So in Europe when presumably Putin holds rallies and gets the crowd going "Lock him up!" then he actually follows through.
In the USA, there's enough of a farce of a democracy left that Trump can't actually do it without proof. But it's getting closer to proof not mattering.
Actually, in the USA, Presidents now have the authority to assassinate American citizens without even charging them with a crime. And then assassinate their kids (while lying about their age) for shits and giggles.
But, of course, since that was a) done by President Obama, and b) to a Muslim, remarkably few of the Trump-objectors ever seemed to care.
So in Europe when presumably Putin holds rallies and gets the crowd going "Lock him up!" then he actually follows through.
In the USA, there's enough of a farce of a democracy left that Trump can't actually do it without proof. But it's getting closer to proof not mattering.
Actually, in the USA, Presidents now have the authority to assassinate American citizens without even charging them with a crime. And then assassinate their kids (while lying about their age) for shits and giggles.
But, of course, since that was a) done by President Obama, and b) to a Muslim, remarkably few of the Trump-objectors ever seemed to care.
He was clearly talking about killing or jailing political rivals or opponents. There is a valid argument to be made about what you are talking about, but it doesn't have much bearing on his particular point.
You know what? The last gun debate here has made me wonder. I'm curious to know how many of the people that want to ban guns trust our government? A big foundation of me holding on to my right to bear arms has to do with my distrust of the government. I see a lot of our officials as worse criminals than the people that law enforcement lock up every day. I can see people that trust the feds to keep out best interest in mind not seeing any issue with giving them that kind of control. THoughts?
I deeply distrust the government as a whole, not specifically any given person working in it.
In the first world, I am in favour of guns for rural-living people who have a legitimate need for them for livestock purposes etc. Beyond that I can be okay with a small personal firearm for self-defence purposes only on the condition that it is strictly regulated, controlled, and requires training and certification, at LEAST as much as driving a car. But I'd be happier if you just can't buy handguns, because there's no compelling need for them. Military-grade weaponry is right out.
The tyranny of the government is not a compelling argument for a lack of gun control. If the government still has the army on its side, untrained people with guns will not be a serious impediment to it. If it does not, civilian gun owners will not be militarily relevant to the overthrow of the government. In a situation with long-term irregular warfare against the government, weapons are always found to arm the insurgency regardless of what controls were on them. And most importantly, in the far more likely scenario that none of the above is happening, the American-style attitude towards firearms kills enormous amounts of innocent people and allows for horrifically routine mass-shootings in a way that simply doesn't happen anywhere else.
It is only fair to note that the problem is not really just the guns. Several first-world countries have access to military firearms for civilians (due to compulsory military service) and do not have the kinds of gun violence the US does. However, gun control actually works, as shown in many, many countries, and would thus be a far simpler solution than trying to identify and alter the American psyche and attitude towards firearms... if it were not for the various reasons why gun control is functionally impossible to implement in the United States despite the broad, cross-partisan support for it.
He was clearly talking about killing or jailing political rivals or opponents. There is a valid argument to be made about what you are talking about, but it doesn't have much bearing on his particular point.
My point is that when the "farce of a democracy" doesn't prevent you from killing someone, it also doesn't prevent you from imprisoning them.
(Like, oh, say, Chelsea Manning. And let's not delude ourselves as to what would have become of Edward Snowden had the US gotten ahold of him, or why the Obama administration used a Great War-era espionage law to prosecute leakers, and why it refrained from doing so in real courts.)
Edit: To clarify, I also equate the two because Anwar al-Awlaki (and Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden) ARE (or were) political rivals. Political rivals are not just members of opposing political parties. al-Awlaki was almost certainly killed because of things he said and ideas that he spread - an explicitly political act.
He was clearly talking about killing or jailing political rivals or opponents. There is a valid argument to be made about what you are talking about, but it doesn't have much bearing on his particular point.
My point is that when the "farce of a democracy" doesn't prevent you from killing someone, it also doesn't prevent you from imprisoning them.
