That constantly lying to the public and alternative facts are okay. That the president doing all he can to profit from the office of the Presidency is normal. That repealing safety regulations is normal. That denying scientific fact is normal. That attacks against the media is normal and not beneath the office of the Presidency. That when the president speaks he sounds like a bullying child with ADHD and is an international embarrassment.
People want to move on like everything's all good. They're not. He's not normal. Things are not business as usual.
It's people ignoring him admitting to sexual assault on tape. It's people not caring that he called Mexicans rapists to kick off his campaign. It's not caring he mocked a disabled reporter. It's not caring that he lies as much as other people draw breath. More than anything, it's people pretending these things didn't happen, despite video and audio evidence.
If you think the New York Times is running defense for Trump we're clearly living in two separate universes. I cannot even fathom how one can come to that conclusion. Although why they are all about punishing whisteblowers is easy, Obama was all about that as well.
The Democratic Party is probably not closely aligned with the interests of the left wing in general so i'll grant you that, yet the fact remains all these outlets and the vast majority of journalists are democrat and liberal, not republican and conservative. The fact that Fox News is the only major conservative outlet that can be mentioned is exactly the point. Breitbart is simply heresy.
See, you have the same problem a lot of people do. You think because I said the media is not left-wing, I'm saying it is right-wing. It is neither. Even Fox News isn't particularly right-wing in several important ways, despite being more openly partisan than any other mainstream news source.
The media in the US is dedicated to the cult of savvy. That's it, and that's all.
(And it's not limited just to America, of course, as the link makes clear.)
The "liberal media" you and other conservatives assume exists would not have cheerled for the war in Iraq, and would not have called torture "enhanced interrogation" for the benefit of the Bush administration. Both of these things went sharply against grassroots left-wing opinion, as easily observable at the time. A "liberal media" wouldn't talk about how Trump was acting "presidentially" or speculate the page has turned because he gave a speech that wasn't super-offensive. Look at how actual left-wing people online talk about Trump - say jjstraka. Giving him a chance, eager to see this "pivot"? This isn't how it would work. They would be jumping to poke holes in this narrative or just ignoring it to emphasise whatever "bad" (by left-wing standards) his speech/regime was doing.
Sure, the mainstream media is closer to left-wing values than right-wing ones, because most modern media is based in cosmopolitan cities and not in highly religious rural areas, and that is a natural consequence of the environment. But that does not make it actually left-wing, any more than CEOs are left-wing just because they also tend to live in cosmopolitan cities and trend a lot closer to left-wing social views than the right as a whole does. Their actual animating ideals are quite different.
This is also extremely obvious to anyone who lives outside the US and is exposed to US media. The implicit assumptions and biases of mainstream media outlets in the US, largely invisible if that's where you live and what you've known, are very glaring. Military worship, worship of political authority (for instance, uncritically reporting anonymous reports from US intelligence services that don't even include verifiable facts), uncritical acceptance of American exceptionalism and American imperial projects, the erasure of most viewpoints that neither Republicans nor Democrats approve of, absurd "he said-she said" reporting of uncontroversially settled scientific facts, the aforementioned hostility to whistleblowers and leakers even in media outlets that directly profited from their activities, and of course the relentless hyperfocus on celebrity culture, amongst many other things.
There is no left-wing mainstream media. And to the extent that something like MSNBC, let's say, is "Democrat-aligned", it doesn't stop them from critiqueing "their side", nor does it stop them from doing any or all of the non-left-wing things above. And this is also true of Fox News. The difference between a legitimate but biased news source like Fox and something like Breitbart is night and say (this is not implying Breitbart is, itself, a proper "right-wing news source", since for starters it has no adherence to the truth whatsoever).
Mainstream media in the US is neither left nor right (and in some areas it uniformly veers left, and in some areas it uniformly veers right), and that is in fact part of the problem with it.
So, you concede that journalists are overwhelmingly liberal and agree with the underlying economics for it, but this doesn't mean that they are biased in favor of democrats...because that's a conservative reflex and people are affected by their environment? I don't get it. Still looks like a clear cut case of demonstrable evidence for general left wing media bias, to me.
Conservatives have done exceedingly well in the online realm of new media where they can't be shut out or violently protested against, places like Youtube are absolutely dominated by conservatives, even the left admits this. So I don't mind the overwhelming media bias in establishment media to be honest, they're an irrelevant sinking ship.
Sure, I'd agree that they're overwhelmingly liberal, but it's not some vast liberal conspiracy to bring down America. Do you want me to dig up many, many, many, MANY quotes from various Republicans who have said that it is?
And second, what do you propose should be DONE about it, besides gripe about "that wascally librul media is touting their commie socialist fascist NWO anti-Murican FEMA deathcamp plans"?
The acceptance of a vile and reprehensible babbler of BS as being fit for an office touted as "Leader of the Free World" and "Most Powerful Person in the World".
Maybe N. Korea won't invade but nukes can be a major annoyance and ruin your day.
North Korea isn't going to use their (primitive, non-world-ending) nukes unless someone invades them. There is no reason to think otherwise - North Korea is, contrary to the hysterical way they are often depicted in the press, ruled by what is actually a very predictable and understandable regime. That's why this sort of crisis happens every couple of years and then resolves without much, if any, bloodshed each time.
So the "Normalization of Trump" means...a vast assortment of anti-Trump diatribes with no clear central theme.
"what do you propose should be DONE about it, besides gripe about "that wascally librul media is touting their commie socialist fascist NWO anti-Murican FEMA deathcamp plans"?
I believe my exact words on the subject were "it's an irrelevant, sinking ship" that's not worthwhile enough to try to change.
but clearly strawmen and outrageous caricatures are no stranger in this thread.
What should be done with Journalism in terms of its quality or slant? Why i thought it was obvious.
The problem with journalism,is that we don't have enough Investigative Journalism but opinionated journalism.
The vast majority of 'Journalists' nowadays simply use google (i remember reading news articles about this) to get their information, and their 'sources' are generally simply their established network of sympathizers in Government, So democrat-leaning journalists will probably have democrat-leaning sources etc.
Suppose a journalist grew up in or works in predominantly upper-class urban blue area's.
Don't you think a proper investigative journalist would go to poorer rural area's to understand them? after all a journalist would have a fairly intimate understanding of their own neighborhood anyway so the value would be to go to places they do not know.
As a general rule throughout history, the poor have always been neglected and forgotten. It's of great irony that our society likes to talk about the 'poor and disadvantaged' but in reality we aren't interested in listening to them.
For example, It might surprise you to know I have lived most of my adult life in these same upper-class White-Urban communities and in places where Guns were non-existent and i don't even handle guns really.
But i strongly support the 2nd Amendment, why?
I watch and talked to poor women living in poor places without the protection of police, and they always want to have access to guns.
So is taking away guns the right approach? It seems the poor and disadvantaged people in society living in dangerous neighborhoods would be...even more in danger, So who benefits? the upper-class safe societies that were...safe already?
