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Author | Topic: The Trump Presidency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18298 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Stop and Think. You have told us that Evangelical Christianity is the greatest threat to world peace. Much of Trumps base is evangelical. They see prosperity and an affluent lifestyle as a God-given right...an inalienable right! They do not trust any foreign interests who compete to take a larger share at our expense. If their money gets taken away or devalued, I know in my heart that they will lobby for a military response in order to secure our interests and prosperity. You may rightly claim that we will fail. To them, we would be failing anyway. A desperate man will do desperate things for survival. The Democrats better have a solution that guarantees affordable health care and retirement to those who worked for it. Otherwise, we will take the world down with us.
Personally, I would not advocate such a solution...but I am wise enough to know that it wont be easily stopped. Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. ~RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.? R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2
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quote: Which shows that they aren’t very Christian.
quote: But it isn’t foreign interests. The deficit is rising because Trump cut government income by giving tax cuts to the rich, but didn’t make corresponding cuts in spending. I can’t see Evangelical Christians turning on the rich, even if it means poverty (no matter how badly the rich act).
quote: That’s socialism!
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Congratulations to President Trump for ordering the successful raid that resulted in the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, extremist leader of Islamic State, dies at 48
It is important to keep in mind that this is not the end of ISIS. Very few times in world history has killing a political movement's leader killed the movement itself. President Trump's speech announcing the successful operation was by far the most bellicose ever uttered by an American president: Transcript of Trump’s Remarks on the Death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Sample excerpts:
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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How much credit does Trump think he deserves for the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? Not much, apparently. Here are Trump's tweets after Obama ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden:
--Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 415 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Phat writes: The Democrats better have a solution that guarantees affordable health care and retirement to those who worked for it. Too funny. Sorry Charlie but that's simply another silly thing to say or think. It will require Democrats and Republicans and Independents to get anything done. Neither group can do it alone. Remember, we set up our government in a way that attempts to prevent one party from having enough power to simply mandate things. All a single party can do on it's own is to possibly stop stuff from being done. But reality really doesn't much care what either party does.
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9142 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.3
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donnie betrayed the kurds and has total betrayed our national interests. He wants to take credit for something he almost totally screwed up. He deserves no praise only condemnation. I am not sure how our military is functioning effectively, but as they are, it is a huge compliment to the strength, professionalism and effectiveness of our military that they are.
quote:Military officials admit Trump almost ruined the Al-Baghdadi raid - Alternet.org Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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ICANT Member Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.6 |
Hi Taq
Taq writes: That is definitely not the problem. It is Hillary's and many of her supporters problem. Maybe it is not a problem with you.
Taq writes: There are times when doing the right thing requires sacrifice I was a staunch democrat until the early ninties and I realized the party had left my views that I supported. So I left the party. Can you imagine what might happen if the upcoming election is like the one in the impeachment of Clinton during his presidency. What if the democrats lose the majorty in the House and the republicans gain a super majority in the Senate? I would not like to see such an occurrence as it could lead to devastating results. If the house were to recommend impeaching Trump today the Senate would never convict him (that takes 67 votes) so why waste the time and run the risk of losing the majority in the house? God Bless "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
If the house were to recommend impeaching Trump today the Senate would never convict him (that takes 67 votes) so why waste the time and run the risk of losing the majority in the house? Because it is the right thing to do, and because it is their job. It only takes 10 "turncoats" and there are rumored 20 republicans that are undecided. If the house were NOT to recommend impeaching Trump today, whatever the Senate would decide, why would anyone vote ever again?
I was a staunch democrat until the early ninties and I realized the party had left my views that I supported. So I left the party. If today's republican party fits your views, you were never a democrat. Enjoyby our ability to understand RebelAmericanZenDeist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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JonF Member (Idle past 189 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
Pelosi announces vote on moving impeachment proceedings to the public phase
quote:
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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JonF writes: Pelosi announces vote on moving impeachment proceedings to the public phase Republicans are about to become the dog that catches the car.
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Taq Member Posts: 10038 Joined: Member Rating: 5.3 |
ICANT writes: Can you imagine what might happen if the upcoming election is like the one in the impeachment of Clinton during his presidency. What if the democrats lose the majorty in the House and the republicans gain a super majority in the Senate? I would not like to see such an occurrence as it could lead to devastating results. Again, there are times when you need to put country before party. This is one of those times. When a US President openly abuses his office and threatens national security in the name of his own personal goals then he must be held accountable, especially when that same US President demonstrates that he doesn't understand why those things are wrong. In fact, Trump knows so little about morality and ethics that he committed the same crime right in front of the camera when he asked China to investigate his political rivals. Someone has to be the adult in the room, and it appears to be the Democrats at the moment.