(Like, oh, say, Chelsea Manning. And let's not delude ourselves as to what would have become of Edward Snowden had the US gotten ahold of him, or why the Obama administration used a Great War-era espionage law to prosecute leakers, and why it refrained from doing so in real courts.)
Edit: To clarify, I also equate the two because Anwar al-Awlaki (and Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden) ARE (or were) political rivals. Political rivals are not just members of opposing political parties. al-Awlaki was almost certainly killed because of things he said and ideas that he spread - an explicitly political act.
Those poor souls, imprisoned just because they committed crimes.
And al-Awlaki was killed because he was the commander of an organization that had declared war and committed acts of war against the US. Killing him was no different than shooting down Yamamoto's transport plane.
I'm also not ok with drone strikes as policy since they often seem to hit hospitals, civilians, the wrong targets, etc. And not ok with use against US citizens. Normally, I'm not as distrustful of government in general but yeah things currently are terrible.
And Trump rolled back Obama's climate initiatives. Why? Presumably just to be a dick. It seems like he doesn't have ideas of his own, he just looks at what Obama did then he has to undo it or make things worse.
He was clearly talking about killing or jailing political rivals or opponents. There is a valid argument to be made about what you are talking about, but it doesn't have much bearing on his particular point.
My point is that when the "farce of a democracy" doesn't prevent you from killing someone, it also doesn't prevent you from imprisoning them.
(Like, oh, say, Chelsea Manning. And let's not delude ourselves as to what would have become of Edward Snowden had the US gotten ahold of him, or why the Obama administration used a Great War-era espionage law to prosecute leakers, and why it refrained from doing so in real courts.)
Edit: To clarify, I also equate the two because Anwar al-Awlaki (and Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden) ARE (or were) political rivals. Political rivals are not just members of opposing political parties. al-Awlaki was almost certainly killed because of things he said and ideas that he spread - an explicitly political act.
Those poor souls, imprisoned just because they committed crimes.
And al-Awlaki was killed because he was the commander of an organization that had declared war and committed acts of war against the US. Killing him was no different than shooting down Yamamoto's transport plane.
The entire second half of the 3rd season of the West Wing involves President Bartlett debating what he should do in this very situation. He finds the idea of assassinating a foreign leader who is revealed to be a terrorist leader morally reprehensible, he knows it's likely illegal, and what he is doing is, in many ways, totally wrong. But he does it because he has to, or, as Leo tells him "because you won", implying that the burden of the Presidency will not ever be an easy one to carry if you take it seriously. I recommend that entire series to anyone anyway, but this is an especially good plot-line.
Also like to note that Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning. Likely would have pardoned Snowden too if he had come home and faced the music.
He was clearly talking about killing or jailing political rivals or opponents. There is a valid argument to be made about what you are talking about, but it doesn't have much bearing on his particular point.
My point is that when the "farce of a democracy" doesn't prevent you from killing someone, it also doesn't prevent you from imprisoning them.
(Like, oh, say, Chelsea Manning. And let's not delude ourselves as to what would have become of Edward Snowden had the US gotten ahold of him, or why the Obama administration used a Great War-era espionage law to prosecute leakers, and why it refrained from doing so in real courts.)
Edit: To clarify, I also equate the two because Anwar al-Awlaki (and Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden) ARE (or were) political rivals. Political rivals are not just members of opposing political parties. al-Awlaki was almost certainly killed because of things he said and ideas that he spread - an explicitly political act.
Those poor souls, imprisoned just because they committed crimes.
And al-Awlaki was killed because he was the commander of an organization that had declared war and committed acts of war against the US. Killing him was no different than shooting down Yamamoto's transport plane.
The entire second half of the 3rd season of the West Wing involves President Bartlett debating what he should do in this very situation. He finds the idea of assassinating a foreign leader who is revealed to be a terrorist leader morally reprehensible, he knows it's likely illegal, and what he is doing is, in many ways, totally wrong. But he does it because he has to, or, as Leo tells him "because you won", implying that the burden of the Presidency will not ever be an easy one to carry if you take it seriously. I recommend that entire series to anyone anyway, but this is an especially good plot-line.