At the very least if you want to get rid of guns, shouldn't that be one of the last initiatives after you have instituted good law and order, gotten rid of rampant drug use and crime and changed the culture to one of civility instead of violence to solve problems?
Shouldn't we make an environment where people don't need to defend themselves, before we take away their only avenue of defense?
I believe my exact words on the subject were "it's an irrelevant, sinking ship" that's not worthwhile enough to try to change.
The mass media isn't going anywhere. I don't see ANY particular multimedia conglomerates going out of business anytime soon. If anything, they're getting richer and more powerful.
Certainly not the concept of mainstream media. In Classical/Middle ages it was town criers. Then came the printing press and newspapers. Then radio stations. Then T.V. news stations. Then the internet. There's always going to be some primary means of communications that will reach more and more people.
They can be as rich and powerful as they want, their influence is declining, vast percentages of people now get their news from social media. Watching only establishment news you would have never known Trump was going to win or even had major support. It was baseless accusation after hysterical Russiaphobia after baseless accusation. Not fit for purpose if you ask me.
If you are going to criticize a certain point of view, do not invent a quote with garbled language simply to make them look childish or stupid.
I've heard too many people on other websites putting "wah wah" and other childish noises in fictional quotes to insult the opposition. I am not going to let this conversation sink to that level.
@WarChiefZeke I don't think having his former campaign manager and national security advisor both register as foreign agents and/or resign and/or ask for immunity before the 100 day mark can be dismissed as hysterical Russiaphobia...even if it doesn't ultimately amount to collusion, the idea that this is some wild-eyed conspiracy theory cooked up by the left doesn't square. Pro-Trump Russian intervention is an actual scandal with actual legs.
As for the "normalization of Trump," you're dismissing the larger point as "anti-Trump diatribes." It's not that hard to understand - what we're referring to is treating the objectively unprecedented features of this administration as if they're business as usual. You claim that the mainstream media is biased toward the left - even if that's true, their attempt to at least appear objective means treating Trump as if he's any other president rather than openly drawing attention to his glaring incoherence re: key issues, wild swings in temperament, willingness to run his businesses out of the White House while refusing to disclose his financials, etc. None of these things are remotely normal for a U.S. President and shouldn't be treated as such. The latter at least gets some press, but it's fading.
As another example, Steve Bannon as a key advisor to the president is the closest thing we've ever had to a white nationalist in the White House (at least post-reconstruction) and the press has basically stopped talking about it. That's the "normalization of Trump."
@vanatos Luckily, Democrats aren't trying to take away your guns - that argument has already been had and lost. They typically just want background checks and occasionally limits on high capacity magazines. The "take away our guns" line is a straw man built up by the NRA to keep its base reactive and afraid that any gun control legislation whatsoever will be a slippery slope toward the elimination of 2nd amendment rights. SCOTUS has already set precedent on this - any legislation to confiscate firearms would be ruled unconstitutional (after being blocked much, much sooner by a circuit court judge), so politicians would have to confirm the fears of conservative voters and face a massive backlash with literally zero legislative gains. That's not going to happen.
As to your larger point about the press (and elites generally) under-representing the needs of the poor, I largely agree with you. I just happen to think that populism is the worst possible response to that problem.
@Purudaya I would say the media's fixation on Flynn (Btw wasn't the immunity story debunked?) is lopsided since Hillary's actual head of campaign has a firm that does business and lobbies for Russian interests for the American Government but this was hardly reported.
Pro-Trump Russia scandal is hysteria, and this is particularly notable since any delving of details shows very little.
I would also disagree that the media is 'objective' in some fashion to Trump, and i would disagree the media is objective towards any particular President anyway.
In fact most of your points have precedent in virtually every President before Trump, so treating it as abnormal isn't reflective of political history and reads more like random assortment of election-era headlines.
As to Steve Bannon being a White Nationalist, interesting, Do you have evidence? From his work history it doesn't seem like it.
I remember Anderson Cooper actually refuting that.
I would say the media's fixation on Flynn (Btw wasn't the immunity story debunked?) is lopsided since Hillary's actual head of campaign has a firm that does business and lobbies for Russian interests for the American Government but this was hardly reported.
Pro-Trump Russia scandal is hysteria, and this is particularly notable since any delving of details shows very little.
I would also disagree that the media is 'objective' in some fashion to Trump, and i would disagree the media is objective towards any particular President anyway.
In fact most of your points have precedent in virtually every President before Trump, so treating it as abnormal isn't reflective of political history.
As to Steve Bannon being a White Nationalist, interesting, Do you have evidence?
I remember Anderson Cooper actually refuting that.
1. The Flynn immunity story was not debunked - I have no idea where you're getting that. His request for immunity has been thus far denied by investigators and he will be called in to testify next month.
2. Any ties that members of the HRC campaign had to Russian interests would have been an issue if the Russians were acting to influence the election in her favor. They weren't - as multiple intelligence agencies have reported, Russia acted to promote the candidacy of Donald Trump. I don't mean offense, but I've seen this argument before and I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. The party that was aided by unlawful foreign intervention is going to be the party that is scrutinized re: whether or not ties = collusion/advance knowledge.
3. I didn't say the media was objective in its coverage of Trump - I said that in an attempt to maintain the appearance of objectivity, they treat the objectively unprecedented nature of his behavior as if it were normal; focusing instead on points of public policy, ongoing investigations, etc.
The greatest nation the world has ever known just elected a reality TV game show host to be its leader - to treat that and the repercussions thereof as anything other than aberrant is what's troubling.
4. As to Anderson Cooper refuting Steve Bannon re: white nationalism, interesting. Do you have evidence?
Steve Bannon ran a website with a "black crime" section, has referenced Les Camp des Saints in describing his worldview re: mass migration, and has cited Julius Evola in public speeches. When Glenn Beck of all people compares you to Joseph Goebbels and calls you "quite possibly the most dangerous guy in all of American politics," you might have a problem.
That said, I'm not going to get into an ongoing tit-for-tat about whether or not Steve Bannon is indeed what he is. My post was about the normalization of this administration's characteristics, which brings me to my last point:
You said that "most of my points have precedent in virtually every President before Trump" (I'd be curious to hear which points don't), which is demonstrably untrue. No president has ever entered the office with zero political experience. No president since Richard Nixon has refused to disclose his tax returns, especially with an unprecedented potential for conflicts of interest at play. No president has ever spent this much time and taxpayer money on vacations at this pace. No president has ever failed to divest businesses this expansive while in office (hell, Jimmy Carter sold his damn peanut farm). No president has ever gone into office with 14 women accusing him of molesting them, something which he's bragged about doing on tape. No president has ever won an election with the aid (welcomed or not) of an intervening foreign government. No president has ever called the 4th estate at large "the enemy of the American people." No president has ever re-tweeted or otherwise positively quoted KKK members/white supremacists. All that is with me leaving out anything I thought might be construed as opinion rather than fact.
