politics Post Election Thread: Democracy Dies In Darkness And You Can Help

[Donward]

 

Trump issues executive orders to reduce restrictions on firing federal workers

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/389450-trump-administration-will-reduce-restrictions-on-firing-federal

 

The orders call for federal workers to devote at least 75 percent of their on-the-clock time to work-related purposes, direct agencies to reward "performance over seniority" and push agencies to renegotiate contracts with unions, among other provisions.

 

TYRANNY!!!

 

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union which represents 700,000 government workers, issued a statement calling the move an "assault on public servants."

"Our government is built on a system of checks and balances to prevent any one person from having too much influence," the union's president David Cox said, according to BuzzFeed. "President Trump’s executive orders will undo all of that. This administration seems hellbent on replacing a civil service that works for all taxpayers with a political service that serves at its whim.”

 

Of COURSE the Union is upset that the gravy train is coming to an end.

 

White House officials announced the impending orders on a call with reporters. The officials said the changes are aimed at saving taxpayers $100 million per year.

 

I'm still not tired of #WINNING yet

[Walter_Sobchak]

2 hours ago, Ramlaen said:

 

 

 

Trump won the popular vote in more places than Hillary, that’s why he won the election. Or was this a complaint about California not being able to decide national elections on its own?

 

 

 

 

I said it was an extremely close election.  How is this not true?  Look at the razor thin margins that Trump won those key swing states.  I'm not talking about California.  I was making a statement of fact.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

Being able to see the good things that have come out of this political cycle obviously means you're a die-hard trump supporter red-state goon. 

 

Also, fuck yes. Unions can go die in a fire. Especially those upper-class welfare institutions in Washington and the East Coast in general. 

[Walter_Sobchak]

1 hour ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

 

 

 

Walt, If there is one thing this post shows, is you have no objectivity on the subject of Trump.  

 

 

 

Having a strong opinion on something does not mean someone is not objective.  If that were true, then your opinion on the Sherman tank is not objective.

[Sturgeon]

1 minute ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

 

Having a strong opinion on something does not mean someone is not objective.  If that were true, then your opinion on the Sherman tank is not objective.

 

I don't think Jeeps was saying "you've got a strong opinion, ergo you're not objective".

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

9 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

 

Having a strong opinion on something does not mean someone is not objective.  If that were true, then your opinion on the Sherman tank is not objective.

 

 

I know Walt, it's the use of the term never, that word is more religious than objective and does not go along with objectivity.  It's ok, you're not alone, the Media and just about the entire Democrat party are right there with ya. 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

13 minutes ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

Being able to see the good things that have come out of this political cycle obviously means you're a die-hard trump supporter red-state goon. 

 

Also, fuck yes. Unions can go die in a fire. Especially those upper-class welfare institutions in Washington and the East Coast in general. 

 

 

 

Private Unions suck, but whatever.

 

Public employee unions are utter fucking crap and a scam against the taxpayers! The government guarantees, through a ton of laws they passed,  that you don't need a union in this country, but the fucking government workers, got one anyway, to rob the American people and have jobs they can suck at and not be fired for it.   And the idea that public employees need to be paid really well and have cush vacation packages and shit, or all the good people will leave is bullshit, smart people don't want to work for the government, their gold plated retirement packages are going to bankrupt a bunch of states including California.  Not to mention the lazy bullshit you get with union workers. 

[Toxn]

8 hours ago, Ramlaen said:

Is it possible to convince Trump’s critics that he knows what he is doing if becoming the president of the United States despite the election being handed to his opponent on a silver platter isn’t good enough, let alone what we have learned since?

As an outsider, I was pretty convinced that the establishment pols in that election were all incompetent.

 

I don't know how shallow your pool of talent must be to run another Bush and Clinton during that moment in time, but I can't imagine any two people less qualified to get the vote of a population that seemed genuinely disgusted with how their society's ruling classes had treated them.

[Toxn]

11 hours ago, Donward said:

 

I'll let Colli Trump'splain in his own way. But sure. There are blunders that Trump has committed and small set-backs. I think his biggest mistake is assuming that by winning the Presidency that the power structure in DC and the media would - you know - treat him like the President. 

 

As for the subject of North Korea, I know that this is a net win so far for Trump by one simple test.