Also like to note that Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning. Likely would have pardoned Snowden too if he had come home and faced the music.
Obama didn't pardon Manning, he commuted her sentence to time served. She's still a felon. I'm actually OK with it too, she didn't actually give the enemy anything useful and she expressed remorse for what she'd done. Snowden on the other hand is glory seeking rat bastard who sold NSA surveillance techniques to the Russians and Chinese. He can rot in jail for all time as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if he's jealous that he's now Putin's second favorite American pet. I really hate traitors, especially ones who just do it for self-aggrandizement. Jane Fonda and Robert E. Lee should both have been hanged.
Those poor souls, imprisoned just because they committed crimes.
And al-Awlaki was killed because he was the commander of an organization that had declared war and committed acts of war against the US. Killing him was no different than shooting down Yamamoto's transport plane.
Leaking classified information is not a crime in the United States. As I said, there is a reason the government tries to bludgeon things that are clearly not espionage into a century-old wartime law about acts of espionage.
Literally everything in your second paragraph is wrong.
Also like to note that Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning. Likely would have pardoned Snowden too if he had come home and faced the music.
Pardoning someone who should never have been put in prison to begin with (and who was treated inhumanely while in prison, which Obama was aware of) does not magically make it all right.
Nor does it change the fact the Obama was worse than Bush, and indeed worse than all previous presidents combined, at prosecuting whistleblowers.
He is quite literally the worst president ever on both this and on assassinating American citizens without due process. You either care about whether a country's leader does these things, or you do not - it should not be acceptable/excusable/understandable if Barack Obama does it, and a hideous crime if Vladimir Putin (or Donald Trump) does.
And yet it is not, and not just here. The media and politicians who made such a big deal over that poor fellow who died of polonium poisoning shrugged and went on their merry way when Obama's administration declared intent to assassinate Awlaki without trial, when they actually did it, and when they then vapourised his 16-year-old son (and his friends, and people in the street around them, all of whom were NO DOUBT incredibly dangerous terrorist commanders and "just like Yamamoto").
Obama didn't pardon Manning, he commuted her sentence to time served. She's still a felon. I'm actually OK with it too, she didn't actually give the enemy anything useful and she expressed remorse for what she'd done. Snowden on the other hand is glory seeking rat bastard who sold NSA surveillance techniques to the Russians and Chinese.
There is no evidence of this whatsoever, and it makes no actual sense as a conspiracy theory.
Snowden leaked the material to journalistic outlets for reasons of conscience. He did not personally profit by it, and did not seek fame from it. You can disagree with him doing so, but that is the truth of the matter and it is not difficult to ascertain it.
He can rot in jail for all time as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if he's jealous that he's now Putin's second favorite American pet. I really hate traitors, especially ones who just do it for self-aggrandizement. Jane Fonda and Robert E. Lee should both have been hanged.
I hate the emotional weight people put on "traitor". Every single person who participated in the founding of the United States was a traitor, who persecuted or collaborated in the persecution of non-traitors. Every one of your founding fathers should have been hanged, were your ethical viewpoint to be applied fairly. The country was built on treason. It exists because of treason.
And yet opposing it in any way is apparently also treason, and supporting it is now meritorious. Those traitors are great heroes; newer traitors deserve hanging.
On the same note, you apparently advocate the hanging of someone whose crime is a) utilising her constitutionally protected freedom of speech, and b) sitting on a gun for a photo op that one time.
She's also expressed remorse for several of the things she said, and for the gun photo, but I guess that only matters sometimes? Or maybe you believe the other conspiracy theory about her actions.
One wonders what you think the fate should have been of the politicians and generals that got the United States into the Vietnam War, actions which killed far more Americans and did far more damage to the country than a thousand Jane Fondas.
Gallup and other polls over the last 10 days are all showing the same result. Trump at 35% and rapidly approaching his basement. Again, he likely will never go lower than 33%. He now basically has his core supporters and no one else. Be wary of an exaggerated national security threat and military action if this continues.