I could go on and on and you could probably find *features* of my examples in other presidents, but not to this scale/degree. If you're unable to see that many of this president's characteristics are aberrant (even if you're ok with said aberrations) then that's alright, but we're unlikely to have a productive discourse if we're not able to exist within the same basic reality.
The only thing unprecedented about this administration is the willingness of his opposition to abandon entirely the notion of the burden of proof for all of their central narratives in favor of throwing as many accusations as they can to the wall and seeing what sticks.
- Where is the evidence for this Russian conspiracy? Circumstantial cases and conspiracy mongering aren't evidence. Assuming motives also without evidence and working backward from that assumption isn't evidence. The amount spoken on this Russia collusion conspiracy could fill pages of this thread by itself, and not once to my knowledge has any person presented anything that could be interpreted as a bona fide objective piece of evidence that Russia had any involvement in any collusion or any interference or any meddling and especially and most importantly that Trump or his administration has now or has had at any time any sort of involvement. I challenge you to present me with one piece of such evidence.
- Where is the evidence that Steve Bannon is a white nationalist?
- What fundamental aspect of the Presidency has Trump violated that has been unprecedented?
1. The Flynn immunity story was not debunked - I have no idea where you're getting that. His request for immunity has been thus far denied by investigators and he will be called in to testify next month.
2. Any ties that members of the HRC campaign had to Russian interests would have been an issue if the Russians were acting to influence the election in her favor. They weren't - as multiple intelligence agencies have reported, Russia acted to promote the candidacy of Donald Trump. I don't mean offense, but I've seen this argument before and I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. The party that was aided by unlawful foreign intervention is going to be the party that is scrutinized re: whether or not ties = collusion/advance knowledge.
I don't mean offense, but i do see a disregard for HRC Campaign manager ties to Lobbying Russia for The American Government as arbitrary since your using Flynn as well.
Also Intelligence agency heads have also stated Russia did not have any involvement either. Then i could easily point to Hillary's past involvement in aiding Russian Government officials in her stint as Secretary of State as well, and not in any ethical manner.
3. I didn't say the media was objective in its coverage of Trump - I said that in an attempt to maintain the appearance of objectivity, they treat the objectively unprecedented nature of his behavior as if it were normal; focusing instead on points of public policy, ongoing investigations, etc.
The media hasn't been objective of Trump nor even maintained that appearance, in fact that has been one of the more prevalent admissions by the media itself.
The greatest nation the world has ever known just elected a reality TV game show host to be its leader - to treat that and the repercussions thereof as anything other than aberrant is what's troubling.
Strange criticism, Since Trump is a successful international real estate business-man as well. That's kind of an arbitrary ommission and forgive me to say, selective. Reagan was an actor.
Steve Bannon ran a website that used a "black crime" tag, has referenced Les Camp des Saints in describing his worldview re: mass migration, and has cited Julius Evola in public speeches. When Glenn Beck of all people compares you to Joseph Goebbels and calls you "quite possibly the most dangerous guy in all of American politics," you might have a problem.
That said, I'm not going to get into an ongoing tit-for-tat about whether or not Steve Bannon is indeed what he is. My post was about the normalization of this administration's characteristics, which brings me to my last point:
Skepticism of immigration is hardly 'white-nationalism' So your basis seems pretty flawed.
You said that "most of my points have precedent in virtually every President before Trump" (I'd be curious to hear which points don't), which is demonstrably untrue. No president has ever entered the office with zero political experience. No president since Richard Nixon has refused to disclose his tax returns, especially with an unprecedented potential for conflicts of interest at play. No president has ever spent this much time and taxpayer money on vacations at this pace. No president has ever failed to divest businesses this expansive while in office (hell, Jimmy Carter sold his damn peanut farm). No president has ever gone into office with 14 women accusing him of molesting them, something which he's bragged about doing on tape. No president has ever won an election with the aid (welcomed or not) of an intervening foreign government. No president has ever called the 4th estate at large "the enemy of the American people." No president has ever re-tweeted or otherwise positively quoted KKK members/white supremacists. All that is with me leaving out anything I thought might be construed as opinion rather than fact.
I could go on and on and you could probably find *features* of my examples in other presidents, but not to this scale/degree. If you're unable to see that many of this president's characteristics are aberrant (even if you're ok with said aberrations) then that's alright, but we're unlikely to have a productive discourse if we're not able to exist within the same basic reality.
I'm afraid you could have rebutted your own post if you simply googled some of your claims, which lets be quite honest was just an attempt to list as many attack on Trump as you Could, However I'll be courteous and address them.
Presidents Without political experience: Eisenhower. Grant. Hoover.
No president since Richard Nixon: You kind of modified your own claim here, so you rebutted yourself. Btw All Presidents by law are required to disclose comprehensive financial documents, and Trump lol did it before anyone else. Have you perhaps looked at those? I bet you haven't, Which implies this criticism comes from partisanship then genuine concern. I have btw, You can ask me.
Woman: Actually we had a discussion here before and i listed in detail the difficulties in their testimonies. Which i'm sure you won't be interested in anyway, because everyone who tried to discuss that with me didn't even want to look deeper into the claims. But i'll humor you, Bill Clinton, JFK, Bush's.
Businesses: Umm, Bush Snr, Bush.
4th Estate: Andrew Jackson. John Adams (Lol far more then anything). JFK during Cuba.
KKK: (Though to be honest your kind of reaching now with tweets). Clintons.
I only list Presidents that is popularly known, If i list Presidents that are virtually unknown, that List would be alot bigger.
- Where is the evidence for this Russian conspiracy? Circumstantial cases and conspiracy mongering aren't evidence. Assuming motives also without evidence and working backward from that assumption isn't evidence. The amount spoken on this Russia collusion conspiracy could fill pages of this thread by itself, and not once to my knowledge has any person presented anything that could be interpreted as a bona fide objective piece of evidence that Russia had any involvement in any collusion or any interference or any meddling and especially and most importantly that Trump or his administration has now or has had at any time any sort of involvement. I challenge you to present me with one piece of such evidence.
I addressed everything else in the above post, but I'll speak to this directly. Asking people to present something (conclusive evidence) which by definition can only be produced by the conclusion of an investigation is a convenient goalpost that doesn't get applied to many other political scandals. The presence of an FBI investigation (you do agree that there is an FBI investigation, right?) - combined with the circumstantial evidence that do have access to thus far - is sufficient to draw questions.
It is a fact that Russian state actors attempted to influence the 2016 election in Donald Trump's favor, at least to the degree that anything corroborated by 17 intelligence agencies is a fact. If we can agree - as, again, 17 intelligence agencies do - that Russia attempted to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump (or against HRC, however you'd like to frame it), the logical next step is to ask why on earth that would be. I personally don't think the president is disciplined enough to pull off collusion at that scale and keep it hidden for more than an hour, but I do think it's possible that he (like Roger Stone) may have been aware of upcoming leaks or other illegal activities and chose inaction. Is that criminal? Maybe not, but people deserve to know what the president knew and when he knew it.
