Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Zan15]

Maybe. But that article also said the GOP members were talking about, for example, SS running out of funds. Again, funny how things like "crippling deficit" suddenly matters now...it didn't 2017, 2018 or 2019. (2020 is a special case)

Regardless of political affiliation, someone about to miss a rent payment won't be comforted by $30 every 2 weeks.

EDIT: Shit, forgot, unemployed people don't pay payroll taxes. The break will help them zero.

good i hope they do it.

Maybe it will finally get people to admit we need to increase payroll taxes like we did 35+ times before Reagan and Clinton put an end to any increases ever again.

its bad enough baby boomers did not fund SS enough to even cover their cost.


Hell they don't even cover half of the total Medicare cost.
How does it feel to know your income taxes pay for old people's socialized healthcare above and beyond what your employment taxes do??

[cubby]

Really what we need is a back-to-work "signing bonus", an extension of PPP loans, and extension of the enhanced unemployment benefits.

Student loan forgiveness would be nice to have, not need to have.

As somebody who lost their job from this, I am only whole because of the $600/week. Without that, I'd have blown through all my savings by June and I'd be missing a mortgage payment this month.

I agree about the unemployment extension - that has to be a given for any practical legislation.

Student loan forgiveness has always been interesting - I agree that overall we need to completely revamp how that's set up, but for right now, just putting temporary hold on all payments and interest accruing would be fine. I think I'm shocked by my own position on this, to be honest - as I am someone who still has student loans.

The one-time payments would be great too. Not sure how those are going to play out.

- - - Updated - - -

good i hope they do it.

Maybe it will finally get people to admit we need to increase payroll taxes like we did 35+ times before Reagan and Clinton put an end to any increases ever again.

its bad enough baby boomers did not fund SS enough to even cover their cost.


Hell they don't even cover half of the total Medicare cost.
How does it feel to know your income taxes pay for old people's socialized healthcare above and beyond what your employment taxes do??

Agreed - the Boomer generation might end up killing this country through their "not in my neighborhood" tendencies.

[NED funded]

So ignoring constitutional rights is ok? Sure that's a path you wanna take? Some day it might be you, while your fellow Americans apply the "lol who cares" attitude.

Has that been confirmed?? Last I checked the dude said no one read his rights and the police is saying another thing

Wait and see on that type of thing if you ask me

Anyway, burning buildings is bad and I'm glad the feds are there to stop it before it spreads

[cubby]

What the hell is happening in Portland? I live here and I am pissed off.

Some are saying it's a test run for what Trump is planning on a broader sense - graffiti to federal buildings are the 'official' charges. Others just saying a one-off that is out of control.

Not sure yet - it's still playing out and entirely maddening/frightening.

If this happens again in another city though...we're further down the road to perdition.

[Bodakane]

Agreed - the Boomer generation might end up killing this country through their "not in my neighborhood" tendencies.

I don’t think it’s surprise that the first generation to grow up in an America that was superpower and one that drove American exceptionalism into everyone’s heads are the generation to stick us with crippling debt and the biggest egotistical fuck stick on the planet as president....all because they firmly believe nothing is their problem unless it affects them directly.

[Edge-]

Anyway, burning buildings is bad and I'm glad the feds are there to stop it before it spreads

Are they? I haven't seen any reports of arson lately, just this - https://apnews.com/95ed013d58a00db0d85ddfd14ab51d2c

At least two protests occurred Thursday night, one near the federal courthouse and the other by a police station in another part of the city. Police told protesters to leave that site after announcing they heard some chanting about burning down the building. Protester Paul Frazier said Friday the chant was “much more rhetorical than an actual statement.”

And I'm not sure when chanting or singing about burning things down was the same as actually doing it. Because if so, someone really needs to alert Rock Master Scott ASAP -

[Elegiac]

Are they? I haven't seen any reports of arson lately, just this - https://apnews.com/95ed013d58a00db0d85ddfd14ab51d2c

And I'm not sure when chanting or singing about burning things down was the same as actually doing it. Because if so, someone really needs to alert Rock Master Scott ASAP -

I mean to be fair they probably were hoping mentioning arson would encourage it, just like when the idiots issued a warning not to mess with the fence around the federal courthouse in Portland it just encouraged people to mess with he fence to spite the feds. Lol.

[Antiganon]

I don't get this, to be honest. The jobs flat-out don't exist. PPP and other business help was there to keep people from being fired in the first place. If all that wasn't enough to keep the company in business, their employees are just out there with nowhere to go.

