The people that Trump said were very fine people were chanting "jews will not replace us" and other neo-nazi type stuff.
Why don't you believe what you've seen with your own eyes? Why's there got to be something underneath that makes what he says "ok". There's not. He isn't a normal person. He lies about everything. He spins everything. I don't get how people intentionally "fix" the things he says to not be bad. They're bad. He said these things. He means what he says. Why pretend otherwise?
The night before the murder they SURROUNDED a fully occupied church holding an interfaith prayer service while holding lit torches. What part of that correlates into being upset about the removal of a statue of the biggest traitor in American history??
If it isn't Iran, it'll be Venezuela because socialism never works but then he turns around and demands socialism in the form of tens of billions of dollars for farmers affected by his actions, his trade war.
Republicans be like:
Of note: neither Iran or Venezuela is a threat to US.
Neither country is going to invade America ever. Iran was honoring the nuclear deal according to inspectors - Trump broke the deal illegally. No wonder North Korea doesn't believe us when we're trying to get the same exact type of deal with them that the Trump administration just broke with Iran.
If it isn't Iran, it'll be Venezuela because socialism never works but then he turns around and demands socialism in the form of tens of billions of dollars for farmers affected by his actions, his trade war.
Republicans be like:
Of note: neither Iran or Venezuela is a threat to US.
Neither country is going to invade America ever. Iran was honoring the nuclear deal according to inspectors - Trump broke the deal illegally. No wonder North Korea doesn't believe us when we're trying to get the same exact type of deal with them that the Trump administration just broke with Iran.
To be fair, annoyed as I am about it, it wasn't illegal for Trump to pull out of the Iran deal.
If it isn't Iran, it'll be Venezuela because socialism never works but then he turns around and demands socialism in the form of tens of billions of dollars for farmers affected by his actions, his trade war.
Republicans be like:
Of note: neither Iran or Venezuela is a threat to US.
Neither country is going to invade America ever. Iran was honoring the nuclear deal according to inspectors - Trump broke the deal illegally. No wonder North Korea doesn't believe us when we're trying to get the same exact type of deal with them that the Trump administration just broke with Iran.
To be fair, annoyed as I am about it, it wasn't illegal for Trump to pull out of the Iran deal.
STUPID, and SHORT-SIGHTED, but not illegal.
"President Donald Trump's decision to leave a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran may be a violation of international law that alienates the U.S. from a global community seeking to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons, according to some experts."
If it isn't Iran, it'll be Venezuela because socialism never works but then he turns around and demands socialism in the form of tens of billions of dollars for farmers affected by his actions, his trade war.
Republicans be like:
Of note: neither Iran or Venezuela is a threat to US.
Neither country is going to invade America ever. Iran was honoring the nuclear deal according to inspectors - Trump broke the deal illegally. No wonder North Korea doesn't believe us when we're trying to get the same exact type of deal with them that the Trump administration just broke with Iran.
To be fair, annoyed as I am about it, it wasn't illegal for Trump to pull out of the Iran deal.
STUPID, and SHORT-SIGHTED, but not illegal.
"President Donald Trump's decision to leave a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran may be a violation of international law that alienates the U.S. from a global community seeking to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons, according to some experts."
The problem is, it wasn't a treaty. It's a political agreement. There was nothing binding to prevent a withdrawal from a country aside from Iran itself who was bound by it.
Insanity follows. As part of the terms of the agreement, the UN cancels sanctions on Iran. The U.S. cancels its sanctions. All nations are allowed to trade with Iran and the signatories (The E.U., Germany, and the five permanent UN councilmembers) are allowed to inspect shipping they have reason to believe violates the agreement.
We pulled out. Then we reinstated U.S. specific sanctions. But per the agreement, only the majority consensus of the signatories can reinstate the UN sanctions. They have not done so.
And now the U.S. is threatening pretty much everyone in the world to not trade with Iran. It's causing chaos. It's making the U.S. look irrational. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the UN were to attempt to sanction the U.S. at this point, if not for the U.S. position on the security council who would veto it obviously.
If it isn't Iran, it'll be Venezuela because socialism never works but then he turns around and demands socialism in the form of tens of billions of dollars for farmers affected by his actions, his trade war.
