The US Hamster Wheel

[500N]

I will say one thing for Obama, much as I dislike him. He's a gentleman, and I cannot in all honesty say that of Trump.

I still think he may prove to be a better President than most people fear.

I don't think anyone disputes the first part.

Also agree the second part. I think he may well turn out better than people think,
he has certainly lowered expectations so the only way is up !!!

I just hope he listens to some wise people in Washington.

[Airborne Aircrew]

I just hope he listens to some wise people in Washington.

He's employed a lot of them in the last few weeks...

[500N]

Check out the violence at the protests.

95 or so arrested, protestors running around smashing windows.

[Dirk]

Actually the Electoral College was specifically placed by our prescient forefathers, who knew full well that Russia would one day try to drive the result their way by electronic sabotage. Having 50 separate elections makes that task much more difficult.

I suspect you are talking utter bollox, but just to be sure, can you please tell me who the prescient forefathers you speak of actually were and what knowledge of Russia they had that lead to their super-human future predicting abilities?
No worries if you can't answer as I suspect you are just full of piss and wind, but thanks in advance, if you do actually mange a coherant response.

[IJ Reilly]

Dirk, I thought ya'll did irony?

[obgraham]

Cape, Obama may have a kindly demeanor, but so does the guy who stabs you in the back as you turn away.

And there's plenty who he's stabbed.

[Airborne Aircrew]

Actually the Electoral College was specifically placed by our prescient forefathers, who knew full well that Russia would one day try to drive the result their way by electronic sabotage. Having 50 separate elections makes that task much more difficult.

I suspect you are talking utter bollox, but just to be sure, can you please tell me who the prescient forefathers you speak of actually were and what knowledge of Russia they had that lead to their super-human future predicting abilities?
No worries if you can't answer as I suspect you are just full of piss and wind, but thanks in advance, if you do actually mange a coherant response.

I'm quoting that so Dirk can't go back and delete it or change it... Not that I don't trust you Dirk...

Your best bet at this point is to claim an overindulgence of el vino collapso...

This is a perfect example of giving a Liberal enough rope that he will tie a perfect noose, wear it and jump from something higher than the rope is long.

[obgraham]

Dirk, if you would just close that big pie-hole in your avatar long enough to think before posting, your life would be a lot less stressful!

[500N]

Chuks mates on the rampage. Talk about sore losers.

Glad to see the police didn't stuff around. Even used stun grenades!

Inauguration protesters vandalize, set fires, try to disrupt Trump’s oath, as police arrest 200

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/pr ... 9a50742b8f

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/u ... tests.html


Note Chuks, I used the Washington Post and NYTIMES
Just for you

[Slasher]

Dirk's...avatar? I thought it was his actual photo!

[Airborne Aircrew]

Slasher:

Even after his totally stupid outburst even Dirk can't look that stupid... Can he?

[Slasher]

When his old photo had him sitting on steps looking all Freddie Murcuryial I didn't take much notice. He actually looked fit.

I thought Trump's inaug speech would go into more specifics other than just general words to satisfy the Bible Belt, blacks, Detroit, present immigrants, anti-democracy demonstrators and the unemployed (i.e. those who do want to work). Saying some nice words of course about OBummer and wife was to be expected, but as a non-politician (in mindset) he should be careful stating promises like "wiping radical islamic terror off the face of the Earth". This is what a typical politician would say and I don't believe 'the Donald' has become a typical one. At least not yet.

Pretty ordinary speech I felt, but at least it's not gonna rattle the markets too much at opening bell on Monday, although I reckon the Renminbi (Yuan) will be headed South again.

However, what his speech I think WILL do is put the fear of christ up the asses of the high priests of climate change, Brussels, China, welfare bums who refuse to work, head honchos of gay/lesbian rights groups, and a few others traveling on similar gravy trains that have long needed derailment.

[SOPS]

So the poor Leftie snowflakes don't like it...so they smash and burn things. Pathetic really, should go into the hurt corners and hug a teddy.