When I talk about Russian interference in the U.S. election, I do not speak with the assumption or expectation that the Trump campaign colluded with the effort. I do point it out, though, because it's unprecedented and should worry everyone, Republican or Democrat.
anything corroborated by 17 intelligence agencies is a fact.
You probably haven't followed the thread since it is fairly heady.
But it wasn't 17, But 3, and the document (which i examined in detail in this thread for everyone) is alot less then it was made out to be, I'd be happy to repeat what i wrote before.
It's a little disconcerting seeing this incorrect and alarmist 'number' thrown around, Perhaps you can check your claims and where they come from.
You didn't address anything of mine in your above post, actually. Using a tag phrase of "black crime" in the SEO of your website isn't evidence of being a white nationalist. Not even a little bit. Being anti immigration isn't evidence of being a white nationalist, not even a little bit. You are making huge leaps in logic based upon cherry picked pieces of information.
Does Steve Bannon code his own back end of the website to begin with? Highly doubtful. Even if he did, what on earth makes you think that is definitive evidence of a white nationalist ideology?
"Asking people to present something (conclusive evidence) which by definition can only be produced by the conclusion of an investigation is a convenient goalpost"
Evidence for a claim is a convenient goalpost? I thought it was the standard barometer for virtually any claim in any debate, political or otherwise.
If no evidence exists, and can't exist pending the conclusion of the investigation, all such claims are baseless and conspiratorial in nature. Correct?
Also, the notion that other nations trying to sway U.S elections is unprecedented is simply laughable. AIPAC. All of the middle eastern countries money to the Clinton Foundation that dried up post election defeat. Again, AIPAC. This is routine.
Apparently it's not North Korea we have to worry about here in the U.S. Trump says it's the bloody Canadians. Who knew?
It's Trump thinking Canada needs the US more than they need Canada. He is being blinded by one or two industries in a hope he can strong arm Trudeau into giving him what he wants.
Small Wisconsin Dairies are against it. They do not see Canada squeezing them out, but mega corporate dairy farms over saturating the market, and want to adopt Canada's model of supply management for their side of the border. If supply management was eliminated, small dairies on both sides of the border will be squeezed out so people can save pennies while buying cheese and butter.
Soft Lumber wars are a decade too late. BC has been shipping to Asia and won't see too big of a hit from this. Small mills in Ontario and Quebec may feel the pinch, but the government will bail them out if things get dragged through the courts.
Canada also controls a good chunk of the US power supply that they get on the cheap. If Trump keeps huffing, this will be placed on the table by the Canadians. Right now though, Canada is being its polite self, listening to his concerns and will probably negociate with repersentatives who know what they are talking about in good faith on these issues.
Honestly, IMO, this is just all bluster till he hits Day 100. On day 120, this will all be forgotten as he smacks a golf ball somewhere in Florida.
Lumber trade disagreements with Canada is nothing new, at least if you've been around for awhile.
U.S. has been going back and forth since the 1980's with this, and every President has slapped tariffs and bounced around.
The reason why Trump had to deal with it is because the last trade deal expired at the end of 2015 and the Obama Administration failed to come to an agreement.
The U.S. lumber industry has been hit hard and have petitioned President's to do this since the 1980's too and Presidents always complied in a variety of ways.
Apart from the media hysteria over every little thing Trump has done, In fact pretty much every past President has done something like this.
Nope, the disagreement isn't new as this is the fifth such dispute since the 80s, with Canada pretty much winning the first four.
The one thing that is new is that Canada got its shit together and diversified their export market since the last one.
The Canadian lumber industry has not diversified its export markets in the past decade which would have helped prevent dependence on the American market. In fact, the other two large foreign markets discussed below reduced their purchases from Canada.
The Asia-Pacific region is the second-largest export market for Canadian lumber, with Japan by far the leading market in the region. Exports to Japan rose substantially until the middle of the last decade. The 1997 economic crisis in Asia caused a sharp decline in their lumber imports from Canada. Although the Asian markets have since recovered, the Canadian lumber industry has still not managed to recover a market share comparable to the previous one. Thus, while the value of exports of Canadian lumber to Japan amounted to $2.7 billion in 1995, it was less than $1.1 billion in 2006. Exports of Canadian lumber to the Asian markets amounted to $1.3 billion in 2006.
Europe is the third largest market for Canadian lumber exports, much of which goes to the United Kingdom (22%), the Netherlands (17%) and Germany (14%). However, there was a major slump in Canadian lumber exports to Europe during the last decade.
While the value of lumber exports to Europe totalled $651 million in 1995, representing 5.8% of national lumber exports, it was only $436 million in 2006, accounting for 4.6% of national exports. The cause of this decline may be the fact that several wood-producing countries that joined the European Union in the past decade have made Europe nearly self-sufficient in terms of the supply of forestry products.
Today, (or 2013) B.C. alone trades over $1.4 billion to China alone. This article even has the Premier of BC stating their dependence dropped from 82% to 59% since 2001, and with Harper signing a crap load of trade agreements during his tenor, it will continue to drop in the next couple of decades.
This is one of the reasons why a new deal hasn't been struck. The US, even though it is still Canada's #1 trading partner of soft lumber, has lost some of it's leverage. It was allegedly going well according to this Macleans article, but Trump started watching Fox News again and it all went down hill.
As I said, give it a month, everything will be forgotten and the people working in the background will hash out a deal similar to the Harper one that ended, and Trump will stand up and say "This is a great deal for America."
It's actually by International law that Trump is supposed to impose a tariff or something in similar affect Lol.
Countervailing duties (CVDs), also known as anti-subsidy duties, are trade import duties imposed under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules to neutralize the negative effects of subsidies. They are imposed after an investigation finds that a foreign country subsidizes its exports, injuring domestic producers in the importing country. According to World Trade Organization rules, a country can launch its own investigation and decide to charge extra duties, provided such additional duties are in accordance with the GATT Article VI and the GATT Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervailing_duties
So hardly the big news story it was made out to be.
1. The Flynn immunity story was not debunked - I have no idea where you're getting that. His request for immunity has been thus far denied by investigators and he will be called in to testify next month.
2. Any ties that members of the HRC campaign had to Russian interests would have been an issue if the Russians were acting to influence the election in her favor. They weren't - as multiple intelligence agencies have reported, Russia acted to promote the candidacy of Donald Trump. I don't mean offense, but I've seen this argument before and I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. The party that was aided by unlawful foreign intervention is going to be the party that is scrutinized re: whether or not ties = collusion/advance knowledge.
I don't mean offense, but i do see a disregard for HRC Campaign manager ties to Lobbying Russia for The American Government as arbitrary since your using Flynn as well.
Also Intelligence agency heads have also stated Russia did not have any involvement either. Then i could easily point to Hillary's past involvement in aiding Russian Government officials in her stint as Secretary of State as well, and not in any ethical manner.
3. I didn't say the media was objective in its coverage of Trump - I said that in an attempt to maintain the appearance of objectivity, they treat the objectively unprecedented nature of his behavior as if it were normal; focusing instead on points of public policy, ongoing investigations, etc.