Republicans be like:
Of note: neither Iran or Venezuela is a threat to US.
Neither country is going to invade America ever. Iran was honoring the nuclear deal according to inspectors - Trump broke the deal illegally. No wonder North Korea doesn't believe us when we're trying to get the same exact type of deal with them that the Trump administration just broke with Iran.
To be fair, annoyed as I am about it, it wasn't illegal for Trump to pull out of the Iran deal.
STUPID, and SHORT-SIGHTED, but not illegal.
"President Donald Trump's decision to leave a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran may be a violation of international law that alienates the U.S. from a global community seeking to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons, according to some experts."
The problem is, it wasn't a treaty. It's a political agreement. There was nothing binding to prevent a withdrawal from a country aside from Iran itself who was bound by it.
Insanity follows. As part of the terms of the agreement, the UN cancels sanctions on Iran. The U.S. cancels its sanctions. All nations are allowed to trade with Iran and the signatories (The E.U., Germany, and the five permanent UN councilmembers) are allowed to inspect shipping they have reason to believe violates the agreement.
We pulled out. Then we reinstated U.S. specific sanctions. But per the agreement, only the majority consensus of the signatories can reinstate the UN sanctions. They have not done so.
And now the U.S. is threatening pretty much everyone in the world to not trade with Iran. It's causing chaos. It's making the U.S. look irrational. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the UN were to attempt to sanction the U.S. at this point, if not for the U.S. position on the security council who would veto it obviously.
I agree that there was no problem in domestic US law with cancelling the agreement, but there are definitely questions about international law. Support for the agreement was mandated by UN Security Council resolution 2231, which the US is now of course flagrantly breaking.
I remember posting a long time ago about the potential long-term consequences for US trade of the EU setting up an alternative settlement system for international trade. Thus far the EU has soft-pedalled that system in order to avoid any real conflict with the US, but things are rapidly coming to a point where they can't do that any more. The agreement with Iran requires other signatories to do certain things to encourage trade. Either the EU (and other signatories) take greater measures to meet their commitments - irrespective of the views of the US - or they need to accept that the agreement has failed and Iran will have to take alternative steps to try and secure their position. Neither route is attractive, but one of them needs to be followed.
Even a few years ago it would have seemed very unlikely that the EU would consider going against such a strongly held position by the US. However, the diplomatic clout of the US has been seriously weakened by their more isolationist stance and use of diplomatic blackmail over a whole range of issues (moves on UN, climate change, NATO, WTO, tariffs and Israel all immediately come to mind as well as Iran). Some EU members, like Germany, have been advocating a policy of just waiting in the hope they can muddle through until the US administration changes and things go back to 'normal'. However, that's no longer looking like a viable option, so the possibility of a major diplomatic split from the US will definitely be being discussed at the moment.
So I *dont* want to reignite the abortion debate here, necessarily - but the Alabama State Senate just passed a law that will penalize any abortion (except in the case of danger to the mother's health) by sentencing the doctors that perform said abortion to 99 years in prison.
While the so called "heartbeat bills" attempt to prevent abortion after 6 weeks, the Alabama bill takes this a step forward (according to it's chief proponent in the Senate) and prohibits abortion as soon as it is medically possible to determine the pregnancy exists (7 to 10 days - I dont know if that's even technically true. The guy in question doesnt seem to have a firm grasp on this).
An amendment to allow abortions in the case of "rape and incest" was rejected.
So I *dont* want to reignite the abortion debate here, necessarily - but the Alabama State Senate just passed a law that will penalize any abortion (except in the case of danger to the mother's health) by sentencing the doctors that perform said abortion to 99 years in prison.
While the so called "heartbeat bills" attempt to prevent abortion after 6 weeks, the Alabama bill takes this a step forward (according to it's chief proponent in the Senate) and prohibits abortion as soon as it is medically possible to determine the pregnancy exists (7 to 10 days - I dont know if that's even technically true. The guy in question doesnt seem to have a firm grasp on this).
An amendment to allow abortions in the case of "rape and incest" was rejected.
The penalty for not carrying a rapist's baby to term, based on this bill, is now equal to or greater than the actual rape itself. Which totally encapsulates just how little this country gives a fuck about women.