If the house were to recommend impeaching Trump today the Senate would never convict him (that takes 67 votes) so why waste the time and run the risk of losing the majority in the house? Because it is the right thing to do.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5948 Joined: Member Rating: 5.5
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Someone has to be the adult in the room, and it appears to be the Democrats at the moment. Part of the dysfunctionality of the White House is that all competent people (AKA "the adults in the room") have been driven out, leaving the most incompetent president surrounded by an incompetent staff, AKA "The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight". One item of evidence of this situation is their attempt to cover Trump's signature phone call to the Ukraine by releasing their documentation on what was said in that conversation which demonstrates that Trump did indeed do what the whistle blower had reported. Not only that, but then after days of the WH and Republicans constantly denying that there had been any quid pro quo in that conversation, Mick Mulvaney freely admitted in a press conference that that had been quid pro quo and insisted that it was normal so get over it, people (he later went back out and back-pedaled, but the cat was already out of the bag). When I was in the war (USAF-speak for when I was on active duty in the Air Force, whether there was an actual war going on or not, though I did serve in the Cold War), a running joke went something like: "What is the difference between the Air Force and the Boy Scouts? The Boy Scouts have adult supervision." The Trump Administration has no adult supervision.
ICANT writes:
Because it is the right thing to do. If the house were to recommend impeaching Trump today the Senate would never convict him (that takes 67 votes) so why waste the time and run the risk of losing the majority in the house? To correct a detail that ICANT got wrong:
The House does not recommend impeachment, it does impeachment! Impeachment is like an indictment, not a conviction! When the House does impeach the President, then it goes to the Senate who must conduct a trial to decide whether to convict, which would result in removal. In this entire process, it is the House that impeaches and the Senate that tries and removes. Historically, Andrew Johnson was impeached, but not convicted and hence not removed from office. Bill Clinton was impeached, but not convicted and hence not removed from office. Regardless of those historical outcomes, they were both impeached. First, the dangers of not impeaching are far greater than of impeaching. Trump's offenses are so many and so wide-spread and so egregious and so unconstitutional that, if we were to not impeach him, then that would send a clear signal to all future presidents that they could do whatever they want to do and never have to be held in account for any of their actions. We cannot allow that to happen, so we must impeach Trump in order to set the example for future presidents that they will still be subject to oversight. Second, the Clinton impeachment was different from the current situation, so the outcome need not be the same. Basically, the Clinton impeachment was a true witchhunt in which Ken Starr tried desperately to find something, anything, to use against President Clinton but couldn't (NOTE: this is where that Whitewater conspiracy theory came from). But then Starr's assistant, Brett Cavanaugh, suggested using Clinton's affairs and even himself wrote the highly detailed and salacious questions to pose to Clinton virtually guaranteeing a perjury charge. OK, that was one telling of the tale that I heard, but still almost all that the Clinton impeachment was based on was a charge of perjury. Those fairly flimsy grounds for impeachment were not enough to get the public behind what the Republicans were doing, which is why they suffered such defeats in the polls afterwards. That was the lessons learned, which many feel may apply now, but do they? The situation is very much different now, in that there is no actual witch hunt (in which no witches are actually found -- must work better when spoken aloud). Trying to find something, anything, as an excuse to unseat a president is entirely different from dealing with a president whose abuse of power and actions endanger the very security and existence of our country. The provisions for impeachment were clearly placed into the Constitution of the United States of America for the latter reason, not for the former. It has been stated repeatedly that conviction of a crime is a judicial act, whereas impeachment and removal is a political act. That latter term has been strongly tainted by partisan politics. It doesn't mean an action of one political party against another, but rather that it is a process within the machinery of government by which someone acting against his oath of office and against the public trust placed in him may be removed from office. That is why I had tried to explain to Faithless in my Message 3210 what impeachable offenses, violations of the law, and crimes against humanity are -- typically and sadly far too predictably, she completely misconstrued everything, typical of creationists! So since impeachment is fundamentally a political process, the public, who are being represented after all, need to know what's going on. For impeachment and removal to work, the public needs to be behind it. For that, they need to know what the president had done and why it's a bad thing. In the case of Nixon, who was never impeached only because he had resigned first, which speaks to how damning the evidence and public opinion was against him that would force him to decide to resign. It was his actions (eg, the Saturday Night Massacre) and the testimony and the tapes that turned public opinion so much against him that even his own party had to urge him to resign