The media hasn't been objective of Trump nor even maintained that appearance, in fact that has been one of the more prevalent admissions by the media itself.
The greatest nation the world has ever known just elected a reality TV game show host to be its leader - to treat that and the repercussions thereof as anything other than aberrant is what's troubling.
Strange criticism, Since Trump is a successful international real estate business-man as well. That's kind of an arbitrary ommission and forgive me to say, selective. Reagan was an actor.
Steve Bannon ran a website that used a "black crime" tag, has referenced Les Camp des Saints in describing his worldview re: mass migration, and has cited Julius Evola in public speeches. When Glenn Beck of all people compares you to Joseph Goebbels and calls you "quite possibly the most dangerous guy in all of American politics," you might have a problem.
That said, I'm not going to get into an ongoing tit-for-tat about whether or not Steve Bannon is indeed what he is. My post was about the normalization of this administration's characteristics, which brings me to my last point:
Skepticism of immigration is hardly 'white-nationalism' So your basis seems pretty flawed.
You said that "most of my points have precedent in virtually every President before Trump" (I'd be curious to hear which points don't), which is demonstrably untrue. No president has ever entered the office with zero political experience. No president since Richard Nixon has refused to disclose his tax returns, especially with an unprecedented potential for conflicts of interest at play. No president has ever spent this much time and taxpayer money on vacations at this pace. No president has ever failed to divest businesses this expansive while in office (hell, Jimmy Carter sold his damn peanut farm). No president has ever gone into office with 14 women accusing him of molesting them, something which he's bragged about doing on tape. No president has ever won an election with the aid (welcomed or not) of an intervening foreign government. No president has ever called the 4th estate at large "the enemy of the American people." No president has ever re-tweeted or otherwise positively quoted KKK members/white supremacists. All that is with me leaving out anything I thought might be construed as opinion rather than fact.
I could go on and on and you could probably find *features* of my examples in other presidents, but not to this scale/degree. If you're unable to see that many of this president's characteristics are aberrant (even if you're ok with said aberrations) then that's alright, but we're unlikely to have a productive discourse if we're not able to exist within the same basic reality.
I'm afraid you could have rebutted your own post if you simply googled some of your claims, which lets be quite honest was just an attempt to list as many attack on Trump as you Could, However I'll be courteous and address them.
Presidents Without political experience: Eisenhower. Grant. Hoover.
No president since Richard Nixon: You kind of modified your own claim here, so you rebutted yourself. Btw All Presidents by law are required to disclose comprehensive financial documents, and Trump lol did it before anyone else. Have you perhaps looked at those? I bet you haven't, Which implies this criticism comes from partisanship then genuine concern. I have btw, You can ask me.
Woman: Actually we had a discussion here before and i listed in detail the difficulties in their testimonies. Which i'm sure you won't be interested in anyway, because everyone who tried to discuss that with me didn't even want to look deeper into the claims. But i'll humor you, Bill Clinton, JFK, Bush's.
Businesses: Umm, Bush Snr, Bush.
4th Estate: Andrew Jackson. John Adams (Lol far more then anything). JFK during Cuba.
KKK: Hillary Clinton, Obama.
1. I'll assume you're taking my point about Flynn, then.
2. If we're going to play this debate-style, you failed to refute my central point: a member of your campaign having connections to Russia is problematic when Russia tries to help your campaign, not when they try to hurt it. The ties themselves aren't at issue, it's whether or not those ties and Pro-Trump Russian interference are linked.
Intelligence agency heads have absolutely not stated that Russia had no involvement. 17 intelligence agencies co-authored a report that said the opposite.
3. I never said the media was objective. We'll have to disagree about whether or not they attempt to maintain the appearance of objectivity. As for "prevalent admissions by the media," the media is not monolithic; it is comprised of thousands of individuals. No one person or agency speaks for "it," so whatever example you have in mind does not apply to the media as a whole.
4. Re: Reality TV show host vs. successful real estate mogul. Fair enough; neither qualifies you to be president.
5. Straw Man. I never said Steve Bannon was a white nationalist because of "skepticism of immigration." Please argue against my actual arguments.
6. Re: Nixon. Just because it's not required by law doesn't mean that it isn't a violation of a political norm. Donald Trump promised to release his taxes after the election and has since refused to do so.
7. Reagan was an actor, but he was also governor of California for 8 years. The others you mention had substantial military experience. So I'll amend that point to be more in line with the common criticism: no man has ever become president with zero history of public service. There you are.
Bush 1 and 2 did not have business ventures this expansive, nor conflicts of interest this pernicious. The man has literally charged the secret service alone 1.6 million dollars to his own companies in the past year.
If you can provide me with a quote where Andrew Jackson, John Adams, or JFK called the 4th estate as a whole "The Enemy of the People," I'll happily retract the contention. Similarly, please tell me when the first black president positively retweeted a KKK member/white supremacist.
RE: women accusers. It's funny how we believe the women if it's a Democrat, but not if it's a Republican. Has any prior president had 14 accusers and been caught on tape bragging about doing exactly what they're accusing him of?
For this last bit, you've kind of proven my point - while you can point to some negative features of singular past presidents (and all to a lesser or non-degree), Trump possesses ALL of these features simultaneously, which is by itself unprecedented.
We can disagree, but if you're going to cherry pick my points or build straw men that are easier to argue against, please let me know so we can both save ourselves some time.
1. I'll assume you're taking my point about Flynn, then.
If we're going to play this debate-style, you failed to refute my central point: a member of your campaign having connections to Russia is problematic when Russia tries to help your campaign, not when they try to hurt it. The ties themselves aren't at issue, it's whether or not those ties and Pro-Trump Russian interference are linked.
Thats your argument to which you disagreed with yourself per your defense of Hillary. I never supported the basis of your argument in the first place.
Trump's antagonistic position with Russia certainly doesn't help your argument either.
17 intelligence agencies co-authored a report that said the opposite.
I'm afraid your rather factually wrong here.
It was 3 agencies, and quite alot less then the hype was made out to be. Since you've demonstrated that your repeating false information, I suggest looking at the actual report because your disagreeing with it.
Also, Russian TV propaganda in Russia is considered meddling in the report.
7. Reagan was an actor, but he was also governor of California for 8 years. The others you mention had substantial military experience. So I'll amend that point to be more in line with the common criticism: no man has ever become president with zero history of public service. There you are.
Bush 1 and 2 did not have business ventures this expansive, nor conflicts of interest this pernicious. The man has literally charged the secret service alone 1.6 million dollars to his own companies in the past year.
Your kind of walking back on your claim to 'how expansive' it is, which again your free to have your own opinion on what is and isn't enough, but wasn't what you asked me to address.
If you can provide me with a quote where Andrew Jackson, John Adams, or JFK called the 4th estate as a whole "The Enemy of the People," I'll happily retract the contention. Similarly, please tell me when the first black president positively retweeted a KKK member/white supremacist.