I noted that the bill only makes abortion illegal when the woman is known to be pregnant. It also specifies that the woman herself is not liable even if an abortion would otherwise be illegal. I imagine the combination of those, if this provision does eventually take legal effect, would lead to a demand for drugs that could be used for abortion and be self-administered - although that's likely to be more dangerous for the woman of course.
During the debate in the Senate the bill's sponsor emphasized the point about knowing for certain a pregnancy exists and suggested this provides a window of opportunity to have an abortion for those potential parents that want to do that. This seems an odd argument to me. If a woman is not known to be pregnant I would not expect physicians to provide abortion treatment under general ethical guidelines - but if they do determine whether a pregnancy exists such treatment immediately becomes a criminal offense. That leaves the remaining loophole of drugs provided by non-doctors, but such substances would probably either be illegal under general drug supply laws (if aimed specifically at abortion), or dangerous if being used for a purpose they were not designed for.
I noted that the bill only makes abortion illegal when the woman is known to be pregnant. It also specifies that the woman herself is not liable even if an abortion would otherwise be illegal. I imagine the combination of those, if this provision does eventually take legal effect, would lead to a demand for drugs that could be used for abortion and be self-administered - although that's likely to be more dangerous for the woman of course.
During the debate in the Senate the bill's sponsor emphasized the point about knowing for certain a pregnancy exists and suggested this provides a window of opportunity to have an abortion for those potential parents that want to do that. This seems an odd argument to me. If a woman is not known to be pregnant I would not expect physicians to provide abortion treatment under general ethical guidelines - but if they do determine whether a pregnancy exists such treatment immediately becomes a criminal offense. That leaves the remaining loophole of drugs provided by non-doctors, but such substances would probably either be illegal under general drug supply laws (if aimed specifically at abortion), or dangerous if being used for a purpose they were not designed for.
ALL of these bills are blatantly, flagrantly unconstitutional (as of now). Passing laws like the ones in Georgia and Alabama aren't any different at this point than passing a law that says certain people are no longer allowed to vote or if they just decided they were going to get rid of trial by jury, or outlaw newspapers.
The site staff have noted some recent posts which have been disrespectful of other forumites. As a reminder, the rules for this thread and the wider forum prohibit personal attacks. The thread is there to exchange views & opinions, and constructive criticism of posted arguments is very much part of that process. However, criticism of other posters is not.
A non-disclosure agreement that they don't want him to name the counties?? When did non-disclosure agreements become a thing in GOVERNMENT?? Why can't we know what counties?? What else don't we know??
ALL of these bills are blatantly, flagrantly unconstitutional (as of now).
Which clause of the Constitution do these laws violate?
The violate existing *Federal* law, to be certain, but Federal law is not the same as "constitutional".
Oh, and Broward County was one of the counties in Florida in the breach. Hillary won that county, so were Russians merely testing their ability to access information or did they help her win the county?
I have debated with myself a lot about coming back here. Doing so is probably a bad decision on my part, thus I will probably regret it and likely change my mind and disappear again. For now, though, I will proceed cautiously but I am still leaning heavily toward "this was a bad idea, Mathy".
A non-disclosure agreement that they don't want him to name the counties?? When did non-disclosure agreements become a thing in GOVERNMENT?? Why can't we know what counties?? What else don't we know??
Because people jump to conclusions.
You also don’t know:
What exactly was accessed? Names? Addresses? Or just the voter roll?
Was anything changed? Could anything be changed?
Can this action be detected in the upcoming election?
Was this done anywhere else in the country? If not why Florida (besides the obvious reason of it being known to be a shit show come election time).
ALL of these bills are blatantly, flagrantly unconstitutional (as of now).
I have debated with myself a lot about coming back here. Doing so is probably a bad decision on my part, thus I will probably regret it and likely change my mind and disappear again. For now, though, I will proceed cautiously but I am still leaning heavily toward "this was a bad idea, Mathy".
I'll bet you were lurking though...
Nice to hear from you again, even if it's just a one-shot!
Oh, and Broward County was one of the counties in Florida in the breach. Hillary won that county, so were Russians merely testing their ability to access information or did they help her win the county?
