? The British Parliament recently passed the "cyber snooper" law, which pretty much lets law enforcement there sort through your online data (e-mail, shopping/browsing history, etc) upon request.
A crazy update on this. This law was recently struck down by the European Court of Justice, after a case was brought against it and the government was ruled against in British courts as well. So it will have to be modified. However, the challenge was brought by a guy called David Davis... who is currently the Brexit Secretary in the UK government. Who had supported the Leave Vote. On the grounds of taking back British freedoms etc.
So to recap the UK Government lost an appeal at the ECJ after it was challenged by its own Brexit Secretary. That doesn't even seem that crazy for 2016.
It shouldn't seem crazy at all. Davis is a libitarian. So he is opposed to the snooper's charter. But he is also opposed to the EU because they also pass legislation that infinges civil liberities in other ways. The crazy thing is a two party system that pushes libitarians like Davis into the same party as authoritians like May.
Well, it's not exactly a two party system in the UK- we had a coalition government not so long ago. I suppose it's easier to talk about the first past the post electoral system causing these kinds of mismatches. The same phenomenon can be seen in the opposition Labour party of course which resembles a man, a cat, a dog, and a rooster all stuffed into a bag together.
It is interesting to speculate how parliament would look under some sort of proportional representational system. Though it might not be more effective... and the referendum on that didn't go well.
The referendum on PR was sabataged by the Lib Dems in exchange for a share in power. No one was allowed to make the case. As for the coalition, that was a once in a lifetime numerical fluke, with an electoral system designed to shut out interloper parties.
Most of the rest of NW Europe manages with multi-party systems (including the UK regional assemblies) so no reason why it shouldn't be effective.
The last thing we need in police forces in this country is anyone being "fast-tracked" into the job anymore than they already are. Our training is already laughable in this regard compared to most European countries.
If the problem is an adversarial relationship between a neighborhood and the police patrolling that neighborhood, then Chief Brown's idea would have solved that problem. The fact that no one has accepted his offer seems to indicate that no one actually wants to make the situation better, only complain about it.
Those of you who live in countries where the government is formed by coalitions of multiple parties should take comfort in the fact that your representatives represent you, even if the system is a little inefficient from time to time. Here in the United States, we are stuck with only two choices--"damned if you do" and "damned if you don't". We citizens are like the children of dysfunctional families--the parents fight in front of us all the time, they do not consider our wants and needs, and they ruin every holiday get-together. Truthfully, this two-party system is killing us, albeit slowly and insidiously, from the inside.
Northern Ireland is one of the few places in the UK that hasn't been entirely infested with "refugees" and "asylum seekers". Fortunately because these same people seem to be commiting a massacre somewhere in Europe every other day. Unfortunately dear Martin McGuinness and his IRA cronies are working their hardest to change that.
When Obama is gone, they will simply switch their attention to somebody else. Even when the GOP controls all branches of government, it can always lay blame elsewhere if things go wrong.
To an my view as an outsider of the conservatives that seems to be what the gop does best - complain about x, y, and z. Turn on fox news at any point during the past 8 years and it seems to have been non stop complaining about Obama, scapegoating and fear mongering.
Their message of negativity has rewarded them. They run the entire federal government and the vast majority of state governments.
Northern Ireland is one of the few places in the UK that hasn't been entirely infested with "refugees" and "asylum seekers". Fortunately because these same people seem to be commiting a massacre somewhere in Europe every other day. Unfortunately dear Martin McGuinness and his IRA cronies are working their hardest to change that.
Actually, there are quite a lot of places in the UK that don't have significant numbers of migrants. Migrants tend to go where there are already migrants from the same country, so they become highly concentrated into certain areas. This is what gives some people the impression that the UK is "infested" whilst other people bumble along with no idea of the problems being caused, and assume that anyone who says there is a problem is racist.
Not all but I think a lot of euros would say the benefits of trust and cooperation outweighs the negatives of walls and distrust. This is just one moment in time, one sensational case. And the offender was after all found not long after the crime.
Hardly "one sensational case". I lived through the IRA bombings in the UK and the ETA bombings in the Pays Basques (not to mention Baader Meinhof and the Red Brigades) - I really don't want to re-live those days all over again (and those groups were contained, at least partly, because we had border controls then).