Andrew Jackson's wife was a physically weak woman and subject to intense 'media' (or press at the time) slander and scrutiny, whom died, Andrew Jackson never forgave and blamed the press and its associated political supporters for the onslaught on her.
John Adams literally signed the Sedition Act against the Press (Washington later reversed it).
Jefferson wrote how anything in a newspaper is poison.
In modern times, Journalists have long complained that the Obama Admin is the most secretive and anti-journalistic Administrations.
Hillary named as her greatest mentor, a KKK Grand Wizard. The KKK amusingly donated to Obama.
Of course you'll object thats tenuous on Obama and i agree, But then a re-tweet is hardly a strong link either (of something that can't even be proven over an account no one can prove).
For this last bit, you've kind of proven my point - while you can point to some negative features of singular past presidents (and all to a lesser or non-degree), Trump possesses ALL of these features simultaneously, which is by itself unprecedented.
We can disagree, but if you're going to cherry pick my points or build straw men that are easier to argue against, please let me know so we can both save ourselves some time.
Lights out for me. Will check back.
No, you asked me for Presidents that had any of what you claimed that 'no past president' ever had. I addressed each point and gave you a President for them.
Trying to change the argument makes your argument seem a little baseless.
Comments
Decades of politicians and media lining up to kick Lucy's football, and nobody ever learns a thing.
That constantly lying to the public and alternative facts are okay. That the president doing all he can to profit from the office of the Presidency is normal. That repealing safety regulations is normal. That denying scientific fact is normal. That attacks against the media is normal and not beneath the office of the Presidency. That when the president speaks he sounds like a bullying child with ADHD and is an international embarrassment.
People want to move on like everything's all good. They're not. He's not normal. Things are not business as usual.
The media in the US is dedicated to the cult of savvy. That's it, and that's all.
(And it's not limited just to America, of course, as the link makes clear.)
The "liberal media" you and other conservatives assume exists would not have cheerled for the war in Iraq, and would not have called torture "enhanced interrogation" for the benefit of the Bush administration. Both of these things went sharply against grassroots left-wing opinion, as easily observable at the time. A "liberal media" wouldn't talk about how Trump was acting "presidentially" or speculate the page has turned because he gave a speech that wasn't super-offensive. Look at how actual left-wing people online talk about Trump - say jjstraka. Giving him a chance, eager to see this "pivot"? This isn't how it would work. They would be jumping to poke holes in this narrative or just ignoring it to emphasise whatever "bad" (by left-wing standards) his speech/regime was doing.
Sure, the mainstream media is closer to left-wing values than right-wing ones, because most modern media is based in cosmopolitan cities and not in highly religious rural areas, and that is a natural consequence of the environment. But that does not make it actually left-wing, any more than CEOs are left-wing just because they also tend to live in cosmopolitan cities and trend a lot closer to left-wing social views than the right as a whole does. Their actual animating ideals are quite different.
This is also extremely obvious to anyone who lives outside the US and is exposed to US media. The implicit assumptions and biases of mainstream media outlets in the US, largely invisible if that's where you live and what you've known, are very glaring. Military worship, worship of political authority (for instance, uncritically reporting anonymous reports from US intelligence services that don't even include verifiable facts), uncritical acceptance of American exceptionalism and American imperial projects, the erasure of most viewpoints that neither Republicans nor Democrats approve of, absurd "he said-she said" reporting of uncontroversially settled scientific facts, the aforementioned hostility to whistleblowers and leakers even in media outlets that directly profited from their activities, and of course the relentless hyperfocus on celebrity culture, amongst many other things.
There is no left-wing mainstream media. And to the extent that something like MSNBC, let's say, is "Democrat-aligned", it doesn't stop them from critiqueing "their side", nor does it stop them from doing any or all of the non-left-wing things above. And this is also true of Fox News. The difference between a legitimate but biased news source like Fox and something like Breitbart is night and say (this is not implying Breitbart is, itself, a proper "right-wing news source", since for starters it has no adherence to the truth whatsoever).
Mainstream media in the US is neither left nor right (and in some areas it uniformly veers left, and in some areas it uniformly veers right), and that is in fact part of the problem with it.
And second, what do you propose should be DONE about it, besides gripe about "that wascally librul media is touting their commie socialist fascist NWO anti-Murican FEMA deathcamp plans"? The acceptance of a vile and reprehensible babbler of BS as being fit for an office touted as "Leader of the Free World" and "Most Powerful Person in the World".
"what do you propose should be DONE about it, besides gripe about "that wascally librul media is touting their commie socialist fascist NWO anti-Murican FEMA deathcamp plans"?
I believe my exact words on the subject were "it's an irrelevant, sinking ship" that's not worthwhile enough to try to change.
but clearly strawmen and outrageous caricatures are no stranger in this thread.
The problem with journalism,is that we don't have enough Investigative Journalism but opinionated journalism.
The vast majority of 'Journalists' nowadays simply use google (i remember reading news articles about this) to get their information, and their 'sources' are generally simply their established network of sympathizers in Government, So democrat-leaning journalists will probably have democrat-leaning sources etc.
Suppose a journalist grew up in or works in predominantly upper-class urban blue area's.
Don't you think a proper investigative journalist would go to poorer rural area's to understand them? after all a journalist would have a fairly intimate understanding of their own neighborhood anyway so the value would be to go to places they do not know.
As a general rule throughout history, the poor have always been neglected and forgotten.
It's of great irony that our society likes to talk about the 'poor and disadvantaged' but in reality we aren't interested in listening to them.
For example, It might surprise you to know I have lived most of my adult life in these same upper-class White-Urban communities and in places where Guns were non-existent and i don't even handle guns really.
But i strongly support the 2nd Amendment, why?
I watch and talked to poor women living in poor places without the protection of police, and they always want to have access to guns.
So is taking away guns the right approach? It seems the poor and disadvantaged people in society living in dangerous neighborhoods would be...even more in danger, So who benefits? the upper-class safe societies that were...safe already?
At the very least if you want to get rid of guns, shouldn't that be one of the last initiatives after you have instituted good law and order, gotten rid of rampant drug use and crime and changed the culture to one of civility instead of violence to solve problems?
Shouldn't we make an environment where people don't need to defend themselves, before we take away their only avenue of defense?
Certainly not the concept of mainstream media. In Classical/Middle ages it was town criers. Then came the printing press and newspapers. Then radio stations. Then T.V. news stations. Then the internet. There's always going to be some primary means of communications that will reach more and more people.
I've heard too many people on other websites putting "wah wah" and other childish noises in fictional quotes to insult the opposition. I am not going to let this conversation sink to that level.
As for the "normalization of Trump," you're dismissing the larger point as "anti-Trump diatribes." It's not that hard to understand - what we're referring to is treating the objectively unprecedented features of this administration as if they're business as usual. You claim that the mainstream media is biased toward the left - even if that's true, their attempt to at least appear objective means treating Trump as if he's any other president rather than openly drawing attention to his glaring incoherence re: key issues, wild swings in temperament, willingness to run his businesses out of the White House while refusing to disclose his financials, etc. None of these things are remotely normal for a U.S. President and shouldn't be treated as such. The latter at least gets some press, but it's fading.