Hillary might have won the state if Russians forced an undercount in Broward county or artificially pumped up Trump's number just enough.
If you recall, all the intelligence services say that Trump was Putin's preferred candidate, not Hillary so those scenarios make much more sense.
Actually, no I haven't been...until today. Like I said, we'll see how this goes. I will simply have to choose carefully which topics to address and to which comments to reply.
Which clause of the Constitution do these laws violate?
The violate existing *Federal* law, to be certain, but Federal law is not the same as "constitutional".
This is a good distinction however Roe has been ruled Constitutional by the Supreme Court.
Indeed. Existing Federal law is constitutional by virtue of the fact that it does not violate the Constitution; however, violating a Federal law does not violate the Constitution--"wire fraud" is a Federal offense but not "unconstitutional". "Heartbeat" laws, which violate Roe v Wade, will wind up in Federal Courts as a "States Rights versus Federal Law" type of case--Roe v Wade does not prevent States from passing laws which violate its protections. This is same logic by which gun control advocates can eventually gain some ground--the Constitution does not prevent State legislatures from enacting gun control laws, that restriction being on Congress only.
Unless I am misunderstanding your argument, RvW cites a clause in the 14th amendment as extending to a woman"s right to choose and receive an abortion (with a variety of stipulations). So any law that is passed which contradicts that ruling will be seen as unconstitutional infringement upon that woman"s legal protections under the 14th amendment. (I am careful to use the term ruling here, as that ruling is what is underpinned in any argument for or against abortion law).
The various stipulations are where things get sticky, but the Alabama State Law would almost certainly be overturned as unconstitutional, unless the Supreme Court overturns RvW in its ruling.
56% of Americans say that Arabic numerals shouldn't be taught in schools.
53% (73% of Democrats) say that the “creation theory of Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre” shouldn't be taught in schools.
These are, of course, the numbers we use every day and the Big Bang theory respectively.
According to the CEO of the survey company, the purpose was to tease out prejudice among those who don't understand the question.
I have a question about British politics. Mind indulging me?
I read recently that the British European Parliamentary Elections are going to be held soon (very soon. Next week, I think?). I read that the general front runner for winning is actually the Brexit Party (as lead by Nigel Farage, formerly of UKIP).
Any insight as to why that is? I ask because it seems like there's a small drift in general opinion polls away from Brexit and towards Remain. I understand that on some level, this is probably because of the nature of a multi-party parliamentary democracy system, but it still seems interesting to me that this is one of very, very few opportunities for voters to cast a vote that tangentially signals their position on Brexit. I would have expected Remain to try to muscle ahead.
My other thought is that there might just be an absolute ton of dissatisfaction with the two major parties (Conservative and Labour) right now, and that this is voters kind of rejecting their combined handling of Brexit.
Looking at opinion polling, it seems like the Conservatives are taking the biggest losses here (Which makes a sort of sense, since I guess the majority of the defecting voters to Brexit Party are from the Conservatives?).
Comments
Why don't you believe what you've seen with your own eyes? Why's there got to be something underneath that makes what he says "ok". There's not. He isn't a normal person. He lies about everything. He spins everything. I don't get how people intentionally "fix" the things he says to not be bad. They're bad. He said these things. He means what he says. Why pretend otherwise?
Simple google search finds a video here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally
He also called mexican rapists (except for some good people).
He also said he grabbed women by the genitalia, he doesn't even wait. That's sexual assault.
And a million other things. Why pretend this guy is anything other than he shows himself to be?
No, he said "And some, I assume, are good people". I have the speech MEMORIZED in my brain, both audio and visually. I saw it the day it happened.
As in, he isn't sure there are ANY good Mexican immigrants.
I'm curious what you mean by this. I know you believe that most of the press is unacceptably biased, but do you think they aren't free?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/world/middleeast/us-military-plans-iran.html
If it isn't Iran, it'll be Venezuela because socialism never works but then he turns around and demands socialism in the form of tens of billions of dollars for farmers affected by his actions, his trade war.
Republicans be like:
Of note: neither Iran or Venezuela is a threat to US.