It seems to me that, given the relative size of the countries in Europe, that traveling through those countries would be no more difficult than going from state to state in the US. As for the lack of borders, I would guess the push toward it over the years has to do with the fact that those European "borders" and, indeed, the sense of nationalism they engendered led to the two most destructive conflicts in human history, literally MILLIONS of times more deaths than any terrorist attack could ever hope to accomplish. Those wars aren't ancient history. Most of our grandparents were involved in one of them.
A terrorist could quite easily kill around 8 million people with a nuclear divice in the centre of a major city.
There is no real evidence this is even close to happening. Entire countries have to have entire programs dedicate years to develop nuclear technology. This idea that some random terrorist is going to get his hands on one and blow it up in a major city is far more a product of movies and fear-mongering than anything else. Indeed, one of the Bush administration's primary reasons for the Iraq War was the prevent "a mushroom cloud". Saddam wasn't even CLOSE to be able to develop of nuclear weapon, much less have one on hand to give to a terrorist group. It was simply a bald-faced lie.
Furthermore, given Trump's statements on Twitter about this exact subject yesterday, who the does the United States think it is to lecture ANYONE on the use or procurement of nuclear weapons?? Only one country has ever used them, and we all know who that is. Despite the fact that nearly every major general of the Second World War said in the years following Hiroshima and Nagasaki that there was virtually no reason to drop the bombs and that, with Soviet Union about to enter the war in the Pacific, Japan was days, and at most weeks from surrender.
The historical consensus is much more complex than that. There are plenty of folks who believe the bomb was helpful in ending the war and therefore saving lives, if not necessarily saving more lives than they ended. Generally, historians believe the bombing of Hiroshima was helpful, but the bombing of Nagasaki was not, as the second bomb was redundant. Japanese leaders discussing the matter at the time appeared to agree on surrender before they heard about Nagasaki.
It's worth pointing out that although Japan was definitely losing the war by then, it had in fact defeated Russia just a few years prior, and it had been making plans to resist an American invasion down to the last man, woman, and child in Japan. It's not unreasonable to suggest the war would have gone on much longer without the bomb. Just because Japan was doomed to lose the war doesn't mean the bomb had no meaningful impact.
Japan, after all, had already been losing the war long, long before the bombs fell--and they knew they were losing--and yet they kept fighting.
Some have suggested that the bomb also gave the Japanese elite an excuse for ending the war. Wars of attrition are hard to end because the war's proponents can always say "we could have won if you sissies hadn't lost your nerve." But if the enemy has a new weapon that you physically cannot stop, then the reason the war ended is not because you chickened out--it's because victory or a stalemate was objectively impossible.
But I believe that's largely speculation: after the war, most Japanese leaders no longer claimed the war was worth waging to begin with, so we don't know if they would have made that argument anyway.
And let's bear in mind that we have the advantage of 70 years of hindsight. The bombing predated the Cold War and MAD, and even the long-term effects of radiation were poorly understood at the time. Truman was reportedly very shaken after the bombings, thinking about "all those little kids." The only people who really understood just how destructive the bombs were were the scientists who created them. Our understanding of the bomb is informed by decades of living under the threat of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War. Folks in 1945 just knew there was a bigger, better bomb.
It wasn't a black or white event, though arguably it's a very dark or very light gray.
First response to this tweet....how in the hell has Hillary not lost with dignity?? As far as I can tell, she hasn't said one word about the election, even though, given the circumstances, she had every right to do so. This is what I'm talking about when I say Trump supporters are dealing with a different, non-existent reality. They will now BELIEVE that Hillary has somehow been......what exactly?? Contesting the results of the election?? She hasn't even SPOKEN about it.
Secondly, anyone want to continue to doubt how Trump feels about Authoritarian dictators??
Comments
Of course, why should we have all the fun? The British Parliament recently passed the "cyber snooper" law, which pretty much lets law enforcement there sort through your online data (e-mail, shopping/browsing history, etc) upon request.
I once posted a message (several years ago) which contained every law enforcement agency trigger word. At the time, I though about making that list of words my signature so that it would show up in every message but I never did it. Perhaps I should revisit that idea just to make a nuisance of myself.