As another example, Steve Bannon as a key advisor to the president is the closest thing we've ever had to a white nationalist in the White House (at least post-reconstruction) and the press has basically stopped talking about it. That's the "normalization of Trump."
As to your larger point about the press (and elites generally) under-representing the needs of the poor, I largely agree with you. I just happen to think that populism is the worst possible response to that problem.
Pro-Trump Russia scandal is hysteria, and this is particularly notable since any delving of details shows very little.
I would also disagree that the media is 'objective' in some fashion to Trump, and i would disagree the media is objective towards any particular President anyway.
In fact most of your points have precedent in virtually every President before Trump, so treating it as abnormal isn't reflective of political history and reads more like random assortment of election-era headlines.
As to Steve Bannon being a White Nationalist, interesting, Do you have evidence? From his work history it doesn't seem like it.
I remember Anderson Cooper actually refuting that.
2. Any ties that members of the HRC campaign had to Russian interests would have been an issue if the Russians were acting to influence the election in her favor. They weren't - as multiple intelligence agencies have reported, Russia acted to promote the candidacy of Donald Trump. I don't mean offense, but I've seen this argument before and I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. The party that was aided by unlawful foreign intervention is going to be the party that is scrutinized re: whether or not ties = collusion/advance knowledge.
3. I didn't say the media was objective in its coverage of Trump - I said that in an attempt to maintain the appearance of objectivity, they treat the objectively unprecedented nature of his behavior as if it were normal; focusing instead on points of public policy, ongoing investigations, etc.
The greatest nation the world has ever known just elected a reality TV game show host to be its leader - to treat that and the repercussions thereof as anything other than aberrant is what's troubling.
4. As to Anderson Cooper refuting Steve Bannon re: white nationalism, interesting. Do you have evidence?
Steve Bannon ran a website with a "black crime" section, has referenced Les Camp des Saints in describing his worldview re: mass migration, and has cited Julius Evola in public speeches. When Glenn Beck of all people compares you to Joseph Goebbels and calls you "quite possibly the most dangerous guy in all of American politics," you might have a problem.
That said, I'm not going to get into an ongoing tit-for-tat about whether or not Steve Bannon is indeed what he is. My post was about the normalization of this administration's characteristics, which brings me to my last point:
You said that "most of my points have precedent in virtually every President before Trump" (I'd be curious to hear which points don't), which is demonstrably untrue. No president has ever entered the office with zero political experience. No president since Richard Nixon has refused to disclose his tax returns, especially with an unprecedented potential for conflicts of interest at play. No president has ever spent this much time and taxpayer money on vacations at this pace. No president has ever failed to divest businesses this expansive while in office (hell, Jimmy Carter sold his damn peanut farm). No president has ever gone into office with 14 women accusing him of molesting them, something which he's bragged about doing on tape. No president has ever won an election with the aid (welcomed or not) of an intervening foreign government. No president has ever called the 4th estate at large "the enemy of the American people." No president has ever re-tweeted or otherwise positively quoted KKK members/white supremacists. All that is with me leaving out anything I thought might be construed as opinion rather than fact.
I could go on and on and you could probably find *features* of my examples in other presidents, but not to this scale/degree. If you're unable to see that many of this president's characteristics are aberrant (even if you're ok with said aberrations) then that's alright, but we're unlikely to have a productive discourse if we're not able to exist within the same basic reality.
- Where is the evidence for this Russian conspiracy? Circumstantial cases and conspiracy mongering aren't evidence. Assuming motives also without evidence and working backward from that assumption isn't evidence. The amount spoken on this Russia collusion conspiracy could fill pages of this thread by itself, and not once to my knowledge has any person presented anything that could be interpreted as a bona fide objective piece of evidence that Russia had any involvement in any collusion or any interference or any meddling and especially and most importantly that Trump or his administration has now or has had at any time any sort of involvement. I challenge you to present me with one piece of such evidence.
- Where is the evidence that Steve Bannon is a white nationalist?
- What fundamental aspect of the Presidency has Trump violated that has been unprecedented?
Also Intelligence agency heads have also stated Russia did not have any involvement either.
Then i could easily point to Hillary's past involvement in aiding Russian Government officials in her stint as Secretary of State as well, and not in any ethical manner. The media hasn't been objective of Trump nor even maintained that appearance, in fact that has been one of the more prevalent admissions by the media itself. Strange criticism, Since Trump is a successful international real estate business-man as well.
That's kind of an arbitrary ommission and forgive me to say, selective.
Reagan was an actor. Skepticism of immigration is hardly 'white-nationalism' So your basis seems pretty flawed. I'm afraid you could have rebutted your own post if you simply googled some of your claims, which lets be quite honest was just an attempt to list as many attack on Trump as you Could, However I'll be courteous and address them.
Presidents Without political experience:
Eisenhower.
Grant.
Hoover.
No president since Richard Nixon:
You kind of modified your own claim here, so you rebutted yourself.
Btw All Presidents by law are required to disclose comprehensive financial documents, and Trump lol did it before anyone else.
Have you perhaps looked at those? I bet you haven't, Which implies this criticism comes from partisanship then genuine concern.
I have btw, You can ask me.
Woman:
Actually we had a discussion here before and i listed in detail the difficulties in their testimonies.
Which i'm sure you won't be interested in anyway, because everyone who tried to discuss that with me didn't even want to look deeper into the claims.
But i'll humor you, Bill Clinton, JFK, Bush's.
Businesses:
Umm, Bush Snr, Bush.
4th Estate:
Andrew Jackson.
John Adams (Lol far more then anything).
JFK during Cuba.
KKK: (Though to be honest your kind of reaching now with tweets).
Clintons.
I only list Presidents that is popularly known, If i list Presidents that are virtually unknown, that List would be alot bigger.
Gaslighting.
It is a fact that Russian state actors attempted to influence the 2016 election in Donald Trump's favor, at least to the degree that anything corroborated by 17 intelligence agencies is a fact. If we can agree - as, again, 17 intelligence agencies do - that Russia attempted to influence the election in favor of Donald Trump (or against HRC, however you'd like to frame it), the logical next step is to ask why on earth that would be. I personally don't think the president is disciplined enough to pull off collusion at that scale and keep it hidden for more than an hour, but I do think it's possible that he (like Roger Stone) may have been aware of upcoming leaks or other illegal activities and chose inaction. Is that criminal? Maybe not, but people deserve to know what the president knew and when he knew it.
When I talk about Russian interference in the U.S. election, I do not speak with the assumption or expectation that the Trump campaign colluded with the effort. I do point it out, though, because it's unprecedented and should worry everyone, Republican or Democrat.
But it wasn't 17, But 3, and the document (which i examined in detail in this thread for everyone) is alot less then it was made out to be, I'd be happy to repeat what i wrote before.
It's a little disconcerting seeing this incorrect and alarmist 'number' thrown around, Perhaps you can check your claims and where they come from.