Neither country is going to invade America ever. Iran was honoring the nuclear deal according to inspectors - Trump broke the deal illegally. No wonder North Korea doesn't believe us when we're trying to get the same exact type of deal with them that the Trump administration just broke with Iran.
To be fair, annoyed as I am about it, it wasn't illegal for Trump to pull out of the Iran deal.
STUPID, and SHORT-SIGHTED, but not illegal.
"President Donald Trump's decision to leave a multilateral nuclear agreement with Iran may be a violation of international law that alienates the U.S. from a global community seeking to combat the proliferation of nuclear weapons, according to some experts."
https://www.newsweek.com/did-trump-break-law-us-leaves-iran-deal-violates-world-order-risks-war-916173
The problem is, it wasn't a treaty. It's a political agreement. There was nothing binding to prevent a withdrawal from a country aside from Iran itself who was bound by it.
Insanity follows. As part of the terms of the agreement, the UN cancels sanctions on Iran. The U.S. cancels its sanctions. All nations are allowed to trade with Iran and the signatories (The E.U., Germany, and the five permanent UN councilmembers) are allowed to inspect shipping they have reason to believe violates the agreement.
We pulled out. Then we reinstated U.S. specific sanctions. But per the agreement, only the majority consensus of the signatories can reinstate the UN sanctions. They have not done so.
And now the U.S. is threatening pretty much everyone in the world to not trade with Iran. It's causing chaos. It's making the U.S. look irrational. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the UN were to attempt to sanction the U.S. at this point, if not for the U.S. position on the security council who would veto it obviously.
I agree that there was no problem in domestic US law with cancelling the agreement, but there are definitely questions about international law. Support for the agreement was mandated by UN Security Council resolution 2231, which the US is now of course flagrantly breaking.
I remember posting a long time ago about the potential long-term consequences for US trade of the EU setting up an alternative settlement system for international trade. Thus far the EU has soft-pedalled that system in order to avoid any real conflict with the US, but things are rapidly coming to a point where they can't do that any more. The agreement with Iran requires other signatories to do certain things to encourage trade. Either the EU (and other signatories) take greater measures to meet their commitments - irrespective of the views of the US - or they need to accept that the agreement has failed and Iran will have to take alternative steps to try and secure their position. Neither route is attractive, but one of them needs to be followed.
Even a few years ago it would have seemed very unlikely that the EU would consider going against such a strongly held position by the US. However, the diplomatic clout of the US has been seriously weakened by their more isolationist stance and use of diplomatic blackmail over a whole range of issues (moves on UN, climate change, NATO, WTO, tariffs and Israel all immediately come to mind as well as Iran). Some EU members, like Germany, have been advocating a policy of just waiting in the hope they can muddle through until the US administration changes and things go back to 'normal'. However, that's no longer looking like a viable option, so the possibility of a major diplomatic split from the US will definitely be being discussed at the moment.
While the so called "heartbeat bills" attempt to prevent abortion after 6 weeks, the Alabama bill takes this a step forward (according to it's chief proponent in the Senate) and prohibits abortion as soon as it is medically possible to determine the pregnancy exists (7 to 10 days - I dont know if that's even technically true. The guy in question doesnt seem to have a firm grasp on this).
An amendment to allow abortions in the case of "rape and incest" was rejected.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/14/politics/alabama-senate-abortion/index.html
My reaction? Yiiiiikes.
The penalty for not carrying a rapist's baby to term, based on this bill, is now equal to or greater than the actual rape itself. Which totally encapsulates just how little this country gives a fuck about women.
I noted that the bill only makes abortion illegal when the woman is known to be pregnant. It also specifies that the woman herself is not liable even if an abortion would otherwise be illegal. I imagine the combination of those, if this provision does eventually take legal effect, would lead to a demand for drugs that could be used for abortion and be self-administered - although that's likely to be more dangerous for the woman of course.
During the debate in the Senate the bill's sponsor emphasized the point about knowing for certain a pregnancy exists and suggested this provides a window of opportunity to have an abortion for those potential parents that want to do that. This seems an odd argument to me. If a woman is not known to be pregnant I would not expect physicians to provide abortion treatment under general ethical guidelines - but if they do determine whether a pregnancy exists such treatment immediately becomes a criminal offense. That leaves the remaining loophole of drugs provided by non-doctors, but such substances would probably either be illegal under general drug supply laws (if aimed specifically at abortion), or dangerous if being used for a purpose they were not designed for.
