A new US Republican thread 2016

[jacobolus]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

After the election, the Trump transition team began the long, arduous process of putting together the presidential budget. As is always the case, it worked with the (non-political) career staffers at the Council of Economic Advisers.

Normally this process starts by asking the CEA staff to estimate baseline economic growth under current policies. These professionals then build on this baseline to forecast how the president’s proposals will affect the overall economy, as well as budget deficits.

The end results are often more optimistic than what independent forecasters predict — the White House is factoring in new policies it believes are pro-growth, after all — but not wildly so. The numbers still need to be credible.

Like I said, that’s how things normally work. Not this time around.

As the Wall Street Journal first reported (and as I’ve independently confirmed through my own sources), the Trump transition team instead ordered CEA staffers to predict sustained economic growth of 3 to 3.5 percent. The staffers were then directed to backfill all the other numbers in their models to produce these growth rates.

Set aside for a moment the sheer intellectual dishonesty of this approach. Let me first offer context for how nutty such a forecast would be.

Inflation-adjusted economic growth over the past decade has been under 2 percent. And independent projections for the coming decade are equally lackluster, thanks in part to population aging. The Federal Reserve, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and private forecasters predict about 1.8 to 1.9 percent annual growth.

In other words, based on nothing but expediency, the Trump team prophesies growth that’s more than a full percentage point higher than almost anyone else expects.

Even conservative economists who believe that a tax-cutting, deregulatory agenda will unleash pent-up growth must find Trump’s forecasts-by-fiat hard to swallow.

[vivalarevolución]

Considering the recent happenings with expert troll Milo Yiannopoulos, it appears that the current bottom bar in the political landscape of America is pedophilic comments. At least it's good to know that we still have a bar. But I am probably making a false assumption, because Milo is only a political media figure, not an actual politician. Politicians say similarly dumb stuff all the time and get to keep their jobs.

[jacobolus]

Grabbing strangers pussies, and trying to force yourself on non-consenting women while your pregnant wife rests upstairs = A-OK.

Priests having sex with 14-year-olds = okay for some (e.g. the donald trump reddit community 002 was linking to on the previous page), but too much for CPAC.

I’m glad we cleared that up.

[vivalarevolución]

Grabbing strangers pussies, and trying to force yourself on non-consenting women while your pregnant wife rests upstairs = A-OK.

Priests having sex with 14-year-olds = okay for some (e.g. the donald trump reddit community 002 likes to link to), but too much for CPAC.

I’m glad we cleared that up.

Don't forget too much for Breitbart and Simon & Schuster as well!

Milo will probably end up in the administration, though, as social media messaging director or something like that. Why not, at this point. Seems appropriate.

[jacobolus]

Trump: The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

Spicer: [...] he has deep respect for the First Amendment, for the role of the press. I’ve addressed this multiple times in the past. He has a healthy respect for the press.

[jacobolus]

Apparently pro-diversity posters are now anathema to Republican school administrators in Maryland, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sch ... 84faa21446

Can’t let a little tolerance intrude on their safe space for racism.

[002]

Trump confirmed as time travelling warlock who accidentally revealed the future?

[Findecanor]

Not "riots" - one small riot in a poor neighbourhood, instigated by a criminal youth gang after one of their members had been arrested. The police was unable to quench it because they were unprepared - because this does not happen very often over here.

[seebart]

4MljWBv.png (853.57 KiB) Viewed 4634 times

[002]

Not "riots"

Hmm must be fake news then I guess? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... -comments/

[vivalarevolución]

4MljWBv.png

Excuse me, but where is Denmark in this depiction of Scandinavia? The Danes must feel left out of this wonderful graphic.

[webwit]

Denmark is not even a real country. It's a fake country. It's true.

[vivalarevolución]

Denmark is not even a real country. It's a fake country. It's true.

And 65% of Americans nod their head in agreement or don't even know that Denmark is a country. Because the only country that matters in this world is the USA. We thank Canada for the hockey, Mexico for the workers and cheap food, both of those countries for the oil, and China for the cheap stuff. The rest of the countries, our borders are now closed.

[fohat]

It's like this:

[vivalarevolución]

It's like this:

I'm trying to figure out who are the evil doers to the southeast of China. And are TVs still made in Japan? I doubt it.

[002]

I think it's supposed to be North Korea?

[vivalarevolución]

I think it's supposed to be North Korea?

Good point, that is an accurate perception of where most Americans think North Korea is located.

[002]

Lol yeah -- probably the same for most Aussies TBH. Love the fact that South Korea is not even mentioned.
What would they be known for? Exploding phones and KIAs?

[jacobolus]

The president is basically a child. His staff have to carefully control what he gets to see and make sure enough of it is flattering so he won’t throw a tantrum.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/t ... fer-235263

During another damage-control mission, when former Miss Universe Alicia Machado took to the airwaves to call out Trump for calling her "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping," the communications team scrambled to place a story in conservative-friendly outlets like Fox News, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller and Breitbart.