Most projections estimated Clinton had about a 70% chance of winning. Only a few thought it was 90% or higher.
For what it's worth, the polls were actually pretty accurate in terms of the final popular vote tally. Clinton won the popular vote by about as much as analysts expected--it was within the margin of error. But the polling was just inaccurate enough in a few states for the entire result to change.
In the eyes of most analysts, the odds of a Trump win were roughly the same as a coin landing on heads twice in a row. Unlikely, but we've all seen it happen before.
She didn't win even if the polls had shown 99.9999991% chance that she would win, it didn't happen. That isn't a guarantee. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. We were just really really extremely unlucky on election day.
And Bernie Sanders is polling per state run media Fox News as the most popular politician in the USA. It doesn't mean much.
There's a funny phenomenon called 'The Kasich effect' where in a polarizing election, a mostly unknown third party will get an unusual amount of support in polls (to the point it seems they are near the top) because most people don't want to say they are for A or B and just say they are for C.
Basically opinion polls this early are completely meaningless, need to wait at least a year before we feel the effects of any of Trumps initiatives that people will have opinions based on actual experience.
Are you seriously going to post polls that have been proven wrong every time someone brings up a poll with results you don't like?
If you are to use this as an argument, go back the last year, get every poll conducted and give a ratio of ones that hit their target or were in their error of margin and prove that way that polls are ineffective at determining how a society is feeling about a certain topic.
Just saying they are and picking one or two in attempt to prove your point is really pointless.
If you want to rely on opinion polls that can be validated, then there is absolutely zero basis to depend on these early opinion polls because they either can't be validated until 4 years from now (when the next election comes up and even then newer polls will invalidate these ones).
Or they are already questionable since we have so many different polls giving different results.
Gallup is interesting in that they are quite cowardly, they refrained from doing vote polling in 2016 election because they knew poll's nowadays are questionable and they didn't want to be caught being inaccurate (as they were before).
However they have no problem doing these opinion polls now, why? these poll's are just as problematic as voting polls but with the added problem of not being verifiable by a final result.
So it seems they have no problem doing these polls Because they can't be proven wrong or right.
Which is a practice i don't particularly have confidence in.
As I've said a dozen times in this thread, the national polls were DEAD ON. Dismiss polls if you want. There is no other way we have to actually gauge public opinion in even a modicum of a scientific manner.
Donald Trump is not going to throw the first pitch at National Stadium. The tradition of presidents throwing ceremonial first pitches dates back 107 years to when William Howard Taft opened the Washington Senators’ season in 1910.
Why? Probably because he's chicken shit and sees the polls that show how historically unpopular he is.
He doesn't give press briefings. He is afraid to face the public (other than at scripted campaign rallies in places that overwhelmingly supported him). He can't handle anything else. He also got scared and said sorry i need a safe space and I can't go to the white House Correspondence Dinner.
Donald Trump is not going to throw the first pitch at National Stadium. The tradition of presidents throwing ceremonial first pitches dates back 107 years to when William Howard Taft opened the Washington Senators’ season in 1910.
Why? Probably because he's chicken shit and sees the polls that show how historically unpopular he is.
He doesn't give press briefings. He is afraid to face the public (other than at scripted campaign rallies in places that overwhelmingly supported him). He can't handle anything else. He also got scared and said sorry i need a safe space and I can't go to the white House Correspondence Dinner.
That's really not it. He doesn't want to throw the first pitch because he is afraid he won't get it to the catcher.
As I've said a dozen times in this thread, the national polls were DEAD ON. Dismiss polls if you want. There is no other way we have to actually gauge public opinion in even a modicum of a scientific manner.
The national poll's were inaccurate, they were within 4-5% which is not saying much because voting nationwide doesn't change more then 5% per political party from one election to the other.
You can literally guess the vote percent will be the same as last year, and you'd come out as more accurate then the actual polls and within 3%.
Its a dead guessing game, because we already know the result.
The national poll's were inaccurate, they were within 4-5% which is not saying much because voting nationwide doesn't change more then 5% per political party from one election to the other.