And I'm sorry to hear about your circumstances. It's an increasingly common story, and I wish it wasn't.

I work in IT, there are some jobs out there, but nothing that will match what I was making before, or what I'm getting right now with the $600/wk. The bigger problem is what I'm going to do in a week and a half, when there are still no jobs to match what I need to be making, and my income is halved.

I also have two kids, both of whom are in paid childcare, provided by my mother in law, who is dependent on our tuition payment in order to pay her bills.

So it's just a wonderful situation all around.

[Breccia]

They haven’t been able to organize their convention.

I mean...they have a convention. It's in North Carolina. Trump's ego trip is another matter.

[Themius]

I'm positing a scenario in which no officials are elected in 2020, due to a number of possible scenarios, what happens next.

No members of Congress would be seated on 1/3, because no election was held/certified/whatever. So there is no House. The 35 Senate seats up this year would be vacant, as nobody has been elected to fill them. The Presidency and Vice Presidency would be vacant as of 1/20, when Trump and Pence's terms end by Constitutional mandate.

At that point, the remaining 65 members of the Senate would constitute the entire Federally elected government. Of those 65 people, Patrick Leahy is the longest serving member of the majority party, and thus next in the line of succession.

This explains it.

[Poopymonster]

5th Amendment.

All Americans have a right to due process. Which means that we need to know why we're being arrested and who's arresting us, otherwise the 5th is pointless. If these goons are unidentifiable, then it may as well be a kidnapping rather than an arrest.

It doesn't matter what these "protesters" (rioters) pull, they are Americans, they deserve rights as laid out by the Bill of Rights.

Also, I don't want to live in a country with a fucking gestapo.

They were all "suspected terrorists lol". 9/11 is still fucking us.

[Omega10]

Some encouraging news.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-ign...115548697.html

Title: As Trump Ignores Virus Crisis, Republicans Start to Contradict Him

Behind the scenes, republicans are a lot more worried and exasperated than they let on.

Excerpts:

President Donald Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis, with some concluding they must work around Trump and ignore or even contradict his pronouncements.

The governors that deal with the Trump administration more and more do not deal with Trump himself at all.

Once-reticent Republican governors are now issuing orders on mask-wearing and business restrictions that run counter to Trump’s demands. Some of those governors have been holding late-night phone calls among themselves to trade ideas and grievances; they have sought out partners in the administration other than the president, including Vice President Mike Pence, who, despite echoing Trump in public, is seen by governors as far more attentive to the continuing disaster.

“The president got bored with it,” David Carney, an adviser to the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, a Republican, said of the pandemic. He noted that Abbott directs his requests to Pence, with whom he speaks two to three times a week.

Even McConnell has contradicted the President.

McConnell stressed the importance of mask-wearing, expressed “total” confidence in Fauci and urged Americans to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Trump has ignored or dismissed.

More and more references are being made about Trump disrupting attempts to combat the virus and Trump making the virus worse.

Amid mounting alarm in a huge portion of the country, Trump has at times appeared to inhabit a different universe, incorrectly predicting the outbreak would quickly dissipate and falsely claiming the spread of the virus was simply a function of increased testing. With his impatient demands and decrees, Trump has disrupted efforts to mitigate the crisis while effectively sidelining himself from participating in those efforts.

Republicans talk more about Pence's role in the virus as a way to avoid discussing Trump's role.

A few Republicans have grown more open with their misgivings about Trump’s approach, including Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who said this month that he would require people to wear masks at any Trump rallies in his state. After issuing a broad mask mandate last week, Hutchinson said on the ABC program “This Week” on Sunday that an “example needs to be set by our national leadership” on mask-wearing.

Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, in an interview on “Meet the Press” on NBC, did not answer directly when asked if he had confidence in Trump’s leadership in the crisis. DeWine said he had confidence “in this administration” and praised Pence for “doing an absolutely phenomenal job.”

And they are telling Trump to just plain shut up.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., was more succinct: “The more they turn the briefings over to the professionals, the better.”

It's a start. It's way past about time.

[Kaleredar]

Some encouraging news.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-ign...115548697.html

Title: As Trump Ignores Virus Crisis, Republicans Start to Contradict Him

Behind the scenes, republicans are a lot more worried and exasperated than they let on.

Excerpts:



The governors that deal with the Trump administration more and more do not deal with Trump himself at all.



Even McConnell has contradicted the President.