A former senior campaign official said Nunberg and his successor, former communications director Jason Miller, were particularly skilled at using alternative media like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, Infowars and the Daily Caller to show Trump positive coverage.

And once they got the stories published, campaign officials with large numbers of Twitter followers would tweet them out.

They would also go to media amplifiers like Fox News hosts and conservative columnists to encourage them to tweet out the story so that they could print out and show a two-page list of tweets that showed that they were steering the message. While Trump still couldn't contain his Twitter-rage with Machado, and ended up tweeting about a mystery sex-tape of the Hillary Clinton surrogate, aides say they dialed back even more posts.

"He saw there was activity, so he didn't feel like he had to respond," the former campaign official said. "He sends out these tweets when he feels like people aren't responding enough for him."

[...] Leaving him alone for several hours can prove damaging, because he consumes too much television and gripes to people outside the White House.

[jacobolus]

Turns out, as the proportion of old white men and Republicans continues to drop, California is doing better than ever. Economic growth and low unemployment, dramatic crime drop, better consumer protections, stronger environmental controls, healthier diets, etc. LA is even trying to improve public transit these days.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la ... story.html

Before the early 1990s, California had one of the country’s highest rates of violent death. It has since fallen by 18%, and did so as the average rate of violent death across the rest of the country rose 16%. Overall, Californians are 30% less likely to die a violent death today than other Americans.

In fact, compared with averages in all other states, California now has 33% fewer gun killings, 10% fewer murders overall, and 30% fewer illicit-drug deaths. When overdoses from illicit drugs rose 160% in the rest of the country, between 1999 and 2015, they rose only 27% in California.

The murder rates in the state’s largest cities — all of which are “sanctuary” jurisdictions and therefore, by Trump’s logic, the most dangerous — have plummeted by 74%, and are now well below those of large cities elsewhere in the country, new FBI figures show. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, the murder rates are half that of Topeka, Kan. The murder rate in Oakland, another sanctuary city, is lower than in Tulsa, Okla.

Come on out. The weather better, the people are nicer, smarter, funnier, and better looking. The Democrats have supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature.

If we could only fix state property tax policy (proposition 13), do a bit better job encouraging denser city planning with enough housing to meet demand from all the people who want to live here, and figure out some kind of single-payer healthcare system, and put some money back into the school system pulled out by past GOP governors, we could be as nice as the nice parts of Europe, instead of the anarchic shithole the rest of the country is turning into under Koch brothers and radical evangelical Christian leadership.

[jacobolus]

Apparently Trump is going to start deporting military spouses and parents,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/opin ... rants.html

[Findecanor]

Trump later tweeted what he was talking about about Sweden last weekend. Apparently he had seen a segment on "Fox News" where a "documentary film-maker" was interviewed about a film he had made .. and interpreted that as current events.

That film has been discussed in Swedish media a bit these past days. Apparently, the film is fake news.
Both local photographers that had been hired and people that had been interviewed have stated that the filmmaker had in the final product edited in different questions to the answers they had given and edited out anything they had said that contradicted the filmmaker's agenda.

Excuse me, but where is Denmark in this depiction of Scandinavia? The Danes must feel left out of this wonderful graphic.

Eh. That picture shows not Scandinavia but the current borders of Sweden and Finland. Finland is not considered part of Scandinavia.

BTW. Finland was once part of Sweden - until 1810 when it was lost in war to Russia. (a huge blow to the country which led to the Swedish royal dynasty being ousted and replaced with the one we have now) Finland was bigger at the time. It gained independence during the Russian Revolution at the end of WWI but lost some territory to the Soviet Union in the Continuation War during and after WWII.

[jacobolus]

Wow. Montana GOP starts freaking out about potential vote-by-mail elections, because it might increase turnout, and more people voting means the Republicans lose.

http://newstalkkgvo.com/files/2017/02/E ... TO-GOP.pdf

Emergency Chairman’s Report on the Long term negative impact on the Montana Republican Party and Republican candidates due to Mail Ballot Elections

[...]I know that my position will not be popular with many fiscally conservative Republican County Commissioners or the sponsor of House Bill. They may be well intended, but this bill could be the death of our effort to make Montana a reliably Republican state. It is my job to remind us all of the long term strategic advantage that passage of this bill would provide to our Democrat opponents for control of our legislature and our statewide elected positions.

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ne ... 139e1.html

[seebart]

4MljWBv.png

Excuse me, but where is Denmark in this depiction of Scandinavia? The Danes must feel left out of this wonderful graphic.

The Danes should be happy not to even get mentioned in this context! Turns out Denmark made some pretty smart decisions regarding the European Union a long time ago. They may be a small country but they are doing well compared to others.