You can literally guess the vote percent will be the same as last year, and you'd come out as more accurate then the actual polls and within 3%.
You can say this all you like, but it doesn't make it true.
If you want to discredit polling methods done by trained professionals, then get yourself a degree in statistics and show why they're wrong - not occasionally (which is an understood risk - "Poll is accurate to +/- 3%, 19 times out of 20"), but intrinsically. If you come up with a viable alternative for modern polling methods, you will also live a very, very comfortable life.
Nate Silver called 49 out of 50 states correctly in 2012 (and accurately predicted who would win and that it wasn't a "toss-up" or even close, unlike most pundits). You don't do that by guessing, and if you think you can - see above about how you can make all of the money.
Comments
You don't say......
But, of course, since that was a) done by President Obama, and b) to a Muslim, remarkably few of the Trump-objectors ever seemed to care.
In the first world, I am in favour of guns for rural-living people who have a legitimate need for them for livestock purposes etc. Beyond that I can be okay with a small personal firearm for self-defence purposes only on the condition that it is strictly regulated, controlled, and requires training and certification, at LEAST as much as driving a car. But I'd be happier if you just can't buy handguns, because there's no compelling need for them. Military-grade weaponry is right out.
The tyranny of the government is not a compelling argument for a lack of gun control. If the government still has the army on its side, untrained people with guns will not be a serious impediment to it. If it does not, civilian gun owners will not be militarily relevant to the overthrow of the government. In a situation with long-term irregular warfare against the government, weapons are always found to arm the insurgency regardless of what controls were on them. And most importantly, in the far more likely scenario that none of the above is happening, the American-style attitude towards firearms kills enormous amounts of innocent people and allows for horrifically routine mass-shootings in a way that simply doesn't happen anywhere else.
It is only fair to note that the problem is not really just the guns. Several first-world countries have access to military firearms for civilians (due to compulsory military service) and do not have the kinds of gun violence the US does. However, gun control actually works, as shown in many, many countries, and would thus be a far simpler solution than trying to identify and alter the American psyche and attitude towards firearms... if it were not for the various reasons why gun control is functionally impossible to implement in the United States despite the broad, cross-partisan support for it.
(Like, oh, say, Chelsea Manning. And let's not delude ourselves as to what would have become of Edward Snowden had the US gotten ahold of him, or why the Obama administration used a Great War-era espionage law to prosecute leakers, and why it refrained from doing so in real courts.)
Edit: To clarify, I also equate the two because Anwar al-Awlaki (and Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden) ARE (or were) political rivals. Political rivals are not just members of opposing political parties. al-Awlaki was almost certainly killed because of things he said and ideas that he spread - an explicitly political act.
And al-Awlaki was killed because he was the commander of an organization that had declared war and committed acts of war against the US. Killing him was no different than shooting down Yamamoto's transport plane.
So the senate voted to repeal our privacy and the house is probably going to do the same. And the White House said Tuesday it "strongly supports" the repeal of privacy protections. Swell.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/28/technology/house-internet-privacy-repeal/index.html
And Trump rolled back Obama's climate initiatives. Why? Presumably just to be a dick. It seems like he doesn't have ideas of his own, he just looks at what Obama did then he has to undo it or make things worse.
Also like to note that Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning. Likely would have pardoned Snowden too if he had come home and faced the music.
Literally everything in your second paragraph is wrong.
Nor does it change the fact the Obama was worse than Bush, and indeed worse than all previous presidents combined, at prosecuting whistleblowers.
He is quite literally the worst president ever on both this and on assassinating American citizens without due process. You either care about whether a country's leader does these things, or you do not - it should not be acceptable/excusable/understandable if Barack Obama does it, and a hideous crime if Vladimir Putin (or Donald Trump) does.
And yet it is not, and not just here. The media and politicians who made such a big deal over that poor fellow who died of polonium poisoning shrugged and went on their merry way when Obama's administration declared intent to assassinate Awlaki without trial, when they actually did it, and when they then vapourised his 16-year-old son (and his friends, and people in the street around them, all of whom were NO DOUBT incredibly dangerous terrorist commanders and "just like Yamamoto").