ALL of these bills are blatantly, flagrantly unconstitutional (as of now). Passing laws like the ones in Georgia and Alabama aren't any different at this point than passing a law that says certain people are no longer allowed to vote or if they just decided they were going to get rid of trial by jury, or outlaw newspapers.
"Forward", more like ten thousand steps back into the dark ages. Sigh..
A non-disclosure agreement that they don't want him to name the counties?? When did non-disclosure agreements become a thing in GOVERNMENT?? Why can't we know what counties?? What else don't we know??
Which clause of the Constitution do these laws violate?
The violate existing *Federal* law, to be certain, but Federal law is not the same as "constitutional".
Oh, and Broward County was one of the counties in Florida in the breach. Hillary won that county, so were Russians merely testing their ability to access information or did they help her win the county?
I have debated with myself a lot about coming back here. Doing so is probably a bad decision on my part, thus I will probably regret it and likely change my mind and disappear again. For now, though, I will proceed cautiously but I am still leaning heavily toward "this was a bad idea, Mathy".
Because people jump to conclusions.
You also don’t know:
What exactly was accessed? Names? Addresses? Or just the voter roll?
Was anything changed? Could anything be changed?
Can this action be detected in the upcoming election?
Was this done anywhere else in the country? If not why Florida (besides the obvious reason of it being known to be a shit show come election time).
I'll bet you were lurking though...
Nice to hear from you again, even if it's just a one-shot!
This is a good distinction however Roe has been ruled Constitutional by the Supreme Court.
Hillary might have won the state if Russians forced an undercount in Broward county or artificially pumped up Trump's number just enough.
If you recall, all the intelligence services say that Trump was Putin's preferred candidate, not Hillary so those scenarios make much more sense.
Trump only won the state by 112,911 votes.
Actually, no I haven't been...until today. Like I said, we'll see how this goes. I will simply have to choose carefully which topics to address and to which comments to reply.
Indeed. Existing Federal law is constitutional by virtue of the fact that it does not violate the Constitution; however, violating a Federal law does not violate the Constitution--"wire fraud" is a Federal offense but not "unconstitutional". "Heartbeat" laws, which violate Roe v Wade, will wind up in Federal Courts as a "States Rights versus Federal Law" type of case--Roe v Wade does not prevent States from passing laws which violate its protections. This is same logic by which gun control advocates can eventually gain some ground--the Constitution does not prevent State legislatures from enacting gun control laws, that restriction being on Congress only.
The various stipulations are where things get sticky, but the Alabama State Law would almost certainly be overturned as unconstitutional, unless the Supreme Court overturns RvW in its ruling.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/teaching-arabic-numerals/
56% of Americans say that Arabic numerals shouldn't be taught in schools.
53% (73% of Democrats) say that the “creation theory of Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre” shouldn't be taught in schools.
These are, of course, the numbers we use every day and the Big Bang theory respectively.
According to the CEO of the survey company, the purpose was to tease out prejudice among those who don't understand the question.
The majority of people don't understand questions which are posed to them.
Obstruction
Projection
I have a question about British politics. Mind indulging me?
I read recently that the British European Parliamentary Elections are going to be held soon (very soon. Next week, I think?). I read that the general front runner for winning is actually the Brexit Party (as lead by Nigel Farage, formerly of UKIP).
Any insight as to why that is? I ask because it seems like there's a small drift in general opinion polls away from Brexit and towards Remain. I understand that on some level, this is probably because of the nature of a multi-party parliamentary democracy system, but it still seems interesting to me that this is one of very, very few opportunities for voters to cast a vote that tangentially signals their position on Brexit. I would have expected Remain to try to muscle ahead.
My other thought is that there might just be an absolute ton of dissatisfaction with the two major parties (Conservative and Labour) right now, and that this is voters kind of rejecting their combined handling of Brexit.
Looking at opinion polling, it seems like the Conservatives are taking the biggest losses here (Which makes a sort of sense, since I guess the majority of the defecting voters to Brexit Party are from the Conservatives?).
Any thoughts so to why this may be?