[500N]

Can't do that, they would call it victimisation and bullying, singling someone out. Lol

But I agree re cutting off the gravy train.
It happened here a few years ago, the lefties did not like it at all, especially the refugee advocates who no longer had the govt paying for endless appeals.

[Chuks]

500N, surely you don't expect me to believe the lying MSM, do you? Why bother telling us what they have to say about events in Washington? Were you there? Did you see what happened yourself, or are you just repeating what the MSM has to say?

Yeah, I believe that there was some rioting, having seen that shot of a limousine on fire, and clouds of teargas in the downtown air, but do you believe it too, since that's MSM reporting?

If it's now okay to believe the press Trump has denounced so often for lying, are you ready to believe most of what the MSM has to tell us about current events? That's fine with me, but how about you? Please do not tell me that you want to pick and choose what to believe, just as Donald Trump does.

[SOPS]

What happened to all the money that crazy Green women got to recount votes. Did she pay it back, or is she on a long holiday somewhere?

[ExSp33db1rd]

And there, dear simpleton, lies the genius of the Electoral College placed there precisely to prevent a state such as California from denying the will of the remaining stateAs.

How does this differ from other Countries, say the UK ? In the UK 3 small constituencies of, say a total of 1 million people, might elect 3 individual Labour M.P.s whereas an adjacent constituency of, say, 4 million people, would only get to elect 1 Conservative M.P. Apply this to the whole of the UK, and more Labour M.P.s might get elected from a smaller number of voters than a slightly lower number of Conservative M.P.s elected by considerably more people, but the majority of Labour M.P.s would form the Govt in this example ?

NZ has gone over to a form of Proportional Representation, I get two votes, one to vote for the local Joe Bloggs, 'cos he is a friend of mine and will work for my interests in the town, and a second vote for the "Looney" party 'cos I really like them and hope they form the government. It doesn't work properly, either, but it is a step in the right direction in trying to establish a government that represents the right percentage of M.P.s relative to the various percentages of party supporters.

Democracy is the worst form of Gov't. but it is better than any of the alternatives ( or words to that effect - W.S.C.)

[Chuks]

One problem with our Electoral College is that, by definition, it is the winner by that system who should then lead the move to change or do away with it. It's like needing to rein in the lobbyists who supply a lot of money to parties and their politicians, when they then do not want to rein in the lobbyists for rather obvious reasons. Self-interest versus the national interest.

Our Founding Fathers, some of them, saw this problem coming, worrying about how our system might become corrupt. One important preventive measure is the Foreign Emoluments Clause, when it's damned near impossible to see how President Trump should be able to avoid violating that. Basically, any foreigner who participates in some deal with the Trump Organization or even merely stays in a Trump hotel, such as that one smack in the middle of D.C., is thereby putting money in the pocket of President Trump. A foreigner doing that, and Trump accepting that foreign money, form fairly clear violations of that clause, meant as it is to avoid foreign influence on our president by benefiting him in some way.

What Trump now proposes, putting his Trump Organization in the hands of his two older sons and calling that a "blind trust," is nonsense, as many people have told him. It should either be a real blind trust or else selling off his bogus empire, but a sale would probably show everyone just how little all this Trump-branded stuff is really worth, even more so than letting us see those tax returns would.

I think that Trump will end up getting himself into serious trouble avoiding doing what he really must do, creating a strong parallel to the way that Nixon dragged himself over the cliff edge fighting off the truth of Watergate. When we saw that sloppy pile of manila folders next to Trump, who did not remember Nixon doing that feeble dog-and-pony show with a great stack of transcripts of his tapes behind him, what he wanted to hand over in place of the tapes themselves? Trump's folders, lacking titles as they did, were obvious fakes, just as it turned out that many of Nixon's binders held just one or two pages of transcripts, transcripts that later turned out have transcribed "We could do that thing," as "We could do that thing, but it would be wrong," for instance.

Another oddity is that the president is legally obliged to accept his salary; he can not, as Trump proposes to do, serve for no salary. It's a mere $400 thousand per year, chicken feed for the Donald, but he's still obliged to take it ... and to pay tax on it, perhaps. (That one we shall have to guess at.)