 

Look at the front page of any news organization this morning/afternoon. Here is CNN.

 

 

One day after this supposed terrible diplomatic reverse, not 24 hours in fact, this is the front page of CNN's website.

 

HARVEY WEINSTEIN GOT ARRESTED AND IS LED AWAY IN CUFFS!!!

 

RUSSIA COLLUSION!!!

 

Subtropical Storm Alberto!

 

News Alert: Police in Portland, Oregon talk about car crash

 

SALE AT PENNY'S!!!

 

The front pages of the New York Times, HuffingtonPost, and plenty of other news organizations are the same. (To be fair, Washington Post is still leading with the Norks rebuff).

 

If this latest bit of brinksmanship (you know you're an expert on foreign affairs when you can use the word "brinksmanship" in a sentence) was such a disaster for the Trump Administration, if he got played so badly, then this would be the top story for days. And since the headline at the moment is the North Koreans are talking again, the story gets buried like a dead cat. 

Colli did indeed do his thing

 

Again, I'm not convinced that simply getting your way is a sign that you know what you're doing where US foreign policy is concerned. And your local politics are pretty opaque to me (which should make sense if you think about that local political stuff I've posted about).

 

But I'm interested to see why people think what they do.

 

Edit: for reference, test for incompetence in the US foreign policy sphere is getting what you want in the short term while harming yourself in the medium-long term. Iraq war II being a prime example.

[Xlucine]

8 hours ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

 

Private Unions suck, but whatever.

 

Public employee unions are utter fucking crap and a scam against the taxpayers! The government guarantees, through a ton of laws they passed,  that you don't need a union in this country, but the fucking government workers, got one anyway, to rob the American people and have jobs they can suck at and not be fired for it.   And the idea that public employees need to be paid really well and have cush vacation packages and shit, or all the good people will leave is bullshit, smart people don't want to work for the government, their gold plated retirement packages are going to bankrupt a bunch of states including California.  Not to mention the lazy bullshit you get with union workers.  

 

1) How did you get the laws in the first place?

2) How is this different to people claiming you don't need the second amendment, as the government will never need overthrowing?

[T___A]

Anti-Trump or Pro-Trump? You decide!

 

 

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

3 hours ago, Xlucine said:

 

1) How did you get the laws in the first place?

2) How is this different to people claiming you don't need the second amendment, as the government will never need overthrowing?

 

There is no specific right to be able to form a union to exploit the taxpayer.

 

The Second Amendment gives me the right to arms, to overthrow the government when it exploits the people too much. 

[Walter_Sobchak]

36 minutes ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

There is no specific right to be able to form a union to exploit the taxpayer.

 

The Second Amendment gives me the right to arms, to overthrow the government when it exploits the people too much. 

 

You have no right to overthrow the government.  That's called treason.

[Sturgeon]

Read what he wrote, Walt. C'mon. Good faith discussions, people.

[Walter_Sobchak]

1 minute ago, Sturgeon said:

Read what he wrote, Walt. C'mon. Good faith discussions, people.

How else am I supposed to interpret it?  He wrote that the Second Amendment gives him the right to overthrow the government.  It clearly does not.  This issue was settled pretty conclusively in 1865.

[Bronezhilet]

Last time I checked a comma in the English language is used to connect two separate sentences. But then again I am Dutch and know nothing.

 

 

Other than that English is trash and should be overthrown.

 

[Sturgeon]

14 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

How else am I supposed to interpret it?  He wrote that the Second Amendment gives him the right to overthrow the government.  It clearly does not.  This issue was settled pretty conclusively in 1865.

 

The Second Amendment is short. Jeeps is quite literate, and interested in that subject. You can safely assume that he knows the 2A does not explicitly guarantee a right to overthrow the government (whether such a right exists in US Constitutional law either explicitly or implicitly requires a fairly detailed discussion, but that's a bit off-topic).

 

So a good faith reading of what Jeeps wrote would account for those assumptions and you might say to yourself: "Ah, Jeeps is not saying something obviously counterfactual, the 'to' in his sentence is a colloquial contracted clause such as 'with the purpose to' or 'in order to enable me to'. Maybe this isn't what Jeeps was saying - maybe he was saying something stupid, I dunno. But that's what a good faith reading looks like.