[jacobolus]

If anyone wants a better understanding of Comey’s epic fuckup:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/ ... tor-letter

[vivalarevolución]

Excuse me, but where is Denmark in this depiction of Scandinavia? The Danes must feel left out of this wonderful graphic.

Eh. That picture shows not Scandinavia but the current borders of Sweden and Finland. Finland is not considered part of Scandinavia.

BTW. Finland was once part of Sweden - until 1810 when it was lost in war to Russia. (a huge blow to the country which led to the Swedish royal dynasty being ousted and replaced with the one we have now) Finland was bigger at the time. It gained independence during the Russian Revolution at the end of WWI but lost some territory to the Soviet Union in the Continuation War during and after WWII.

To be completely honest, I had to look up exactly which countries constitutes Scandinavia, because I was not sure. It appears that Finland is a "provisional" member, at best. And I am embarrassed that I did not notice the omission of Normay in the graphic. It appears I am no better than my fellow countrymen that I deride. Ugh!

4MljWBv.png

Excuse me, but where is Denmark in this depiction of Scandinavia? The Danes must feel left out of this wonderful graphic.

The Danes should be happy not to even get mentioned in this context! Turns out Denmark made some pretty smart decisions regarding the European Union a long time ago. They may be a small country but they are doing well compared to others.

I did meet a couple young Danes during my travels and they claimed that after school graduation, many Danes just do whatever for a year or two. These two chose to travel the spectacular western landscapes of the USA for a few months.

But it's not all wine and roses for the Danes. This was a fun article (with a link at the top to another fun article with responses from the nations of topic): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ ... way-sweden

EDIT: the follow-up article is so funny it deserves its own link:. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ ... way-sweden

[seebart]

To be completely honest, I had to look up exactly which countries constitutes Scandinavia, because I was not sure. It appears that Finland is a "provisional" member, at best. And I am embarrassed that I did not notice the omission of Normay in the graphic. It appears I am no better than my fellow countrymen that I deride. Ugh!

Smaller countries are tougher to spot on the map!

[pixelheresy]

Trump confirmed as time travelling warlock who accidentally revealed the future?

"Riot" is a stretch. I live a few km from Rinkeby. It's is often referred to as "Little Mogadishu" due to more recent waves of immigration, but generally speaking, Rinkeby and Tensta are not bad neighborhoods by US standards [fyi, American, living in Sweden]. It's blue collar and off the main rail/subway lines so the real estate is less desirable. Generally, not a bad area, unless you are racist, of course.

According the local news, it was a half-dozen youths setting fire to shit and throwing things at the cops. They were summarily rounded up. Tensta, Rinkeby, and other Stockholm suburbs had riots years ago (due to a Rodney King-level "incident" of police abuse), but generally speaking, having lived in Dorchester, MA, it's tame.

[vivalarevolución]

Trump confirmed as time travelling warlock who accidentally revealed the future?

"Riot" is a stretch. I live a few km from Rinkeby. It's is often referred to as "Little Mogadishu" due to more recent waves of immigration, but generally speaking, Rinkeby and Tensta are not bad neighborhoods by US standards [fyi, American, living in Sweden]. It's blue collar and off the main rail/subway lines so the real estate is less desirable. Generally, not a bad area, unless you are racist, of course.

According the local news, it was a half-dozen youths setting fire to shit and throwing things at the cops. They were summarily rounded up. Tensta, Rinkeby, and other Stockholm suburbs had riots years ago (due to a Rodney King-level "incident" of police abuse), but generally speaking, having lived in Dorchester, MA, it's tame.

Seems like the only news we get about Europe over here is when something goes awry. In the case of Sweden recently, it happens to whenever an immigrant or refugee commits some sort of notable crime, such as recording rape on video or some property destruction by a small group of individuals. All of a sudden, everybody seems to be an expert on the downfall of Sweden. So basically the only news we get about Europe these days is that its downfall is imminent, its absolute chaos, and one of the main causes is immigrants and refugees. This adds to the anti-immigrant fervor currently on the rise in the States. Wonderful.

Just from looking at statistics, much of Europe seems tame compared to the criminal activity that goes on in the most violent pockets of the USA. Personally, I take all these reports about the downfall of Europe due to an influx of immigration with a BIG grain of salt. The greatest long-term issues seem to be stagnant economies that have trouble creating decent jobs for young people and the rise of extremist right wing parties. An entire generation of unemployed or underemployed does not bode well for the future. Oh yea, and who knows what will happen if the EU continues to break apart. But immigration is always in the pot simmering on the back burner when we need something quick and easy to blame.

I'm just commenting from afar with my limited knowledge of far away places and long-term geopolitical and economic trends, so what do I know, really.

[002]

What is the story behind so many grenade attacks in Malmö? Where are people getting the grenades from? NVM -- Balkans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_g ... _in_Sweden