I think that Trump is just going to keep piling up trouble for himself with his base and his Party, until he shall be called to account. Then he shall decide, noble soul that he is, to resign for the sake of the nation, that big Sikorsky lifting off from behind the White House after another big victory wave from another disgraced president pretending to be, as always, a winner.

[Slasher]

Another oddity is that the president is legally obliged to accept his salary; he can not, as Trump proposes to do, serve for no salary.

You're dead right Chuks! Did a little digging on that and it goes back to George Washington's day when the Framers sorted out this "free service" issue. There's more to it of course but unnecessary to go through it all here.

Up till now I thought since he's rich enough why not? Besides it may work out as a tax advantage of sorts to him somehow.

So...Trump has to accept not just $1 pa that he now proposes, but the other 399,999 as basic salary, and agree now with the reasons he has to pocket it. What he does with it is his own business. All to charity or pissup bills whatever.

Like I said Chuks you do give food for thought sometimes and once more I learned something new. There are moments when some of your statements, though they be things I really don't want to hear or even be be aware of, are nonetheless inescapable whether I like it or not, and require research and investigation if one wants to continually ensure one does not become a victim of convenient thinking.

The Foreign Emoluments Clause I'll save till tomorrow.

[Chuks]

That Clause is a show-stopper.

What might happen is that Trump becomes a liability to the Republican Party while also losing the support of his base, due to the base finally understanding that all those promises he made, such as building that "beautiful wall" and locking up "Crooked Hillary," were not meant to be kept, that they were just stupid stuff Trump said in order to win votes from stupid people. (Trump once spoke so: "How stupid are the people of Iowa?" Later he won Iowa! From the horse's mouth .... )

This erosion of the Trump presidency will take a while, of course, assuming it ever happens. (Have a look at how Watergate played out for Nixon, that slow loss of support to begin with, but then a sudden loss of support in Congress that led to his resignation.)

Once Trump is left isolated and vulnerable then there might be a Republican/Democratic coalition formed that will go along with impeaching Trump for violations of that Clause, because that is relatively easy to prove, provided that there's a consensus formed that accepts the proof. (Again, it was pretty clear what Nixon had got up to, but to begin with many legislators did not want to accept the obvious truth of that, sticking to party lines as loyal Republicans. Once they were ready to accept the truth though, Nixon was doomed.)

The thing is that Trump has been very free with the insults and the ridicule of a lot of people he needs; he's dumped on people all his life so why stop now? Right now they are taking his abuse, because they have to; he's the newly-elected Republican President, and he's done nothing wrong ... as President. What a lot of baggage he has brought with him, though!

Up until now Trump has lived in this weird bubble. He's rich, or he pretends to be so even when he's not, and he has been surrounded by hirelings and toadies because of that. (As Trump himself said, he can even grab women by the pussy, when they put up with that. Normally you get your face slapped for doing that, at least!)

Even when he was broke his creditors left him to do his "rich bastard" act because that way they lost less money. Washington, D.C., the world of national politics, a world completely foreign to Trump, does not operate that way. It does a little bit, but once there's blood in the water those inside the Beltway sharks are going to eat Donald up. All those people he has dumped on are not going to be throwing him lifelines then.

Part of my interest in this is that I moved to D.C. just as the Watergate hearings got under way, when I was glued to the TV every night watching this despicable man Richard Nixon finally get what he had coming to him, from the time he first won elective office by smearing Helen Gahagan Douglas as a fellow traveler, and then saved himself with that contemptible "Checkers speech." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqjwBDH-vhY (Warning! Highly emetic content!)

I spent six years in the Washington area, always keeping up with political events, often being amazed at what those bastards could get away with while the good guys often were thrown overboard. Back then, into the end of the 70's, nobody ever imagined anybody like Donald Trump getting into the White House. Bill Clinton came close, but not very close, and George W. Bush came closer, but still not very close.