Snowden leaked the material to journalistic outlets for reasons of conscience. He did not personally profit by it, and did not seek fame from it. You can disagree with him doing so, but that is the truth of the matter and it is not difficult to ascertain it. I hate the emotional weight people put on "traitor". Every single person who participated in the founding of the United States was a traitor, who persecuted or collaborated in the persecution of non-traitors. Every one of your founding fathers should have been hanged, were your ethical viewpoint to be applied fairly. The country was built on treason. It exists because of treason.
And yet opposing it in any way is apparently also treason, and supporting it is now meritorious. Those traitors are great heroes; newer traitors deserve hanging.
On the same note, you apparently advocate the hanging of someone whose crime is a) utilising her constitutionally protected freedom of speech, and b) sitting on a gun for a photo op that one time.
She's also expressed remorse for several of the things she said, and for the gun photo, but I guess that only matters sometimes? Or maybe you believe the other conspiracy theory about her actions.
One wonders what you think the fate should have been of the politicians and generals that got the United States into the Vietnam War, actions which killed far more Americans and did far more damage to the country than a thousand Jane Fondas.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39422353?SThisFB
Brexit timeline
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/sam-wang-princeton-election-consortium-poll-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-victory-a7399671.html
Get ready for President Hillary i suppose.
For what it's worth, the polls were actually pretty accurate in terms of the final popular vote tally. Clinton won the popular vote by about as much as analysts expected--it was within the margin of error. But the polling was just inaccurate enough in a few states for the entire result to change.
In the eyes of most analysts, the odds of a Trump win were roughly the same as a coin landing on heads twice in a row. Unlikely, but we've all seen it happen before.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/08/bernie-sanders-wins-michigan-primary-hillary-clinton
Poll's being off by more then 20%.
Hmmm.
And Bernie Sanders is polling per state run media Fox News as the most popular politician in the USA. It doesn't mean much.
Basically opinion polls this early are completely meaningless, need to wait at least a year before we feel the effects of any of Trumps initiatives that people will have opinions based on actual experience.
Aren't their anti-nepotism laws or is Trump above the law?
If you are to use this as an argument, go back the last year, get every poll conducted and give a ratio of ones that hit their target or were in their error of margin and prove that way that polls are ineffective at determining how a society is feeling about a certain topic.
Just saying they are and picking one or two in attempt to prove your point is really pointless.
Or they are already questionable since we have so many different polls giving different results.
Gallup is interesting in that they are quite cowardly, they refrained from doing vote polling in 2016 election because they knew poll's nowadays are questionable and they didn't want to be caught being inaccurate (as they were before).
However they have no problem doing these opinion polls now, why? these poll's are just as problematic as voting polls but with the added problem of not being verifiable by a final result.
So it seems they have no problem doing these polls Because they can't be proven wrong or right.
Which is a practice i don't particularly have confidence in.
Why? Probably because he's chicken shit and sees the polls that show how historically unpopular he is.
He doesn't give press briefings. He is afraid to face the public (other than at scripted campaign rallies in places that overwhelmingly supported him). He can't handle anything else. He also got scared and said sorry i need a safe space and I can't go to the white House Correspondence Dinner.
You can literally guess the vote percent will be the same as last year, and you'd come out as more accurate then the actual polls and within 3%.
Its a dead guessing game, because we already know the result.
If you want to discredit polling methods done by trained professionals, then get yourself a degree in statistics and show why they're wrong - not occasionally (which is an understood risk - "Poll is accurate to +/- 3%, 19 times out of 20"), but intrinsically. If you come up with a viable alternative for modern polling methods, you will also live a very, very comfortable life.
Nate Silver called 49 out of 50 states correctly in 2012 (and accurately predicted who would win and that it wasn't a "toss-up" or even close, unlike most pundits). You don't do that by guessing, and if you think you can - see above about how you can make all of the money.