*************
What is wrong with people? I know, I know--they are almost always irrational but sometimes it still puzzles me. Anyway....there was a mostly-black church in Mississippi which was vandalized about a week before the election, with "vote Trump" painted on the outside before being set on fire. Well, authorities have made an arrest in that case--Andrew McClinton, who is black *and* also a member of the church which was vandalized (what? srsly?), is in custody. Why would he vandalize then set fire to his own church? This is what I mean when I say people make no sense much of the time. This is like that girl who carved a "B" on her face some years ago then tried to claim that Obama supporters did it...except for the fact that the letter was backwards because she carved it into her own face while looking in a mirror.
Some in this discussion have said the GOP will no longer be able to blame the Democratic party now that the GOP will control the House, Senate, Presidency, and Supreme Court.
This argument does not hold water.
A Washington Times article reminded me today that many scapegoats still remain even when Obama is gone. The article claimed that the CIA's judgment that Russia had leaked the DNC emails to help Trump was because the CIA was a leftist organization that had always sabotaged Republican presidents.
This is false. The American left has been the strongest critic of the Central Intelligence Agency for years, criticizing its methods, its goals, its "blowback," and its secrecy, across administrations. On top of that, the CIA faces little oversight and scrutiny due to the need to keep its research free from political bias--the Democratic party, like the GOP, would not have the ability to control CIA findings. The CIA is one of the absolute last agencies that would intervene on behalf of the Democratic party.
Also, if the CIA really wished to hurt Trump, they would have done so before the election, not after.
But virtually no government agency is free from this accusation. According to some of Trump's supporters, even non-partisan or conservative-leaning groups are paid shills of the Democratic party. They have claimed that everyone from the IRS to the CIA to James Comey (a registered Republican and former Bush administration official) and the FBI to the GOP to the EPA to the Department of State to the entire academic community to the entire mainstream media (including Fox) to every experienced politician to illegal immigrants to ISIS are pawns in a massive conspiracy by the Democratic party.
If the state of the union deteriorates in the next four years, the GOP will not be forced to accept any responsibility for it, even if it acknowledges things are bad (and there is no reason it has to acknowledge anything). The GOP can easily lay the blame on virtually any group in existence on the grounds that it is secretly controlled by the Democratic party.
The GOP controlled the most powerful organs of government--the Senate and the House--for most of the Obama years. This did not stop them from blaming the Democratic party for anything. When Obama is gone, they will simply switch their attention to somebody else. Even when the GOP controls all branches of government, it can always lay blame elsewhere if things go wrong.
If they can accuse the CIA of being a leftist pawn, they can accuse anyone of being a leftist pawn.
The GOP does not accept blame for anything, because they don't have to. They know their voters have a memory span that is shorter than the life-cycle of a mayfly. The media offers no perspective on historical precedent, only the endlessly repeating 24-hour news cycle. And, as I've mentioned previously, more than half of Trump's voters believe things that are just demonstrably UNTRUE. So what incentive do they have to change or accept responsibility for anything?? They can win Presidential and Congressional races by getting a minority of the vote, swagger into power, lay waste to all government functions, and then, when Democrats get back into power, immediately start ripping them to shreds for not cleaning up the house they just trashed fast enough. It's a neat trick that they as masters at playing, and they will never stop.
So yes, Trump and the Republicans can now attack the CIA. Hell, they can attack the military if they want to. Both are things they would call for Democrats to be metaphorically burned at the stake for (and one only needs to go back to the Bush Administration to find infinite examples). A common acronym among liberals is IOKIYAR. You can figure out for yourself what it stands for.
Incidentally, people have done studies and found that intelligence is not correlated with political orientation (though education is).
A certain amount of skepticism about our public officials is healthy, and criticizing bad ideas is as much a duty as it is a right. But if we cannot respect our fellow voters, there is not much hope for our democracy.
The programs though which the DHS funneled hand-me-down military equipment to local police departments (why would a small-town department in Wisconsin need an MRAP? I don't know but they got one.) has continued unabated through both of Obama's terms in office. Similarly, why would the Dept. of Education need semi-automatic shotguns? I don't know that, either, but they requisitioned some and were given the funding to buy them.
Dallas Police Chief Brown invited people after the ambush against police there to join his department--he would fast-track the training and deploy these new recruits into their home neighborhoods in an effort to solve two problems at the same time: an increased police presence in troubled neighborhoods while those neighborhoods would have police officers who have a history there and know the people personally. To date, no one has accepted his generous offer despite the fact that starting pay is over $40,000 annually (nearly triple the current minimum wage).