More and more references are being made about Trump disrupting attempts to combat the virus and Trump making the virus worse.



Republicans talk more about Pence's role in the virus as a way to avoid discussing Trump's role.



And they are telling Trump to just plain shut up.



It's a start. It's way past about time.

As I’ve said before, if trump loses in November I suspect you’ll find it hard to find someone who “ever really supported trump” amongst congress.

To give them their... “credit,” I suppose... Most of the republican congressmen don’t actually believe or care about what trump is raving about. I don’t really believe they ever did. They considered him a useful idiot. But this idiot has clearly outlived his usefulness and has lapsed into “liability” and then on to “dangerous idiot.”

Of course anyone paying attention from the start could have told them that. And frankly they should all suffer politically for it. Make a deal with the devil, expect to get burned. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to suffer for their complacency in the meantime.

[Kokolums]

I'm positing a scenario in which no officials are elected in 2020, due to a number of possible scenarios, what happens next.

No members of Congress would be seated on 1/3, because no election was held/certified/whatever. So there is no House. The 35 Senate seats up this year would be vacant, as nobody has been elected to fill them. The Presidency and Vice Presidency would be vacant as of 1/20, when Trump and Pence's terms end by Constitutional mandate.

At that point, the remaining 65 members of the Senate would constitute the entire Federally elected government. Of those 65 people, Patrick Leahy is the longest serving member of the majority party, and thus next in the line of succession.

This is incorrect.

The line of succession provided in the Constitution is:

Vice-President
Speaker of the House
President Pro Tempore of the Senate

In your scenario, there would be no veep and no speaker. The Constitution requires that the Senate select a President Pro Tempore. However, it does NOT say it has to be the longest serving member of the majority party. It can be ANY senator. So they could revote and pick any GOP senator among the 65 remaining to be president. They might pick Romney since he won a GOP nomination. Or maybe Thune.

The other issue is that state governors can appoint House members to fill a vacancy. So with the entire House vacant, many of them would get filled. Then they could select a new Speaker. The question would be if the new Speaker would then become president, or would the President Pro Tempore remain president?

[Benggaul]

Trump is working hard to win the Veteran vote...

Portland Protests: A Navy Veteran Had a Question for the Feds. They Beat Him in Response.

Mr. David, a Navy veteran, said that federal agents’ use of violent tactics against protesters, without the support of the mayor, the governor or local law enforcement, was a violation of the oaths that agents take to support, uphold and defend the Constitution.

And so, on Saturday, he took a bus downtown to ask the officers how they squared their actions with that oath.

Instead of getting an answer, Mr. David was beaten with a baton by one federal officer as another doused him with pepper spray, according to video footage of the encounter. After he walked away from the confrontation, Mr. David was taken to a nearby hospital, where a specialist said his right hand was broken and would require surgery to install pins, screws and plates. He declined pain medication.

[Elegiac]

Trump is working hard to win the Veteran vote...

Portland Protests: A Navy Veteran Had a Question for the Feds. They Beat Him in Response.

"He declined pain medication."

Jesus christ did they find this man wandering out in Durotar or something, lol?

[Themius]

Trump is working hard to win the Veteran vote...

Portland Protests: A Navy Veteran Had a Question for the Feds. They Beat Him in Response.

Look at him! He's menacing, doing all that.. standing and asking questions.

[Kaleredar]

Trump is working hard to win the Veteran vote...

Portland Protests: A Navy Veteran Had a Question for the Feds. They Beat Him in Response.

While the mayor of Portland and governor of Oregon have decried trump’s actions, I very much want them to actually take some action against booting these federal agent thugs out of their city and state.

[Edge-]

While the mayor of Portland and governor of Oregon have decried trump’s actions, I very much want them to actually take some action against booting these federal agent thugs out of their city and state.

It'd be nice but...do you expect local law enforcement to actually do anything? They're all cut from the same cloth here, and the local law enforcement would likely be just as eager to disappear and assault protesters.

Forty-eight hours later, the only mark of the “riot” at the Portland Police union headquarters is a small hole in one of the gold-tinted windows, plugged with putty.

[Elegiac]

It'd be nice but...do you expect local law enforcement to actually do anything? They're all cut from the same cloth here, and the local law enforcement would likely be just as eager to disappear and assault protesters.

Forty-eight hours later, the only mark of the “riot” at the Portland Police union headquarters is a small hole in one of the gold-tinted windows, plugged with putty.

The protester responsible was probably charged with incitement of wasting putty.