instead of dragging it out. Public opinion mattered! In the Clinton impeachment, the public was not behind it. As a result, the GOP took massive hits in the next election. Those lessons learned must be analyzed to extract the actual lessons learned. On the surface (which is what ICANT is reading), the lesson is that if you impeach a president then you will suffer defeat in the next elections. But that is only true when your impeachment does not enjoy popular support (part of which depends on whether your actions had any merit to begin with). The GOP suffered in the next elections because they did not have strong public support, nor did their grounds for impeachment have any merit which soured the public against GOP candidates even more. So then the actual lessons learned from the Clinton impeachment was that you need to get public support for the impeachment. Trump's multitude of violations have been plainly evident to any thinking person, but most of the public doesn't have that much time to stop and think, being far too busy trying to work and make ends meet (something endangered by the GOP, but they don't have the time nor leisure to think about it). A great many have become frustrated with Pelosi's apparent inaction against Trump's multitude of impeachable violations (my best friend for example, so I've had to suffer through her rants against Pelosi's reticence on the subject of impeachment), but she is a politician and she knows how to do the calculus. You need the numbers and you need the commitment behind those numbers. And you need the public support (lessons learned from the Clinton impeachment). And now that is all finally starting to come together. Part of the problem with gaining public support for anything is akin to a quote attributed to Mark Twain: "If you make people think that you've made them think, then they will love you. But if you actually make people think then they will hate you." We've been going through the inquiry state gathering evidence and testimony. Now about mid-November we will enter the public hearing phase in which the public starts to be educated in what's been going on and what the evidence is. So far, the evidence has been so overwhelmingly damning that no congressional Republican has been able to even begin to offer any defense of Trump based on the evidence, despite Trump's insistence that they do so. How can you possibly defend the indefensible? (mind you, I am not a lawyer) Even if the Senate decides not to remove Trump for cause, a small portion of his many crimes will have been presented to the public. That should result in a rejection of both Trump and of the senators who had voted to not remove him. In this calculus, I do not see the Democrats losing. Earlier this month at a free-thinker/skeptic/atheist breakfast, somebody pointed something out. According to the Constitution of the United States of America (sorry, but I have sworn THE OATH at least seven times, if not more), in Article One, Section 3, Clause 6: Trial of Impeachment (emphasis added): quote: Members present. Republican senators who know that Trump should be removed from office but who cannot afford to take that position and remain in office could opt to call in sick on the day of the vote. When police go on strike by calling in sick, it's called the "blue flu". Maybe we could call this the "red flu." Edited by dwise1, : Typo: "Then police go on strike" should be "When police go on strike"
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8
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dwise1 writes: Maybe we could call this the "red flu." How about the orange flu? --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22480 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
The amount of detail Trump included in his description of Baghdadi's last moments defies belief, and it turns out Trump's own staff doesn't believe it either: Trump Officials Had No Clue Where He Got ‘Whimpering’ Detail in His Baghdadi Raid Account.
The video feed Trump watched had no audio, and he'd had no known contact with those conducting the raid. The article describes the officials as confused and trying to think of scenarios where Trump might have gained such information, but they're avoiding the obvious answer: Trump made it up, just like he makes everything up. He's a successful television personality, and much of what he does is based on how he thinks it will look in the media. He just couldn't help himself describing Baghdadi as cowering and whimpering like a dog, specifically, "whimpering and crying and screaming all the way...He died like a dog. He died like a coward." The Daily Beast relates two Trump officials describing how this is just the way Trump is, what he likes to do, truth be damned:
quote: What's most sad is the gullibility of Trump supporters. Trump said it, they believe it, and you can't talk them out of it. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Typo.
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ICANT Member Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.6
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Hi RAZD
RAZD writes: If the house were NOT to recommend impeaching Trump today, whatever the Senate would decide, why would anyone vote ever again? Because there is a presidential election in 369 days.The people voted Trump in and they can vote him out, if they want him out. RAZD writes: If today's republican party fits your views, you were never a democrat. There are a lot of old democrats that would disagree with you. I did not leave the beliefs I had in the 50's, and the 60'. The democratic party left their core beliefs they held back then. I find some republicans just as revolting as the democrats. But this president has done more for the poor man than any president in my lifetime. God Bless "John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
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