And yes, we have a serious problem with the attention span and ability to draw parallels to even RECENT history in this country. The Bush Administration didn't occur in some long-lost forgotten age. It was 8 years ago. It's not like we don't know exactly what happens when you hand Republicans every branch of government. It's called 2002-2006. Hardly ancient history.
And no, there really isn't much hope for democracy in this country. That I can agree with. My lack of respect for conservative voters has little to do with it. At what point do you get to STOP respecting your fellow voters?? When they attempt to curtail the rights of more than 10% (LBGT) of the population for no other reason than their personal religious beliefs?? When they support a party that actively, as a election strategy, attempts to suppress the vote of African-Americans?? That thinks global warming is a fairy tale?? There has to be a line somewhere. And, for the record, they can not respect me until the cows come home. If someone wants to say I support killing babies for being pro-choice, or that I'm a godless heathen for being pro-LBGT rights, I could honestly care less. I wouldn't seek nor covet their respect.
So to recap the UK Government lost an appeal at the ECJ after it was challenged by its own Brexit Secretary. That doesn't even seem that crazy for 2016.
It is interesting to speculate how parliament would look under some sort of proportional representational system. Though it might not be more effective... and the referendum on that didn't go well.
Most of the rest of NW Europe manages with multi-party systems (including the UK regional assemblies) so no reason why it shouldn't be effective.
Those of you who live in countries where the government is formed by coalitions of multiple parties should take comfort in the fact that your representatives represent you, even if the system is a little inefficient from time to time. Here in the United States, we are stuck with only two choices--"damned if you do" and "damned if you don't". We citizens are like the children of dysfunctional families--the parents fight in front of us all the time, they do not consider our wants and needs, and they ruin every holiday get-together. Truthfully, this two-party system is killing us, albeit slowly and insidiously, from the inside.
Their message of negativity has rewarded them. They run the entire federal government and the vast majority of state governments.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/berlin-attacker-anis-amri-shot-dead-killed-police-shootout-milan-confirmed-minister-italy-christmas-a7492056.html
Furthermore, given Trump's statements on Twitter about this exact subject yesterday, who the does the United States think it is to lecture ANYONE on the use or procurement of nuclear weapons?? Only one country has ever used them, and we all know who that is. Despite the fact that nearly every major general of the Second World War said in the years following Hiroshima and Nagasaki that there was virtually no reason to drop the bombs and that, with Soviet Union about to enter the war in the Pacific, Japan was days, and at most weeks from surrender.
It's worth pointing out that although Japan was definitely losing the war by then, it had in fact defeated Russia just a few years prior, and it had been making plans to resist an American invasion down to the last man, woman, and child in Japan. It's not unreasonable to suggest the war would have gone on much longer without the bomb. Just because Japan was doomed to lose the war doesn't mean the bomb had no meaningful impact.
Japan, after all, had already been losing the war long, long before the bombs fell--and they knew they were losing--and yet they kept fighting.
Some have suggested that the bomb also gave the Japanese elite an excuse for ending the war. Wars of attrition are hard to end because the war's proponents can always say "we could have won if you sissies hadn't lost your nerve." But if the enemy has a new weapon that you physically cannot stop, then the reason the war ended is not because you chickened out--it's because victory or a stalemate was objectively impossible.
But I believe that's largely speculation: after the war, most Japanese leaders no longer claimed the war was worth waging to begin with, so we don't know if they would have made that argument anyway.
And let's bear in mind that we have the advantage of 70 years of hindsight. The bombing predated the Cold War and MAD, and even the long-term effects of radiation were poorly understood at the time. Truman was reportedly very shaken after the bombings, thinking about "all those little kids." The only people who really understood just how destructive the bombs were were the scientists who created them. Our understanding of the bomb is informed by decades of living under the threat of nuclear annihilation during the Cold War. Folks in 1945 just knew there was a bigger, better bomb.
It wasn't a black or white event, though arguably it's a very dark or very light gray.
First response to this tweet....how in the hell has Hillary not lost with dignity?? As far as I can tell, she hasn't said one word about the election, even though, given the circumstances, she had every right to do so. This is what I'm talking about when I say Trump supporters are dealing with a different, non-existent reality. They will now BELIEVE that Hillary has somehow been......what exactly?? Contesting the results of the election?? She hasn't even SPOKEN about it.
Secondly, anyone want to continue to doubt how Trump feels about Authoritarian dictators??