[Sturgeon]

And pardon me being a stickler for that, but it's important to me right now.

[Walter_Sobchak]

Well, I for one don't want to wade into a Second Amendment discussion here.  I think there is already a separate thread for that which I wisely avoid.

[Walter_Sobchak]

33 minutes ago, Bronezhilet said:

Last time I checked a comma in the English language is used to connect two separate sentences. But then again I am Dutch and know nothing.

 

 

Other than that English is trash and should be overthrown.

 

 

Yeah, pretty much.  Comma's can cause a lot of confusion.  The writers of the Bill of Rights went overboard with them, causing much confusion down the road.  

 

Amendment #5 has five commas and three semicolons.

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

58 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

Well, I for one don't want to wade into a Second Amendment discussion here.  I think there is already a separate thread for that which I wisely avoid.

 

 

The basis of the second is an Armed People can keep the Government from taking their rights away. The Government by trying to take their rights away, would no longer be representing the people in good faith, and the American public would have a moral duty to take the government down. 

 

We do not have the right, right now, but if Trump were to do the things you seem to think he will, we might.  

 

I think maybe my objectivity comment has Walt a little riled, I think on that subject its true, I don't think anyone can be objective on everything, I can't be objective on Dick Chenney and the F-14. 

[Walter_Sobchak]

1 minute ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said:

 

 

 

The basis of the second is an Armed People can keep the Government from taking their rights away. The Government by trying to take their rights away, would no longer be representing the people in good faith, and the American public would have a moral duty to take the government down. 

 

We do not have the right, right now, but if Trump were to do the things you seem to think he will, we might. 

 

One would hope that our democratic structures are robust enough that the situation could be remedied before armed insurrection becomes necessary.  I for one would regard violence as a very last resort.  

 

The USA has mythologized the American Revolution to the point that we forgot how nasty and terrible rebellions and civil wars can be.  One need only look south of our own border to the Dirty Wars in Latin America to see the long term effects such conflicts can have on a society.  

[Jeeps_Guns_Tanks]

31 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

 

One would hope that our democratic structures are robust enough that the situation could be remedied before armed insurrection becomes necessary.  I for one would regard violence as a very last resort.  

 

The USA has mythologized the American Revolution to the point that we forgot how nasty and terrible rebellions and civil wars can be.  One need only look south of our own border to the Dirty Wars in Latin America to see the long term effects such conflicts can have on a society.  

 

Oh I agree 100% on this, and I honestly don't know if the American people have it in them if things get bad enough. 

 

I do know a lot of gun owners who would view the Government coming to take their guns as a sign of things going too far though. 

 

As far as I can tell, Trump has taken not even a single step in the direction of removing any of my rights, I can't say that about the Democrats. 

[Walter_Sobchak]

15 hours ago, Donward said:

 

Trump issues executive orders to reduce restrictions on firing federal workers

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/389450-trump-administration-will-reduce-restrictions-on-firing-federal

 

The orders call for federal workers to devote at least 75 percent of their on-the-clock time to work-related purposes, direct agencies to reward "performance over seniority" and push agencies to renegotiate contracts with unions, among other provisions.

 

TYRANNY!!!

 

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union which represents 700,000 government workers, issued a statement calling the move an "assault on public servants."

"Our government is built on a system of checks and balances to prevent any one person from having too much influence," the union's president David Cox said, according to BuzzFeed. "President Trump’s executive orders will undo all of that. This administration seems hellbent on replacing a civil service that works for all taxpayers with a political service that serves at its whim.”

 

Of COURSE the Union is upset that the gravy train is coming to an end.

 

White House officials announced the impending orders on a call with reporters. The officials said the changes are aimed at saving taxpayers $100 million per year.

 

I'm still not tired of #WINNING yet

 

Just to clarify, that 75% rule only applies to those employees who are designated to spend time on union activities.  So union stewards, etc.  The average employee can't just go spend a few hours on union business without being a union officer.  

[Donward]

2 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

 

Yeah, pretty much.  Comma's can cause a lot of confusion.  The writers of the Bill of Rights went overboard with them, causing much confusion down the road.  

 

Amendment #5 has five commas and three semicolons.

 

That's why we have the Federalist Papers.