He wrote the anti-crime legislation that led to skyrocketing black incarceration rates, and bragged about it. He was picked by Obama because he had that tough on crime background, not because he's not racist. He is.Pochsy wrote:
I've heard some stupid clips from him for sure, but not that he might have dementia. Stupid in the way George W was stupid. Folksy. I think the only thing I really think about him as a person is he's likely not racist having served as VP under Obama.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics … arcerationPochsy wrote:
Did he brag about black incarcerations going up, or about passing the legislation? That's a very key difference.
Last edited by Jay (2020-06-16 18:14:01)
Last edited by Pochsy (2020-06-16 18:28:03)
I'm not a fan either. I honestly don't think Trump is a racist. I think he made an attempt, in his own way, to bridge the gap when he met with Kanye and Kim Kardashian. Perfect? Absolutely not. But calls of racism have become standard for democrats to slander their opponents. Most of the time it doesn't even mean a person is actually racist anymore, it's just a way of keeping their own in line and setting boundaries of interaction with "others".Pochsy wrote:
Both of these to me read more like moments of indelicacy, and not racism. The difference being that one is an absence of thought, while the other is a concerted thought. Similar to Trudeau in Canada wearing brown face when he was a teacher. Stupid, but not showing overt racism. The intent just doesn't seem to be there.
EDIT - I should add I'm not a fan of pointing at every person's mistakes and labeling them a racist. If we're doing that to people's life history I'm for sure getting painted as a racist myself.
Both parties do this, not just democrats. The virtue signalling is just slightly different in its formulation. Democrats use claims of racism to signal that they are not themselves racist. Republicans use claims of racism to signal that they are not hypocrites. The values of the parties determine the virtues they want to signal, but they tend to use the same tools to get the job done.Jay wrote:
But calls of racism have become standard for democrats to slander their opponents. Most of the time it doesn't even mean a person is actually racist anymore, it's just a way of keeping their own in line and setting boundaries of interaction with "others".
Last edited by Pochsy (2020-06-17 15:29:54)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 … -dictatorsSuperJail Warden wrote:
Absolutely crazyAlso she might actually be a transgender person.Donald Trump’s niece, his deceased brother’s daughter, is set to publish a tell-all book this summer that will detail “harrowing and salacious” stories about the president, according to people with knowledge of the project.
Mary Trump, 55, the daughter of Fred Trump Jr. and eldest grandchild of Fred Trump Sr., is scheduled to release Too Much And Never Enough on Aug. 11, just weeks before the Republican National Convention.
One of the most explosive revelations Mary will detail in the book, according to people familiar with the matter, is how she played a critical role helping The New York Times print startling revelations about Trump’s taxes, including how he was involved in “fraudulent” tax schemes and had received more than $400 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire.
As she is set to outline in her book, Mary was a primary source for the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation, supplying Fred Trump Sr.’s tax returns and other highly confidential family financial documentation to the paper.
the republicans really are going all the way down with this ship, aren't they?In his memoir, due to be published later this month, Bolton reports that Trump pleaded with China’s President Xi Jinping to help him get re-elected by buying more US agricultural products, according to accounts of his forthcoming memoir.
In his pursuit of a good personal relationship with Xi, Trump is described as brushing aside human rights issues, even providing encouragement to the communist leader to continue to build concentration camps for China’s Muslim Uighur population.
[...]
“At the opening dinner of the Osaka G20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang,” Bolton writes, according to an excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal.
“According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The National Security Council’s top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.”
Trump also refused to issue a statement commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
“That was 15 years ago,” he told Bolton (it was the 30th anniversary). “Who cares about it? I’m trying to make a deal. I don’t want anything,” Trump said, according to Bolton’s account.
[...]
Bolton’s book quotes Trump as saying that invading Venezuela would be “cool” and that it was “really part of the United States.” He recounts a meeting in New Jersey last summer at which Trump railed against journalists, declaring: “These people should be executed. They are scumbags”.
The former national security adviser also confirms what Korea experts long suspected – that the summit diplomacy with North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, was intended as spectacle. Trump appeared unconcerned with the whole subject of denuclearisation.
“Trump told … me he was prepared to sign a substance-free communique, have his press conference to declare victory, and then get out of town,” Bolton wrote. The president, however, became obsessed in the following months with getting his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to deliver an autographed CD of Elton John’s Rocket Man to Kim, to make light of the epithet Trump had formerly used on the North Korean leader.
[...]
Bolton’s book also goes through a litany of what Trump does not know about the world – that Britain had nuclear weapons of its own, for example, or that Finland was not part of Russia.
In a conversation with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, the president kept confusing the current and former presidents of Afghanistan.
Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-06-18 02:53:16)
Last edited by uziq (2020-06-18 03:17:06)
Bolton is a gigantic piece of shit that should've never been allowed within 10,000 miles of power. He was a piece of shit neo-con under Bush, and he was a piece of shit neo-con under Trump. Hiring him was one of the most foul things that Trump has done under his presidency. Seeing the democrats giving him so much attention because he's a temporary ally is gross. Bolton and his ilk should be banished from the public eye forever.Dilbert_X wrote:
No doubt its true but coming from Bolton it doesn't matter.
If Trump were still letting Bolton enact his vicious neo-con plan for the world Bolton would be licking his boots and singing Trump's praises as the greatest, most honest and most deserving President in the history of Uhmuhrica.
You do know that neo-cons are essentially just neo-liberals hawks, right? They have roughly the same economic goals, one side just believes in military interventionism in order to preserve the status quo globally. Stability is good for business.Dilbert_X wrote:
Fake news doesn't stick.
Who'd have known Bolton was really a liberal all this time?
No, Mattis is a good man. Mattis takes issue with things like using the military as a prop, and with using the military outside of its intended mission. Using soldiers to police cities was, and is, a terrible idea. Mattis believes in the dignity of the military and knows that if it is turned into a political tool, with one side waving the flag and using marching troops as a backdrop, the military itself will lose. It will be put in the cross hairs like everything else that has been politicized. Better to leave the military in the background and out of politics so it can perform its job in peace.uziq wrote:
and mattis is a bitch?
Last edited by Jay (2020-06-18 04:07:04)
No, not really. Internationally, yes. Internally, no. Our military has done a rather fantastic job throughout its history of staying far in the background and being rather invisible within society. Soldiers aren't even allowed to wear their uniforms off post unless on official business.Larssen wrote:
Depoliticising the military seems rather impossible considering it is inherently a political tool
Last edited by Jay (2020-06-18 06:10:34)
Well, in their defense they know they don't even have to try with their base.White House response wrote:
"Mattis’ small words pale in comparison to @POTUS’ strong action."