Does Steve Bannon code his own back end of the website to begin with? Highly doubtful. Even if he did, what on earth makes you think that is definitive evidence of a white nationalist ideology?
"Asking people to present something (conclusive evidence) which by definition can only be produced by the conclusion of an investigation is a convenient goalpost"
Evidence for a claim is a convenient goalpost? I thought it was the standard barometer for virtually any claim in any debate, political or otherwise.
If no evidence exists, and can't exist pending the conclusion of the investigation, all such claims are baseless and conspiratorial in nature. Correct?
Also, the notion that other nations trying to sway U.S elections is unprecedented is simply laughable. AIPAC. All of the middle eastern countries money to the Clinton Foundation that dried up post election defeat. Again, AIPAC. This is routine.
The one thing that is new is that Canada got its shit together and diversified their export market since the last one.
Here is a study from 2006 that states:
The Asia-Pacific region is the second-largest export market for Canadian lumber, with Japan by far the leading market in the region. Exports to Japan rose substantially until the middle of the last decade. The 1997 economic crisis in Asia caused a sharp decline in their lumber imports from Canada. Although the Asian markets have since recovered, the Canadian lumber industry has still not managed to recover a market share comparable to the previous one. Thus, while the value of exports of Canadian lumber to Japan amounted to $2.7 billion in 1995, it was less than $1.1 billion in 2006. Exports of Canadian lumber to the Asian markets amounted to $1.3 billion in 2006.
Europe is the third largest market for Canadian lumber exports, much of which goes to the United Kingdom (22%), the Netherlands (17%) and Germany (14%). However, there was a major slump in Canadian lumber exports to Europe during the last decade.
While the value of lumber exports to Europe totalled $651 million in 1995, representing 5.8% of national lumber exports, it was only $436 million in 2006, accounting for 4.6% of national exports.
The cause of this decline may be the fact that several wood-producing countries that joined the European Union in the past decade have made Europe nearly self-sufficient in terms of the supply of forestry products.
Today, (or 2013) B.C. alone trades over $1.4 billion to China alone. This article even has the Premier of BC stating their dependence dropped from 82% to 59% since 2001, and with Harper signing a crap load of trade agreements during his tenor, it will continue to drop in the next couple of decades.
This is one of the reasons why a new deal hasn't been struck. The US, even though it is still Canada's #1 trading partner of soft lumber, has lost some of it's leverage. It was allegedly going well according to this Macleans article, but Trump started watching Fox News again and it all went down hill.
As I said, give it a month, everything will be forgotten and the people working in the background will hash out a deal similar to the Harper one that ended, and Trump will stand up and say "This is a great deal for America."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/25/the-republican-lawmaker-who-secretly-created-reddit-s-women-hating-red-pill.html
Was anyone surprised? Not me~!
Countervailing duties (CVDs), also known as anti-subsidy duties, are trade import duties imposed under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules to neutralize the negative effects of subsidies. They are imposed after an investigation finds that a foreign country subsidizes its exports, injuring domestic producers in the importing country. According to World Trade Organization rules, a country can launch its own investigation and decide to charge extra duties, provided such additional duties are in accordance with the GATT Article VI and the GATT Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervailing_duties
So hardly the big news story it was made out to be.
2. If we're going to play this debate-style, you failed to refute my central point: a member of your campaign having connections to Russia is problematic when Russia tries to help your campaign, not when they try to hurt it. The ties themselves aren't at issue, it's whether or not those ties and Pro-Trump Russian interference are linked.
Intelligence agency heads have absolutely not stated that Russia had no involvement. 17 intelligence agencies co-authored a report that said the opposite.
3. I never said the media was objective. We'll have to disagree about whether or not they attempt to maintain the appearance of objectivity. As for "prevalent admissions by the media," the media is not monolithic; it is comprised of thousands of individuals. No one person or agency speaks for "it," so whatever example you have in mind does not apply to the media as a whole.
4. Re: Reality TV show host vs. successful real estate mogul. Fair enough; neither qualifies you to be president.
5. Straw Man. I never said Steve Bannon was a white nationalist because of "skepticism of immigration." Please argue against my actual arguments.
6. Re: Nixon. Just because it's not required by law doesn't mean that it isn't a violation of a political norm. Donald Trump promised to release his taxes after the election and has since refused to do so.
7. Reagan was an actor, but he was also governor of California for 8 years. The others you mention had substantial military experience. So I'll amend that point to be more in line with the common criticism: no man has ever become president with zero history of public service. There you are.
Bush 1 and 2 did not have business ventures this expansive, nor conflicts of interest this pernicious. The man has literally charged the secret service alone 1.6 million dollars to his own companies in the past year.
If you can provide me with a quote where Andrew Jackson, John Adams, or JFK called the 4th estate as a whole "The Enemy of the People," I'll happily retract the contention. Similarly, please tell me when the first black president positively retweeted a KKK member/white supremacist.
RE: women accusers. It's funny how we believe the women if it's a Democrat, but not if it's a Republican. Has any prior president had 14 accusers and been caught on tape bragging about doing exactly what they're accusing him of?
For this last bit, you've kind of proven my point - while you can point to some negative features of singular past presidents (and all to a lesser or non-degree), Trump possesses ALL of these features simultaneously, which is by itself unprecedented.
We can disagree, but if you're going to cherry pick my points or build straw men that are easier to argue against, please let me know so we can both save ourselves some time.
Lights out for me. Will check back.
I never supported the basis of your argument in the first place.
Trump's antagonistic position with Russia certainly doesn't help your argument either. I'm afraid your rather factually wrong here.
It was 3 agencies, and quite alot less then the hype was made out to be.
Since you've demonstrated that your repeating false information, I suggest looking at the actual report because your disagreeing with it.
Also, Russian TV propaganda in Russia is considered meddling in the report. Trump has the qualifications as set out by the constitution, anything else is your subjective opinion to which your entitled too. Hardly a strawman when your argument rests on skepticism of immigration, Do you know what you cited? Because i do. Your claim has therefore been disproven. Your kind of walking back on your claim to 'how expansive' it is, which again your free to have your own opinion on what is and isn't enough, but wasn't what you asked me to address. Andrew Jackson's wife was a physically weak woman and subject to intense 'media' (or press at the time) slander and scrutiny, whom died, Andrew Jackson never forgave and blamed the press and its associated political supporters for the onslaught on her.
John Adams literally signed the Sedition Act against the Press (Washington later reversed it).
Jefferson wrote how anything in a newspaper is poison.
In modern times, Journalists have long complained that the Obama Admin is the most secretive and anti-journalistic Administrations.
Hillary named as her greatest mentor, a KKK Grand Wizard.
The KKK amusingly donated to Obama.
Of course you'll object thats tenuous on Obama and i agree, But then a re-tweet is hardly a strong link either (of something that can't even be proven over an account no one can prove). No, you asked me for Presidents that had any of what you claimed that 'no past president' ever had.
I addressed each point and gave you a President for them.
Trying to change the argument makes your argument seem a little baseless.